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Review: Hail, hail, rock and roll writing!

graphic

"Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay: An Anthology"
Edited by William McKeen
W.W. Norton
Anthology
672 pages


In this story:

Examples of brilliance

Fulfilling promise


RELATED STORIES, SITES Downward pointing arrow


(CNN) -- William McKeen belongs as an extra in "High Fidelity," a headphones-wearing name-dropping music junkie. He is a fan, and proud of it.

That much is obvious from his new book "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay," a collection of writing about everyone from Janis Joplin to Kurt Cobain, and everything from Delta Blues to hip-hop. But why would anyone care about rock writers in the first place? As McKeen himself asks: "Isn't that sort of like writing about sex? What kind of loser would want to write about it rather than do it?" But with this collection he answers his own question, exposing the art that forms the centerpiece of criticism.

McKeen views the critics so highly that they have their own section in the anthology, with works by Joe McEwen ("Little Willie John"), Robert Christgau ("Rock and Roll Lyrics are Poetry (Maybe)"), and the legendary Lester Bangs ("Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung") included.

Examples of brilliance

One example of the brilliance that can be rock criticism comes from Paul Williams's ode to Jimi Hendrix's version of "All Along the Watchtower":

"All lives are brief, some briefer than others, and in this little corner of eternity known to us as the second half of the twentieth century a hit single is an effective way of making some nonharmful noise, proclaiming and calling attention to one's existence, telling whoever in the world may be listening that you have lived and that this fact makes a difference. The light flashes and is gone. But put something of yourself into that light and it may just burn with a color seldom or never seen, something haunting and awakening, not soon forgotten by those who witness. In this way we beat the clock, if only slightly. In this way we express our desire to join the screaming that comes across our sky."

Salman Rushdie writes elegantly about the power of song in
Salman Rushdie writes elegantly about the power of song in "The Ground Beneath Her Feet." An excerpt is part of the anthology  

Seldom do album reviews call into question our perceptions of existence. But Williams's words capture all that we have ever felt about our own mortality -- an example of criticism as art.

Fortunately, McKeen does not limit his collection to the traditional rock journalism -- album reviews, profiles of musicians, and Rolling Stone cover stories. Eclecticism explodes from the paper like a Jimmy Page guitar solo. Everything is included, from Yoko Ono's press release upon John Lennon's death to a radio announcement on the day of the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Retch Valens, and the Big Bopper. Lyrics appear by the forkful -- Bob Dylan, Patti Smith and Robert Johnson all make an appearance.

Novels are also considered fair ground for the anthology. One of the most insightful pieces is written not by a rock journalist, but by novelist Salman Rushdie. An excerpt from "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" sets the stage for most of the collection: "Our lives are not what we deserve; they are, let us agree, in many painful ways deficient. Song turns them into something else. Song shows us a world that is worthy of our yearning, it shows us our selves as they might be, if we were worthy of the world."

Music exists on another plane, one in which heartbeats become bass lines and speech morphs into lyrics. McKeen has seen this place, and he gives us the highlights in "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay."

Fulfilling promise

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan at a Civil Rights march in Washington, D.C., in 1963
Joan Baez and Bob Dylan at a Civil Rights march in Washington, D.C., in 1963  

When a book speaks of music as an alternate existence, it is difficult to be earth-bound and nitpicky. But, as McKeen himself will attest, such is the job of a critic. Each section begins with a short introduction, and while most accurately reflect the nature of the work, some are verbose and superfluous. One example occurs for Richard Goldstein's profile of Janis Joplin: "Here, a portrait of one of rock and roll's great voices, also one of its great tragedies." The words sound as if they were lifted from a "Behind the Music" promo.

Fortunately, introductions like these are few and far between. Most fulfill the promise established in the first piece, an introduction for Bob Dylan's "Bringing It All Back Home" liner notes: "Think of this as a job description for being Bob Dylan," McKeen writes. When Dylan's first words are "I'm standing there watching the parade/feeling combination of sleepy john estes. jayne mansfield. humphrey bogart/mortimer snerd. murph the surf and so forth," you can't help but nod your head in agreement.

If Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" is a love letter to rock and roll, then McKeen's work is the fan mail, meticulously preserved and placed in a scrapbook. This book is for anyone who saves concert ticket stubs, dusts record collections, or has posters of musicians, be it the Beatles or Nirvana, lining the walls. Non-music lovers need not apply.



RELATED STORIES:
Music critic Christgau delivers new guide to consumers
November 9, 2000
Review: Greil Marcus introduces Elvis Presley to Bill Clinton
November 2, 2000
Beatles' 'Revolver' voted best album ever
September 4, 2000
Salon review: 'Flowers in the Dustbin'
August 26, 1999

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