Looking to Get Lost: Adventures in Music and Writing

Product Description

By the bestselling author of Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll and Last Train the Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, this dazzling new book of profiles is a culmination of Peter Guralnick’s remarkable work, which from the start has encompassed the full sweep of blues, gospel, country, and rock ‘n’ roll.

It covers old ground from new perspectives, offering deeply felt, masterful, and strikingly personal portraits of creative artists, both musicians and writers, at the height of their powers.

“You put the book down feeling that its sweep is vast, that you have read of giants who walked among us,” rock critic Lester Bangs wrote of Guralnick’s earlier work in words that could just as easily be applied to this new one. And yet, for all of the encomiums that Guralnick’s books have earned for their remarkable insights and depth of feeling, 
Looking to Get Lost is his most personal book yet. For readers who have grown up on Guralnick’s unique vision of the vast sweep of the American musical landscape, who have imbibed his loving and lively portraits and biographies of such titanic figures as Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, and Sam Phillips, there are multiple surprises and delights here, carrying on and extending all the themes, fascinations, and passions of his groundbreaking earlier work.

One of NPR’s Best Books of 2020One of Kirkus Review/Rolling Stone’s Top Music Books of 2020One of No Depression’s Best Books of 2020

Review

“If there’s a leading figure among writers on American popular music—one who both defines and transcends the field—it has to be Peter Guralnick. . . . He approaches artists thoughtfully and connects with them—rather than their fame, beauty, or choice of handbag—and, through their voices, to their art. . . . For the author, it adds up to a study in the ‘imaginative impulse.’ For readers [this book] is an opportunity to appreciate Mr. Guralnick’s career, the music that has excited him, and the progress of his style.”―
Preston Lauterbach,
Wall Street Journal

“Be warned: the chapters on Solomon Burke, Doc Pomus, and Dick Curless just might squeeze tears out of you. . . . Willie Dixon, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, I imagine their spirits all around Guralnick, seeking what the author feels is the ‘one common denominator for all great music, its capacity to bring a smile to your lips’ … If this is what it means to get lost, it’s a wonder anyone would ever care to be found.”―
Brett Marie,
Pop Matters

“Guralnick has always been particularly passionate about music that transcends categorization…. He seems to prize most of all the intuitive individuality that distinguishes artistry—what makes a Jerry Lee Lewis, a Ray Charles, or a Merle Haggard more than the sum of their influences. “Simply put,” the author writes at the beginning, “this is a book about creativity,” and the sort of creativity that he appreciates in others can be seen throughout his work as well. Some of the book’s richest pieces focus on performers who Guralnick feels haven’t been given their due or whose music has to be experienced live because it loses something in the studio [but he] is nearly as revelatory when writing about well-known musicians; he invites readers to appreciate Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, and Ray Charles with fresh ears .…. A collection that clearly expresses the passion of musical discovery and lasting legacy.”―
Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“Peter Guralnick is one of the 3 or 4 greatest writers in the country today. His searching intelligence, his unquenchable curiosity, his astonishing omnicompetence and his stunning scope of knowledge are all on display in this breathtaking volume dedicated to the odd duties of art and the taxing if transcendent assignments of genius. In Looking to Get Lost, Guralnick explores everything from the edifying enigma of blues icon Robert Johnson to the Appalachian absurdity of writer Lee Smith as he taps the veins of their, and other artists’, combustible originality