Description:
The history of Memphis music and its influence, but everyone NOT named Elvis, Jerry Lee, or Aretha.
Brief description: Peter Guralnick has been called "a national resource" by critic Nat Hentoff for work that has argued passionately and persuasively for the vitality of this country's intertwined black and white musical traditions. His books include the prize-winning two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love. Of the first Bob Dylan wrote, "Elvis steps from the pages. You can feel him breathe. This book cancels out all others." He won a Grammy for his liner notes for Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club and wrote and coproduced the documentary Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll as well as writing the scripts for the Grammy-winning documentary Sam Cooke/Legend and Martin Scorsese's blues documentary Feel Like Going Home. He is a recent inductee in the Blues Hall of Fame. Other books include an acclaimed trilogy on American roots music, Sweet Soul Music, Lost Highway, and Feel Like Going Home; the biographical inquiry Searching for Robert Johnson; and the novel, Nighthawk Blues. His latest book, Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, has been hailed as "monumental, panoramic, an epic tale told against a backdrop of brilliant, shimmering music, intense personal melodrama, and vast social changes." He is currently working on a biography of Sam Phillips
Review Quotes: Superb -The New York Times An affectionate rumination -The New Yorker If you haven't read this book, do it now. - Rolling Stone "This collection is a distinctly American story with social and cultural ramifications we can only begin to calibrate, so deeply ingrained as they are in the national character." -The Washington Post Book World "A remarkable literary feat." -Los Angeles Reader " Gordon creates a vivid portrait of the place and the music-what he calls its simplicity, its eccentricity, its soul-through a freewheeling, anecdotal narrative that mixes the fervor of a fan, the flair of a storyteller and the clear-eyed perspective of a critic." -The Philadelphia Inquirer "A collection of colorful stories about a number of artists and local crazies." -Billboard "A sterling job. . . . A worthwhile document." -The Irish Times