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Peter Ames Carlin is the author of well-received biographies of Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, and the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. He turns his attention to music's subsequent generation with his new book, "The Name of This Band Is R.E.M."
'Mystery Train' by Greil Marcus (1975)
The urtext for thoughtful music writers. Marcus' linked essays on Elvis Presley, Sly Stone, the Band, and Randy Newman set their work so deeply in the American grain that it becomes impossible to listen to their music, or anyone's, without hearing echoes of our nation's grand and sometimes horrifying history. Buy it here.
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'Kill' Em and Leave' by James McBride (2016)
When the National Book Award-winning novelist and memoirist turned his attention to James Brown, he captured the artist's brilliance and flaws while revealing how the wormwood logic of institutionalized racism can reduce even the most successful Black artist to a criminal. Buy it here.
'Night Moves' by Jessica Hopper (2018)
Not strictly a music book, but Hopper, who is a great music writer, delivers a tender recounting of life as a newly fledged adult set loose in Chicago in the '00s. Through her eyes, we recall what it's like to be young, free, and in love with music. Buy it here.
'Love Me Do!' by Michael Braun (1964)
In 1963, a smart young journalist spent a few months traveling with the Beatles, observing them on the eve of global Beatlemania. For the last time in their lives, the about-to-be Fabs had everything to prove and nothing to hide, and Braun reveals them with acuity and breathtaking honesty. Buy it here.
'Beatlebone' by Kevin Barry (2015)
In 1967, John Lennon bought a small island off the coast of Ireland. He only visited it twice before moving to the U.S., and he never returned. Barry's gently hallucinatory novel imagines Lennon making a visit in 1978, hoping to cleanse his spirit and revive his muse. In the guise of fiction, the author uncovers his subject's internal currents, and how fantasy and reality can merge in unexpected ways. Buy it here.
'Ball Four' by Jim Bouton (1970)
This hilariously uncensored memoir by a fading athlete has next to nothing to do with music. But Bouton's struggle to survive in baseball while throwing the knuckleball — a pitch that becomes a metaphor for his individuality — triggered a controversy that roiled all of pro sports. Now that's rock 'n' roll. Buy it here.
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