Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay: An Anthology

The whole sweeping saga of rock and roll is here in one book. This book will endure as the best way to tell the history of rock and roll -- in the words of the people who played it, produced it, sold it and studied it.

OK, so we all know a lot about rock n roll, right? But when you read William McKeen's anthology of great rock writing, you realize that you have only scratched the surface. This book, in a word, rocks. McKeen clearly had a tough assignment: track down the best writing about rock n roll, and use those writings to define the elusive beast that is rock music. He succeeds on both accounts. Sure, there are the expected authors -- Lester Bangs, Peter Guralnick, Greil Marcus, Charlie Gillett, and Robert Palmer -- but also unexpected gems and defining lyrics from Patti Smith, Tom Wolfe, Don DeLillo and Terry Southern. Each section of the book illustrates a facet of rock n roll, and the usually bite-size chunks of writings make it easy to pick this book up anytime and blow through a couple of dozen pages without knowing time has passed. I guess my favorite aspect of the book, however, is that it touches a place deep inside of us that music also touches. Two stories stand our for me in this regard: Alan Lomax's account of his visit with blues legend Robert Johnson's mother, who relates her son's dying moments in stunning vividness (the dying Johnson, allegedly the victim of a lover's poison, gives his devil-cursed guitar to his mother and tells her to hang it on the wall "cause I done pass all that by." He dies while she was hanging it on the wall.) The final moment of goosebumps comes in the book's ultimate selection, the legendary producer Phil Spector's induction speech for the late Doc Pomus, who wrote "Save the Last Dance for Me," among other early rock gems. The writing in this book is stunning. The arrangement of chapters and selections by McKeen, a University of Florida journalism professor, borders on the genius also. For anyone who ever had a melody stuck in their head, who ever slam danced at their first punk concert, who ever saw Duane Allman play slide guitar, who ever jammed with their buddies in a miniwarehouse till dawn, or who ever just simply turned on a car radio, this book is indispensible.