Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music

Mystery Train assembles profiles of two musical “Ancestors” (Harmonica Frank Floyd and Robert Johnson) and four “Inheritors” (Randy Newman, the Band, Sly Stone, and, in the book’s highlight, Elvis Presley), and evaluates each musician through the lens of American art, politics, literature, and traditions. This is a maximalist book in the best sense of the term; Greil Marcus throws it all on the page, and enough sticks that it adds up to an original and beautiful book about American culture.