Good luck, Tina. Crazy roommates are really stressful. Home is usually a refuge, but when you live with a loon you dread going home - an untenable situation.

I printed out an article about the Guralnick Cooke bio but haven't read it yet. Sam Cooke may be my favorite singer (pick hit "Jesus Wash Away My Troubles" -- either the intro Jesus or the one near the end, right before "take me on to glory," could be his peak) so I'll probably read it but every Guralnick book I've read has underwhelmed me. "Sweet Soul Music," "Feel Like Going Home," "Lost Highway," the reaction was always the same: is that it? I love understated. I love measured tones and assessments. (Robert Palmer's "Deep Blues" is wonderful; Martin Williams is my favorite jazz critic.) His subjects include many of my favorites, but even as my expectations dropped with each volume he still managed to underwhelm me.

Interview with Guralnick in the Boston Globe: [link]

I with Joe on the constant Guralnick disappointment.

Also, I'm sorry to read about your roommate woes, Tina.

Finally, the RT set sounds phenomenal, Joe. I've seen him and DT do "Ghosts in the Wind" a couple of times, and it's always a highlight. I've also seen Mattacks with the RT band several times, and the man is a monster. Except when he played keyboards on, uh, "The Ghost of You Walks" on the You? Me? Us? tour. That was just not so good.

Industry is one of the few official releases missing from my RT collection

Wanna copy?

I with Joe on the constant Guralnick disappointment.

Not me. I really loved his pieces on Charlie Rich.

I think I read the Elvis book(ironically enough, not "Sweet Soul"...) I liked it. A certain exhaustiveness really gets my panties wet...otherwise, would I be here right now? Will definitely read the Sam Cooke book.

I really like Guralnick's topics. I think I just find his prose unnecessarily dull.

"Like dancing about architecture," huh? It's been a while. Can't really take a side.

Well, yeah, but there's plenty of great music writers out there who manage to make it sound like fun. David Gordon's It Came From Memphis covers some of the same topics in Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music, but makes me wish I could have lived in Memphis in the late 60s/early 70s, whereas Guralnick's book (which is infinitely better researched) just makes me wish I was listening to Booker T instead of reading about him.

I can see that. I saw a Motown documentary like that. Very velvet-rope-in-the-museum considering how alive that music still feels.(Yeah. Even when it's in every bad comedy trailer ever.)

"Like dancing about architecture," huh? It's been a while. Can't really take a side.

Rant warning (Please don't take it the wrong way, erika. I'm going off on the message, not the messenger.)

I hate that saying. It's cute and clever and all but what the hell does it mean? Does it mean that writing about music is simply illegitimate? Or is it less judgmental, more descriptive: they are ultimately two different things and a description of one using the language of the other may tell us something about the one describing but not much about the one being described? Or is it something else altogether: it's a creative response to something totally different, each legitimate, each its own thing, inspiration notwithstanding? Or is it just a pissy response by Zappa or Elvis (or whoever really said it) to a bad review? If it was Zappa it's ironic because one of the crucial inspirations for his hero, Edgar Varese, was Busoni's Sketch for a New Esthetic of Music. And the line between a music theoretician and a music critic is pretty thin. Most popular music "criticism" has precious little analysis even when the critic has the tools to do so. To me the comment smacks of both intellectual hauteur (those who can make music do, those who can't are critics) AND anti-intellectualism (musical analysis? what kind of pointy-headed twaddle is that?). I'll admit my reaction is somewhat hostile.

Now that I got that off my chest... I agree with Corwood. Guralnick has every right to write about Sam Cooke or whomever he wants to. I just wish he'd write about people I don't dig so that I wouldn't be tempted to read it even though I know I'll find it unsatisfying. Also, it sounds like this book is less about Sam Cooke musician and more about Sam Cooke cultural figure -- which is worth a biography. Maybe that's what I find unsatisfying about Guralnick: he writes about musicians and not about music. Now that I think about it my favorite parts of his books are the discographies, where he actually talks about records and songs he loves. I think Guralnick is right (in the interview Jon linked to) about Cooke wanting, and having the ability to be, the next Berry Gordy. Sam Cooke's combination of talent, looks, ambition, savvy, vision, and historical positioning makes him a fascinating character, but I probably wouldn't care if I didn't find his voice to be pure magic. I go into a book about him wanting to know more about the music, but that's not what I get from Guralnick. So the problem is really my wants, not Guralnick's execution -- but I say that as someone who has read a bunch of his books and who should know better by now. Because he writes about musicians he gets publicized as one who writes about music -- but he writes about music only as a consequence of writing about musicians. Maybe that strikes you as splitting hairs. Sorry, I'm just trying to explain what leaves me cold about PG.

And speaking of unsatisfying I am not happy with this post, but I still have a bunch of work to do so I can't spend any more time trying to untangle my messy thoughts. Crud.

Corwood, thanks for the offer. Check your email.