The attic of 20th-century pop music is packed to the rafters with exotic ephemera — a one-hit wonder that launched a nationwide dance craze here, a chart-topping classic from an otherwise forgotten movie there. Digging deep into the minutiae of those halcyon days is the fun of Moments in Time 2.0, a collection of anecdotes and factoids that’s more engrossing than 1,000 long-distance dedications.
Just like its subject matter, the book was built with instant gratification in mind. Music historian Tom Locke has parceled out nuggets of pop trivia from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, in bite-size morsels that you can sample a few at a time or all at once. Think of it like a great oldies channel but in print, with a playlist that covers one of the richest eras in our pop-cultural past — beginning at a point when Elvis Presley’s stint in the U.S. Army had ceded the charts to a cadre of squeaky-clean crooners, and running all the way up to the revolution that was the New Wave, in which a catchy synthesizer riff and a handclap machine were all it took to get a nation up and dancing.
But even if you think you know those three decades like the back of your hand, Moments In Time 2.0 will put your expertise to the test. Which TV show had a theme song by Philadelphia soul kingpins Kenny Gamble and Leon A. Huff? What group named after a Canadian city hit the Billboard Hot 100 seven times between 1972 and 1982? Those are just two of the burning questions answered in the book, which is cleverly structured as a series of two-page mysteries: Each entry spins a fascinating story beginning on Page 1 but doesn’t reveal the song or artist in question until Page 2. And since music is meant to be heard, not just read about, each passage ends with a QR code that takes you to an audio file of the song itself.
The novel format of the book comes from Locke’s online segment of the same name, which began airing Sunday nights on Treasure Island Oldies in August 2000. He first brought its focus and approach to the page in 2021’s Moments In Time, which covered a time span from the hot-rodding ’50s to the discofied ’70s. The book won five awards and continues to receive five-star reviews.
“In Moments in Time 2.0, I’ve adopted the suggestions made by my supporters and by music professionals — like interviewers, podcasters and deejays — to include some memorable stories about artists and songs from the ’80s, since that decade has entered the ‘oldies’ domain,” Locke explains. The results have clearly won the approval of the public and the industry alike: Both volumes are included in the library and archives at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
Like many of us, Locke is more of an armchair musicologist than a full-timer; he just happens to know far more about the subject than most of his readers and listeners. Born in Toronto and a resident of Vancouver since the ’80s, he has a diverse professional background that includes advising companies on digital technology and overseeing post-production on films and TV shows.
Order Moments in Time 2.0 on Tom Locke’s website, Amazon U.S. and Amazon Canada.
