Always Magic in the Air : The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, after the shock of Elvis Presley and before the Beatles spearheaded the British Invasion, fourteen gifted young songwriters huddled in midtown Manhattan's legendary Brill Building and a warren of offices a bit farther uptown and composed some of the most beguiling and enduring entries in the Great American Songbook. __Always Magic in the Air__ is the first thorough history of these renowned songwriters—tunesmiths who melded black, white, and Latino sounds, integrated audiences before America desegregated its schools, and brought a new social consciousness to pop music. In October 1957, New York traded the Brooklyn Dodgers for the Los Angeles-based songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.