In 1961, a young intellectual from Boston, Marty Tanner, is having a blast playing rock and roll music for the summer in New York City, but by Labor Day he must make a soul-wrenching decision -either stay with the band in New York or return to Boston and attend MIT in the fall. The choices are mutually exclusive - his heart or his head. His torment over which future to choose reflects a battle between two very different but equally legitimate parts of his own identity. His choice is further complicated by family members with competing interests in his decision, the schemes of rival record industry executives, an era of expanding civil rights, and portents of the Vietnam War. At seventeen, Marty Tanner who plays bass guitar, is the youngest member of a four piece mixed-race band called the Delphis that just released a hit record. The lead guitarist, his cousin Chris, heads the band and shares lead vocals with Sonny, who plays tenor saxophone. Sonny is a poor but multi-talented kid from Harlem. Joe, the prideful but mercurial drummer from Brooklyn completes the group. While Marty has the choice of attending MIT in the fall on a full scholarship, no one else in the group is educated beyond high school. For them, the band is their ticket up and out. Marty's parents saw his summer of rock and roll as just a fun interlude between high school and MIT. The band's release of a hit record complicates and may overthrow the plans they had for their son's future as a civil engineer. Chris's mother, who left Boston for New York years ago and never looked back, has entwined herself in her son's career to the point that she also sees it as her ticket up and out. Other major characters trying to manipulate and control the Delphis are Frankie Navarro, who wheedled his way into becoming the band's manager; Boris Ulong, an executive at a large record label who plots against Frankie Navarro to wrest the band for himself; Carl Bieber, the head of a struggling small recording studio who wants the Delphis to record on his label; and Little Billy D'Vil, an unctuous and totally loathsome disc jockey who is beloved by advertisers because he sells a lot of beauty aid products at highly inflated prices to susceptible teenage girls. Vying for Marty's affections are his prim and proper prom date Cynthia, and the Pincus girls, who take malevolent pleasure in enticing unsuspecting and uninitiated rock musicians into embarrassing sexual situations. Trying to sort out the dilemma about his future, Marty consults with three trusted advisors: Leo Russo, who is an accomplished but small-time musician who owns a music store in Boston; Susan Lowe, an attorney who decided to give up a career as a concert pianist because success in the music business was too capricious, and; Uncle Simon, a world-renowned chemist, and uncle to both Marty and Chris.