In times of darkness and despair, books offer hope and glimpses into world far away from our own. The best books entertain us, inform us, shape us, and transform us. Music books often carry us back to times in our lives when the world looked different and when the future opened with promise, allowing us to relive those days. As in other years, shelves groan with mediocre music books—and this year is no different. Yet, several books shine brightly this year because of their passion for their subject, their author’s captivating ways with words and telling stories, or their ability to reveal new ways of seeing old subjects.
Here are this year’s most memorable music books, in no particular order:
Ann Powers, Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell (Dey St.)—Not a standard account of Mitchell’s life and work, NPR music critic Powers’ vibrant book combines her deep passion for Mitchell and her music—a fan’s love—with her rich critical acumen and desire to honor Mitchell’s own journey to becoming the discerning and popular artist into which she grew. With the dazzling lyrical energy of a Joni Mitchell song, Powers paints a colorful portrait of the iconic musician whose restless creativity animates her musical journey across the terrains of folk, jazz, rock, and soul.
David Browne, Talkin’ Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America’s Bohemian Music Capital (Hachette)—Talkin’ Greenwich Village brings to vivid life the history of the Village in its many phases. Reading Browne’s book is like walking through the streets of a familiar place, discovering newness around every corner.
Alice Randall, My Black Country: A Journey through Country Music’s Black Past, Present, and Future (Atria/Black Privilege Publishing)—In her stunning book, Nashville songwriter, producer and novelist Randall uncovers the roots of Black Country and reveals its future in the work of contemporary country artists such as Miko Marks, Rissi Palmer, Rhiannon Giddens, Mickey Guyton, and Allison Russell, among others.
Alison Fensterstock, ed How Women Made Music: A Revolutionary History from NPR Music (HarperOne)—Opening the pages of this book is like walking into a room full of female artists buzzing in lively conversation about their lives in music. They talk about the influence of earlier artists on their lives; they share pain, and they share triumph. They share those moments that music helped define their identity, and they claim their power. Entering this room is exhilarating. How Women Made Music teems with life, and the conversations among these women range far and wide in time and place. How Women Made Music serves as a fitting introduction as well as a bracing manifesto.
Peter Ames Carlin, The Name of This Band is R.E.M. (Doubleday)—In this vivid and fast-paced story of one of rock’s most important bands, Carlin (Sonic Boom) captures the energetic scene around Athens, Georgia, that produced R.E.M. and the ways that the band helped shape music history. Drawing deeply on archives and interviews, Carlin traces the rapid ascent and slow descent of the band on their over thirty-year run, from their debut at a friend’s birthday party in winter 1980 to their final album in March 2011. Carlin’s vibrant prose paints an intimate portrait of a band of friends whose music shaped a generation.
Elijah Wald, Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs and Hidden Histories (Hachette)—In this mesmerizing book, music historian Wald looks deep into the nature of the ways we preserve music and performs close readings of the cache of “hidden and censored songs”—shelved in 1938 at the Library of Congress because of their content and “coarse language”—of Morton’s. In rich detail, Wald recovers these songs and re-creates the vibrant, and sometimes dark, world out of which early jazz and blues emerged.
Daniel Levitin, I Heard There was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine (Norton)—Levitin follows up to his innovative This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession with this book that expands our understanding of the power of music and its capacities to heal us emotionally and physically. Levitin’s melodious writing captures the imagination, encouraging readers to look more deeply into the relationship between the human brain and music. His book might even encourage patients or their caregivers to ask about incorporating music therapy into their program for healing.
Renée Fleming, ed. Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness (Penguin)—Opera star Fleming gathers an enriching collection of essays by artists, musicians, scientists, and healthcare providers—including Rosanne Cash, Rhiannon Giddens, Yo-Yo Ma—that provide personal and scientific insights into the therapeutic impact of music and the growing benefits of music therapy.
Judith Tick, Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song (Norton)—Drawing deeply on archival research and on interviews with relatives, friends, and close associates, music historian Tick provides a multi-layered biography of Fitzgerald as well as a richly textured history of the evolution of jazz in the mid- to late twentieth century. Tick’s passion for her subject and her verdant prose reveal a singer for whom music was transformative and whose musical diversity was at the center of the singer’s evolution.
