The Ink in the Grooves: Conversations on Literature and Rock 'n' Roll
Drop the record needle on any vinyl album in your collection, then read the first pages of that novel you've been meaning to pick up—the reverberations between them will be impossible to miss. Since Dylan went electric, listening to rock 'n' roll has often been a surprisingly literary experience, and contemporary literature is curiously attuned to the history and beat of popular music. In The Ink in the Grooves, Florence Dore brings together a remarkable array of acclaimed novelists, musicians, and music writers to explore the provocatively creative relationship between musical and literary inspiration: the vitality that writers draw from a three-minute blast of guitars and the poetic insights that musicians find in literary works from Shakespeare to Southern Gothic. Together, the essays and interviews in The Ink in the Grooves provide a backstage pass to the creative processes behind some of the most exciting and influential albums and novels of our time.
Contributors: Laura Cantrell, Michael Chabon, Roddy Doyle, Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, William Ferris, Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, Dave Grohl, Peter Guralnick, Amy Helm, Randall Kenan, Jonathan Lethem, Greil Marcus, Rick Moody, Lorrie Moore, the John Prine band (Dave Jacques, Fats Kaplin, Pat McLaughlin, Jason Wilber), Dana Spiotta, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Richard Thompson, Scott Timberg, Daniel Wallace, Colson Whitehead, Lucinda Williams, Warren Zanes.
1140768257
The Ink in the Grooves: Conversations on Literature and Rock 'n' Roll
Drop the record needle on any vinyl album in your collection, then read the first pages of that novel you've been meaning to pick up—the reverberations between them will be impossible to miss. Since Dylan went electric, listening to rock 'n' roll has often been a surprisingly literary experience, and contemporary literature is curiously attuned to the history and beat of popular music. In The Ink in the Grooves, Florence Dore brings together a remarkable array of acclaimed novelists, musicians, and music writers to explore the provocatively creative relationship between musical and literary inspiration: the vitality that writers draw from a three-minute blast of guitars and the poetic insights that musicians find in literary works from Shakespeare to Southern Gothic. Together, the essays and interviews in The Ink in the Grooves provide a backstage pass to the creative processes behind some of the most exciting and influential albums and novels of our time.
Contributors: Laura Cantrell, Michael Chabon, Roddy Doyle, Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, William Ferris, Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, Dave Grohl, Peter Guralnick, Amy Helm, Randall Kenan, Jonathan Lethem, Greil Marcus, Rick Moody, Lorrie Moore, the John Prine band (Dave Jacques, Fats Kaplin, Pat McLaughlin, Jason Wilber), Dana Spiotta, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Richard Thompson, Scott Timberg, Daniel Wallace, Colson Whitehead, Lucinda Williams, Warren Zanes.
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The Ink in the Grooves: Conversations on Literature and Rock 'n' Roll
Drop the record needle on any vinyl album in your collection, then read the first pages of that novel you've been meaning to pick up—the reverberations between them will be impossible to miss. Since Dylan went electric, listening to rock 'n' roll has often been a surprisingly literary experience, and contemporary literature is curiously attuned to the history and beat of popular music. In The Ink in the Grooves, Florence Dore brings together a remarkable array of acclaimed novelists, musicians, and music writers to explore the provocatively creative relationship between musical and literary inspiration: the vitality that writers draw from a three-minute blast of guitars and the poetic insights that musicians find in literary works from Shakespeare to Southern Gothic. Together, the essays and interviews in The Ink in the Grooves provide a backstage pass to the creative processes behind some of the most exciting and influential albums and novels of our time.
Contributors: Laura Cantrell, Michael Chabon, Roddy Doyle, Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, William Ferris, Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, Dave Grohl, Peter Guralnick, Amy Helm, Randall Kenan, Jonathan Lethem, Greil Marcus, Rick Moody, Lorrie Moore, the John Prine band (Dave Jacques, Fats Kaplin, Pat McLaughlin, Jason Wilber), Dana Spiotta, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Richard Thompson, Scott Timberg, Daniel Wallace, Colson Whitehead, Lucinda Williams, Warren Zanes.
Florence Dore is a Nashville-born, North Carolina–based musical artist as well as Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her second album, 2022's Highways and Rocketships, was produced by Don Dixon and Mitch Easter. She is the author of Novel Sounds and coexecutive producer for the Billboard-charting compilation album Cover Charge.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Needles and Pens, by Florence DorePart 1: The Inescapable Dylan1. Let it Rock2. The Genius and Modern Times of Bob Dylan3. All the Poets (Musicians on Writing): An Interview with Rhiannon Giddens4. Chronicles: Volume One (Excerpt)Part II: Rock 'N' Roll Saved My Life: Writers on Music5. Banjo Interlude: An Idle Teen's Life Is Saved by Music6. Tonight We Improvise: From Sag Harbor (Excerpt)7. Ubu Lives! Remembering Punk and Its Stories8. By Heart: From Eat the Document (Excerpt)9. Precious Resource (Rock and Our Generation of Novelists): An Interview with Jonathan Lethem and Dana Spiotta10. Whack Fol the Daddy-O: How I Learned to Hate Irish Music Slightly LessPart III: Rock's Literary Identity: Musicians on Literature11. Dear Dylan: An Interview with Lucinda Williams12. Iambic Pentameter and the Blues: An Interview with Steve Earle13. Sir Patrick Rocks! Dragging Ancient Ballads into the Twentieth Century, and What That Can Do to Fragile Young Minds14. Two Blue SuedesPart IV: Don't Let Anyone Write Your Story: Musings on Rock as Literature15. When We All Get to Heaven16. English as a Second Language17. Cosmic Ray: How Ray Charles's "I Got a Woman" Transformed the Music of Ray Charles, Allowed Him to Keep His Band, and Created a Musical and Social Revolution18. Ain't It Always Stephen StillsPart V: Losses and Erasures19. Black Cowboys and Jimi Hendrix: An Interview with Dom Flemons20. Anatomy of a Canned Heat Hit: "Let's Work Together" by Wilbert Harrison21. John Prine (The Reluctant Genius): An Interview with Dave Jacques, Jason Wilbur, Fats Kaplin, and Pat McLaughlin22. The Day the Live Concert Returns23. Unknown Band on a Forgotten Stage24. Right on Time: An Interview with Amy Helm,
Twisting the dials of a vast cultural mixing board, Dore constructs a weird and wonderful record of the secret harmonies between literature and rock. Bob Dylan, Colson Whitehead, Dave Grohl, and Roddy Doyle crowd together with others to let us see, hear, and sample the vast creative energies that flow out of the groove and across the page. Like all great producers, Dore preserves the power of our most distinctive voices while mixing them into something genuinely new—a transformative view of contemporary American art.
Peter Holsapple
Florence Dore is both sterling songwriter and august academic, and is thus uniquely qualified to captain The Ink in the Grooves, her new book which brings together savvy rockers and their fiction-writing counterparts to create as sweet a mailbag full of love letters as has ever been assembled on the subject.
