The Sound Of The City: The Rise Of Rock And Roll (by Charlie Gillett. Outerbridge and Dienstfrey, 375 pp., $2.95)

CHARLIE GILLETT is a very likeable Englishman who recently released the most exhaustive study yet of rock and roll and the music industry. He's 28, and the book grew out of a masters thesis in sociology that he wrote in 1966, when he was a student in America. At that time, few people were writing seriously about rock and roll. In 1968, he decided to start expanding his thesis into a book, and while there have been many written about rock since he got the idea, few can stand up to his.