Available in this new hardback edition for the first time in decades, Sweet Soul Music was hailed by Newsweek on publication as ‘a stunning chronicle…. a panoramic survey of a lost world [and] one of the best books ever written on American popular music’.
Since then it has acquired the status of a classic. Pitchfork included it among its ’50 Favourite Music Books of All Time,’ the Daily Beast placed it on their ‘Essential Civil Rights Reading List,’ David Bowie named it one of his ‘100 Must-Read books’, while noted author Ta Nehisi Coates, whose work chronicles the contemporary racial divide, called it ‘one of the ten books I couldn’t live without.’
A gripping narrative that captures the tumult and sweep of a music that will forever be linked to the Civil Rights Movement which inspired it, (think of Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’) Sweet Soul Music provides intimate portraits of performers like Cooke, Ray Charles, James Brown, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Al Green among others, whose passionate gospel-based music embodied the liberating energy of a nation in transition. Through rare interviews, Peter Guralnick tells the definitive story of the music and the musicians, bringing to it the same empathy and insight that has informed all of his other work.
As Roddy Doyle writes in his introduction to this new edition: ‘Sweet Soul Music delivers all that we love to read in a great, sprawling novel, and still manages to be richly informative, historically and musically precise; it’s a work of high scholarship written by a born storyteller.’
Since then it has acquired the status of a classic. Pitchfork included it among its ’50 Favourite Music Books of All Time,’ the Daily Beast placed it on their ‘Essential Civil Rights Reading List,’ David Bowie named it one of his ‘100 Must-Read books’, while noted author Ta Nehisi Coates, whose work chronicles the contemporary racial divide, called it ‘one of the ten books I couldn’t live without.’
A gripping narrative that captures the tumult and sweep of a music that will forever be linked to the Civil Rights Movement which inspired it, (think of Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’) Sweet Soul Music provides intimate portraits of performers like Cooke, Ray Charles, James Brown, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Al Green among others, whose passionate gospel-based music embodied the liberating energy of a nation in transition. Through rare interviews, Peter Guralnick tells the definitive story of the music and the musicians, bringing to it the same empathy and insight that has informed all of his other work.
As Roddy Doyle writes in his introduction to this new edition: ‘Sweet Soul Music delivers all that we love to read in a great, sprawling novel, and still manages to be richly informative, historically and musically precise; it’s a work of high scholarship written by a born storyteller.’
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Reviews
A stunning chronicle . . . one of the best books ever written on American popular music
[Guralnick] ends up giving more than just history. He gives a feel for the places and circumstances that gave birth to the '60s most exciting music
One of the liveliest examinations of popular music ever conducted
A large-scale, near-epic treatment
An] epic trajectory, complex and relatable characters, telling details, and sharp prose that emphasizes empathy and clarity over showy idiosyncrasies....The book is as much about tragedy as triumph....Ultimately, this is a book about what was and-- just as crucially-- what might have been
Guralnick has written a vastly important book
One of the ten books [I] couldn't live without
Page after page is simply filled with new revelations, ideas, and perspectives....Essential for anyone with even a passing interest in rhythm and blues in the sixties. It will stand
One of my favourite authors
A masterpiece, as rich and strange as the life it seeks to comprehend . . . It should be treasured by all students of American music and culture . . . Such a book can only encourage and inspire us
His essays on these giants magically transform interview materials, historical scholarship, critical insight, and unabashed passion into living, breathing, and almost singing portraits
The best history of '60s soul music anyone has written . . . A classic
