Customer Reviews

Memphis Beat : The Lives and Times of America's Musical Crossroads

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This is one of the best books I have ever read about Memphis music. It focused on many of the things that other books overlook, while still retaining the heart of Memphis which is THE BLUES. Larry Nager has a very good understanding of the atmosphere and attitudes of the people in Memphis, since he lived there for several years. The book is thorough in its coverage of everyone from Elvis to Phineas Newborn Jr. to Otis Redding. I highly recommend this to the Memphis music novice or the avid Memphis history collector.

Finally a book that talks about all the music from Memphis, where most books just talk about a certain type. But Memphis is a special place, a real crossroads for many different styles of American music.

Few minor glitches
- some factual mistakes
- repetition (JL Lewis always had an ill-fated marriage, a few times in the book)
- bad layout, a few white lines to seperate paragraphs would have been nicer.

But, these are just minor things, overall it's a good book.