March 2023. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock’n’Roll Music by Greil Marcus

1975,Penguin Publishing Group,624 pages. Written in English, read in English.

Writing about music, if we’ll skip the dancing and architecture perpetually misattributed reference for a minute, has one proof of working well, and it is most prominently displayed when said writing is focused on one album or one song. The proof is simple — once you’ve finished reading what has been written about the song or the album, did you immediately go and listen to it?

Greil Marcus’ Mystery Train is not necessarily focused on an album or a song (although those are usually the anchor points), but it definitely meets the criteria. For me, at least, the chapter about The Band has made me want to go and listen to their whole discography, which I have generally dismissed after Music from Big Pink.

The book focuses on six artists or bands that represent, in various ways, the United States. It begins with Harmonica Frank, a singer who you’ve never heard about and neither did I. That is basically the point — Harmonica Frank was an early sign by Sam Phillips who could have been, but wasn’t, Elvis Presley. Presley himself represents the last of the six artists. You would think that he is the center of this book, given that it is named after a song he’s recorded, but you’d be wrong — I will return to that. In between, you will find Robert Johnson, The Band, Sly and the Family Stone, and Randy Newman — for each of them, Marcus finds an interesting correlation to the recent, or less recent, history of the United States and so one can find a discussion of the origins of Stagger Lee and of Robert Johnson, of the correlation of the rise and fall of The Band with the rise and fall of the south (while also completely neglecting to refer to how a band including four Canadians embodies the spirit of the southern United States so well), of the sheer randomness of who becomes a star (as Harmonica Frank and Elvis Presley could both attest), and how the person who’s changed the face of American rock’n’roll music in the fifties was not Elvis Presley, but Sam Phillips.

The book is split into two parts, each in turn contains a discussion of one of the six artists or bands mentioned. The first part is a set of articles, explaining not only the importance of the selected artists or bands to the soul of the United States but also its correlation to other historical aspects, and sometimes, personal aspects in the author’s mind. The second part is an exhaustive discography and bibliography of the artists and bands mentioned — but not in the form of a set of lists, but in the form of an elaborate history. As bonus material, the reader gets an extensive explanation of the origins — at the time of originally writing the book yet unknown — of Robert Johnson; and also an extensive research, done by the author, of the origins of the legend of Stagger Lee.

When the reading is completed, one can establish an opinion about whether writing about music is indeed effective for music — it turns out it is, when the writing reads like music.

The April 2023 selection of the David Bowie Book Club will be Room at the Top by John Braine.

The May 2023 selection of the David Bowie Book Club will be The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West.