Even if you have to starve: the long horizons of mod -- Did he feel good? James Brown's epic life and career -- Birditis: the obsession with Charlie Parker -- Swoonatra: the afterlives of Frank Sinatra -- The fast birth and slow oedipal death of Elvis Aaron Presley -- Half in love with Blind Joe Death: guitar virtuoso John Fahey's American odyssey -- So hip it hurts: Steely Dan's Donald Fagen looks back --The question of u: the mirror image of prince
. - When all else fails, when our compass is broken, there is one thing some of us have come to rely on: music really can give us a sense of something like home. With It Gets Me Home, This Curving Track, legendary music critic Ian Penman reaches for a vanished moment in musical history when cultures collided and a certain kind of cross-generational and cross-colour awareness was born. His cast of characters includes the Mods, James Brown, Charlie Parker, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, John Fahey, Steely Dan and Prince black artists who were innovators, and white musicians who copied them for the mainstream. In prose that glides and shimmies and pivots on risky metaphors, low puns and highbrow reference points (Brian Dillon, frieze), Ian Penman's first book in twenty years is cause for celebration.
