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(More customer reviews)Founding rolling stone writer Greil Marcus is what you'd describe, were you English and of a certain age, as an "Anorak". He's an obsessive, passionate, academic lover of rock 'n' roll in all its many forms. Here he sketches out a book structured in a loose fashion like the bible, in that it has an "old testament" surveying two of rock's 'ancestors' and a "new testament" on five of their 'inheritors'. It's a book about rock 'n' roll. In short, Marcus waxes long and with great hyperbole on things which most grown ups in this day and age find rather trifling.
Well, I don't, and I think this is a fantastic book. It's subjects are eclectic as can be: Robert Johnson is a reasonable enough choice for "ancestor of the rock 'n' roll tradition" but it would be a brave man who would pick one-man band "Harmonica Frank" Floyd, from Toccopola Mississippi, as the other. But Marcus does, and creates a fascinating case for his inclusion.
The threads he picks up of rock iconography are incredible - the myth of Stagger Lee, blended into the history of Sly Stone was something I'd never heard of, but it prompted me to head off in that direction and see what I could find. Likewise the short chapter on Robert Johnson.
In a lot of ways, that's the beauty of this book: For all its obsession-shot prose, it functions as a bunch of references; directions which the reader can follow up at leisure, and Marcus's effervescent writing style functions like a firm push between the shoulder blades. The bibliography is almost as long as the text, and it's well worth the read.
There are some who find Marcus' style too garish, and there is a view that he is too much of a boffin - an anorak, if you will - for his own good. I don't agree with that - Marcus is self-aware enough to see the funny side of himself and his subject matter, and he is always so enthusiastic that it isn't fair to say he misses the point, or the energy, of what he's writing about.
Marcus' later work, especially on punk rock, is well worth investigating too. Don't believe the nay-sayers who don't like his "straying" into punk: "In the Fascist Bathroom", Marcus' anthology of essays on punk rock is one of the funniest, most compelling reads I've had in a long while.
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