James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool (Penguin)—In 1959, Davis, Coltrane, and Evans created the now-iconic Kind of Blue, an album that changed the nature of jazz, influencing generations of musicians. With painstaking detail, Kaplan traces the evolution of each musician’s career and provides a close look at the making of Kind of Blue. 3 Shades of Blue may be this year’s best book on jazz, for it examines the evolution of a musical form and its influence on other genres.
Robert Hilburn, A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy Newman (Hachette)—Rolling Stone once wrote that Randy Newman’s song “Sail Away” revealed more about America than “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Drawing on interviews with Newman and several of Newman’s friends and fellow musicians—Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, and James Taylor, among others—biographer Hilburn (Paul Simon) traces Newman’s life and work from his childhood of playing classical piano to his transition to playing pop music as a teenager through his evolution as a composer of enduring songs for movies (Toy Story) and songs centered on Newman’s penchant for storytelling and character development. Hilburn’s book will stand as the definitive biography of Newman.
Douglas K. Miller, Washita Love Child: The Rise of Indigenous Rock Star Jesse Ed Davis (Norton/Liveright)—Jesse Ed Davis contributed his eloquent guitar licks to a wide range of music in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, including songs on albums by Taj Mahal and Johnny Cash. Duane Allman once said that Davis’ slide playing on Taj Mahal’s version of “Statesboro Blues” inspired his own playing. Davis died far too young, in 1988, of a drug overdose. He was largely forgotten, except by those whose lives and guitar playing he touched. Miller, former musician and historian, interviewed many of Davis’ friends and fellow musicians—including Jackson Browne and Robbie Robertson—to produce a riveting biography and an affectionate tribute to Davis.
Brian T. Atkinson, Love at the Five and Dime: The Songwriting Legacy of Nanci Griffith (Texas)—Music writer Atkinson gathers interviews from scores of songwriters and artists, many of whom performed with Griffith—Tish Hinojosa, Peter Rowan, Carolyn Hester, Darden Smith, Lyle Lovett, Amy Grant, Rodney Crowell, and Betty Soo, among many others—who reflect on Griffith’s songwriting, friendship, and legacy. Love at the Five and Dime will occasionally bring a tear to the eye, and it will certainly encourage readers to listen again—or for the first time—to Griffith’s intimate, brilliant music.
The Blind Boys of Alabama, with Preston Lauterbach, Spirit of the Century: Our Own Story (Hachette)—Ride along the gospel highway with the longest-running gospel group in this inspiring autobiography, written with Lauterbach (author of the forthcoming Before Elvis: The African-American Musicians Who Made the King), one of our great chroniclers of soul and gospel music. As Lauterbach writes, “The Blind Boys deliver unvarnished truth on record, on stage, and in conversation.” That same spirit pervades this long-overdue book.
Leah Payne, God Gave Rock & Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Music (Oxford)—Payne provides a captivating look at the history of the music that grew into the genre that became known as Contemporary Christian Music.
Sarah Seltzer, The Singer Sisters (Flatiron Books)—Seltzer’s melodious debut novel follows the intertwined stories of mother and daughter Judie Zingerman and Emma Cantor and their struggles they make music. In the 1960s Judie and her sister, Sylvia, toured the folk club circuit as the Singer Sisters until various events lead the duo to go their separate ways: Judie into seclusion from the songwriting life and Sylvie to making music with another partner. In the 1990s, Emma Cantor shuttles back and forth on the alt-rock circuit, searching for a modicum of recognition for her songwriting. Seltzer eloquently weaves the exquisite pain of broken relationships and the yearning for finding the lost chord through into a colorful narrative that reveals the ways in which music can both shield us from our shortcomings and expose our vulnerability at the same time.
Honorable Mentions:
Cary Baker, Down on the Corner: Adventures in Busking & Street Music (Jawbone Press)
Geoffrey Himes, In-Law Country: How Emmylou Harris, Rosanne Cash, and Their Circle Fashioned a New Kind of Country Music, 1968-1985 (Country Music Foundation Press)
Robert Hunter, The Snarling Silver Trumpet (Hachette)
Tricia Romano, The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture (Public Affairs)
