The last edition of The Reading Room included a list of forty music books of 2015 worthy of attention. Although I didn’t think of the list as a “best-of” list, the first ten titles do represent my personal Top 10:
1. Peter Guralnick, Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll (Little, Brown)
2. Elijah Wald, Dylan Goes Electric: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties (Dey St.)
3. Patti Smith, M Train (Knopf)
4. Carrie Brownstein, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl (Riverhead)
5. Jessica Hopper, The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic (Featherproof Books)
6. Kristin Hersh, Don’t Suck, Don’t Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt. Kristin Hersh, Foreword by Amanda Petrusich (University of Texas Press)
7. Warren Zanes, Petty: The Biography (Holt)
8. Charles L. Hughes, Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South (UNC)
9. Kim Gordon, Girl in a Band: A Memoir (Dey St.)
10. Elvis Costello, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink (Blue Rider/Penguin)
Of course, as soon as I completed the “top 40,” I realized that I had left out some very important books, so I’m devoting my last column of 2015 to a list of 25 more titles worthy of consideration.
I hope you’ll find a book or two on this list to give to friends and spread the joy of good reading, or to get you through a cold winter’s night or to discover some new insights about music or to listen anew, or for the first time, songs and albums taken up by some of these books.
41. Doug Bradley and Craig Werner, We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War (University of Massachusetts)
42. Freda Love Smith, Red Velvet Underground: A Rock Memoir, with Recipes (Agate)
43. Ray Wylie Hubbard, with Thom Jurek, A Life…Well, Lived (Bordello Records)
44. Anna McGarrigle and Jane McGarrigle, Mountain City Girls: The McGarrigle Family Album (Random House Canada) — This title is so far available only in Canada.
45. Alanis Morissette, Perpetual Becoming (HarperOne)
46. Jewel, Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story (Blue Rider)
47. Trent Tolliver, You Don’t Own Me: The Life and Times of Lesley Gore (Backbeat)
48. Danyel Smith, She’s Every Woman: The Power of Black Women in Pop Music (Morrow/Dey Street)
49. Mick Wall, Love Becomes a Funeral Pyre: A Biography of the Doors (Chicago Review Press)
50. Kent Crowley, Long Promised Road: Carl Wilson, Soul of the Beach Boys (Quarto)
51. Aidan Levy, Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed (Chicago Review Press)
52. Don Randi, You’ve Heard These Hands: From the Wall of Sound to the Wrecking Crew and Other Incredible Stories (Hal Leonard)
53. Lloyd Price, sumdumhonky (Cool Titles)
54. Grace Jones, I’ll Never Write My Memoirs (Gallery Books)
55. Willie Perkins and Jack Weston, The Allman Brothers Band Classic Memorabilia, 1969-76
56. Tom Jones, Over the Top and Back (Blue Rider)
57. Jean Ritchie and Susan Brumfield, Jean Ritchie’s Kentucky Mother Goose: Songs and Stories from My Childhood (Hal Leonard)
58. Brett Milano, Don’t All Thank Me At Once: The Lost Pop Genius of Scott Miller (125 Records)
59. Henry Glassie and Clifford Murphy, Ola Belle Reed and Southern Mountain Music on the Mason-Dixon Line (Dust-to-Digital)
60. The Birth of Rock and Roll: Photographs from the Collection of Jim Linderman (Dust-to-Digital)
61. Even Stevens, Someday I’m Gonna Rent This Town (Heritage Builders)
62. Bobby Hart, Psychedelic Bubble Gum: Boyce & Hart, The Monkees, and Turning Mayhem into Miracles (Select Books)
63. Blake Ells, The Muscle Shoals Legacy of FAME (Arcadia Publishing)
64. Paul-Emile Comeau, Acadian Driftwood: The Roots of Acadian and Cajun Music (Quarry Press)
65. Todd Mouton, Way Down in Louisiana: Clifton Chenier, Cajun, Zydeco, and Swamp Pop Music (University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press)
