Robert Gordon
Friday June 7
Signing at 5 p.m., reading at 5:30

     Memphis music writer Robert Gordon (It Came From Memphis) brings a biographer’s obsession for detail, an academic’s interest in wider social ramifications, and a storyteller’s flair for creating mood and character to his wonderful biography CAN’T BE SATISFIED: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters (Little, Brown, hd. 25.95). This is a remarkable story of how a Mississippi Delta sharecropper with a knack for guitar picking became the inventor of electric blues and laid a major cornerstone for rock-n-roll. Gordon traces Muddy Waters from his early years on a cotton plantation outside of Clarksdale — where an entire community of blues players apprenticed and mentored along a local circuit — to Chicago, where he recorded and delighted people eager to hear his unique electric music, made with the help of his famous and colorful band, a veritable revolving door of blues legends in the making, and finally to festival stages all over the world, where his raw country blues inspired a whole generation of young musicians bored by the status quo. (The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, in the book’s foreword, credits Muddy with not only naming the band but influencing their sound.) Perhaps most memorable here is the immediacy of the blues world Gordon recreates for the reader, and not least the great looming bluesman himself, whose music and character wafts off every page. Keep a Muddy Waters compilation CD handy when reading this, as Gordon’s song-by-song analyses will inspire careful listening, and for those enthusiasts who crave even more detail, there are thorough footnotes and an extensive appendix. Like works by Peter Guralnick and Greil Marcus, Gordon’s biography is about so much more than one musician. It is a generous, thoughtful read on music and culture. JK  
      Gordon will sign and read at Off Square Books on Friday, June 7. Signing/reception at 5 p.m., reading at 5:30.

Madison Smartt Bell
Thursday, June 27
Signing at 5 p.m., reading at 5:30

     In his new novel ANYTHING GOES (Pantheon, hd. 24.00), Madison Smartt Bell leaps headlong into the uncertain world of the working musician, as seen through the eyes of Jesse, a 20-year-old guitarist traveling the country with a rock-and-roll cover band named Anything Goes. (No, “It’s not Cole Porter.”) Between extended jaunts through southeastern coastal towns and eventually New England, Jesse holes up with his band leader and musical conscience, Perry, in an isolated farmhouse outside of Nashville, pondering the band’s next move and tentatively attempting to repair relations with his once-abusive father. Issues of race, sex, and age appear regularly, often with disastrous consequences, all the while pushing Jesse forward toward maturity, both musically and personally. The working dynamics of a band, the intricacies of performing, the descriptions of countless “Black Cat” dives throughout the country, and the long chain of challenging and conflicting personalities make this an enticing display of Bell’s varied skills. And just try to keep up with the multitude of musical references mentioned throughout. It’s like an appreciation course of 20th century popular music. SL
     Madison Smartt Bell will sign and read at Off Square Books on Thursday, June 27. Signing/reception at 5 p.m., reading at 5:30.

Bill C. Malone
Tuesday, April 30
Signing at 5 p.m., reading at 5:30

     In his new music study DON’T GET ABOVE YOUR RAISIN’: Country Music and the Southern Working Class (University of Illinois Press, hd. 34.95), country music historian Bill C. Malone exposes the inherent contradictions in country music — the same contradictions, he explains from first-hand experience, that have risen from Southern society. Within country music, Malone explains, are messages of family and faith alongside rambling and hedonism, songs that extol the virtues of the working class while the same performers use their music and celebrity to climb above it. These contradictions, he asserts, are largely responsible for the music’s enduring appeal. With compelling scenes from Southern life, played against profiles of great country musicians, Malone’s book is a highly readable, often surprising treatise that gets to the heart and inspiration of the music. RR
     Malone will sign, read, and perform music at Off Square Books on Tuesday, April 30. Signing/reception at 5 p.m., reading at 5:30.