Feel Like Going Home Portraits in Blues and Rock 'n' Roll

Peter Guralnick pledges in the epilogue to Feel Like Going Home that his writing will henceforth be "younger, less self-conscious and critical." Don't dwell too much on the author's oath, however: the prose here is hardly jaded and awkward. Initially published in 1971, Feel Like Going Home consists of 11 chapters, most of which are single-subject studies of American roots-music artists. Guralnick openly reveres his interview subjects, which isn't to imply that he fawns over them. The likes of bluesmen Howlin' Wolf and Johnny Shines, incorrigible rock & roller Jerry Lee Lewis, and, in particular, moody man-without-a-genre talent Charlie Rich (who was inspired to write a song called "Feel Like Going Home" based on this book--it's the final song on his final album) come across as knotty, vivid, complex characters. Published in tandem with Guralnick's similarly organized Lost Highway and his superb history of southern soul, Sweet Soul Music, Feel Like Going Home provides an early-stage perspective on a music historian who's truly arrived. --Steven Stolder

Peter Guralnick has been called "a national resource" by Nat Hentoff for work that has argued passionately and persuasively for the vitality of this country's intertwined black and white musical traditions. His books include the prize-winning two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis andCareless Love. Of the first Bob Dylan wrote, "Elvis steps from the pages. You can feel him breathe. This book cancels out all others." Of the biography as a whole, the New York Times Book Review declared in a lead review, "It must be ranked among the most ambitious and crucial biographical undertakings yet devoted to a major American figure of the second half of the twentieth century." Other books include an acclaimed trilogy on American roots music, Sweet Soul Music, Lost Highway, and Feel Like Going Home; the biographical inquiry Searching for Robert Johnson; and the novel, Nighthawk Blues. His latest book,Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, has been hailed by the San Fransisco Chronicle as "monumental, panoramic...an epic tale told against a backdrop of brilliant, shimmering music, intense personal melodrama, and vast social changes." He is currently at work on a biography of Sam Phillips.