Peter Guralnick

Peter Guralnick (born December 15, 1943 in Boston , Massachusetts ) is an American music critic and author of books on American popular music and its history, who is also active as an author and screenwriter. In 1971 he graduated from Boston University with a master's degree in creative writing and has worked as a writer ever since.

General

In his books he combines the passion of a lifelong fan, the knowledge of a scholar and the ability to do justice to both music and musician. Guralnick began writing in the 1960s, his first two books being short story collections published in 1964 and 1967, respectively. He conducted his first interview with Howlin 'Wolf . On his first encounter with the blues, he reports that one of his friends went to the Newport Folk Festival and came back with records. Among them were some blues recordings. They totally grabbed him and from that moment on there was no turning back. As a schoolboy he submitted a work on the blues singer Robert Johnson. Soon he also began writing for music magazines such as Living Blues and Rolling Stone , some contributions were published in 1971 under the title Feel Like Going Home .

The book marked a milestone in the process of making blues and blues musicians serious objects for writers to do at a time when only a few scholars were interested in the music. His next book, Lost Highway , again gathered articles for Rolling Stone, The Village Voice , The Boston Phoenix and The New York Times , but also opens up to considerations on country music. His most important work from the 1980s was Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom , in which he portrayed Southern Soul and some artists of Northern Soul . In addition to music and musicians, social history also plays an important role in this book, as the civil rights movement also began and reached its climax in the period covered by the book .

His main work, however, is a two-volume Elvis Presley biography. The first volume, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley , covers Elvis' life until 1958. The second volume, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley , deals with the musical decline until his death. In addition, he also wrote a large number of liner notes, such as B. for Jerry Lee Lewis album " Last Man Standing ". For the liner notes of Sam Cooke Live At The Harlem Square he received the 1986 Grammy Award in the category Best Album Notes.

Guralnick also wrote the scripts for the documentary Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll , narrated by Billy Bob Thornton and Sam Cooke - Legend , narrated by Jeffrey Wright. He also wrote the book for The Blues: Feel Like Going Home , a documentary by Martin Scorsese .

In 2010, his work was recognized by being inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame (Non - Performer) of the Blues Foundation .

Books

1. Peter Guralnick (1964). Almost grown. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Larry Stark Press.
2. Peter Guralnick (1967). Mister Downchild. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Larry Stark Press.
3. Peter Guralnick (1971). Feel Like Going Home: Portraits in Blues, Country, and Rock 'n' Roll. ISBN 0876900465 . Reprinted 1999. ISBN 0316332720 (Blues Hall of Fame Classics of Blues Literature 1989)
4. Peter Guralnick (1979). Lost Highway: Journeys & Arrivals of American Musicians. ISBN 0-316-33274-7 .
5. Peter Guralnick (1982). The Listener's Guide to The Blues. New York: Facts on File, Inc.
6. Peter Guralnick (1986). Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom. ISBN 0-316-33273-9 . (German Bosworth Music 2009) Blues Hall of Fame 1996 (Classics of Blues Literature)
7. Peter Guralnick (1989). Searching for Robert Johnson. ISBN 0-452-27949-6 . Blues Hall of Fame 1995 (Classics of Blues Literature)
8. Peter Guralnick (1994). Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. ISBN 0-316-33225-9 . (German Bosworth Musikverlag; edition: 2nd, new edition June 21, 2010; also as audio book Bear Family Records, read by Read by Bela B. Felsenheimer)
9. Peter Guralnick (1999). Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley. ISBN 0-316-33297-6 . (German Bosworth Musikverlag; edition: 2nd, new edition 2006)
10. Peter Guralnick (2003). Nighthawk Blues: A Novel. Little, Brown.
11. Peter Guralnick and Ernst Jorgensen (1999). Elvis Day by Day: The Definitive Record of His Life and Music. ISBN 0-345-42089-6 .
12. Peter Guralnick (2005). Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke. Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-37794-5 .
13. Peter Guralnick (2014). Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll. Orion Publishing Group

Criticism

About Sweet Soul Music:

• Edo Reents - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Peter Guralnick's “Sweet Soul Music”, first published in English in 1986 and now finally in German, is still the most readable, most informative and quite simply the best presentation of this music. To speak of a “Bible” would be an insulting understatement.

About Careless Love:

• Daily Mail (UK) beautifully written and refreshingly sincere, sets new high standards' (beautifully written and refreshingly honest)
• The Independent on Sunday (UK) 'Homeric, this is a monumental work' (Homeric, this is a monumental work)

About Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke:

• ... a revealing portrait of one of America's greatest musical artists, Sam Cooke. (An insightful portrait of one of America's greatest musicians, Sam Cooke.)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Guralnick biography on Answers.com
2. ↑ Delta Blues Museum Conversation with Guralnick  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Delta Blues Museum Conversation with Guralnick  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ www.salon.com
5. ↑ Blues Foundation Hall of Fame 2010 ( Memento of the original from August 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ FAZ Net
7. ↑ Amazon.uk