Price range: £7.99 through £10.99
The definitive history of how a city danced its pain away.
Drawing on interviews with dozens of DJs, producers, vocalists, club owners, and record store-owners who shaped the Baltimore club genre, Tough Breaks is an in-depth exploration of one of the US’s most infamous and understood cities by way of its thriving music scene.
Revealing the untold stories behind Baltimore club, Al Shipley reveals story of how Black and White and gay and straight Baltimoreans found a common musical language on the dancefloor, how a tightly knit community of self-taught, working-class musicians created a sound that changed American pop culture.
Al Shipley has covered the Baltimore music scene for over twenty years for publications including Baltimore City Paper, the Baltimore Banner, Baltimore Fishbowl and Urbanite, and the acclaimed MP3 blog Government Names, winning awards from the Baltimore Crown Awards and the Baltimore Sun.
Tough Breaks finally gives the Baltimore club scene the kind of deep-dive chronicle that’s been long overdue. Drawing from his years of interviews with key DJs, promoters, and venue owners, Shipley traces the long arc of B’more’s club music from its early days in North Central nightclubs up through its distinctive — but underacknoweldged — influence on some of today’s biggest pop acts. It’s the kind of cultural history that appeals to both club veterans who came of age in this scene as well as newcomers lured by the beats and breaks that have propelled the city’s still vibrant musical underground
Al Shipley’s Tough Breaks is a much-overdue account of one of dance music’s most underappreciated and dynamic scenes. With forensic attention, Tough Breaks takes you onto the dancefloors where Baltimore Club music exploded & later spread across the world. It’s history with a deliriously bangin’ beat.
