Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
The Classics
It’s a Thursday Night in Athens, Georgia
Lives and Deaths
Recordings
In the Crosshairs
Culture Watch, Culture Wars
Index

About the Author

Anthony DeCurtis is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, where he worked on staff for nine years as a writer and editor. He worked for a year (1995) as an on-air correspondent and editorial director at VH1, was the popular music critic for “Weekend All Things Considered” on National Public Radio from 1991 to 1995, and has written for a wide range of periodicals, including the New York Times, USA Today, and Vibe. He coedited The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll and The Rolling Stone Album Guide and edited Present Tense: Rock & Roll and Culture, also published by Duke University Press. DeCurtis received the 1988 Grammy Award in the “Best Album Notes” category and has three times received ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards for excellence in writing about music. He is also a member of the nominating committee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Reviews

"Anthony DeCurtis's collection offers literate and deeply inform ed profiles of the artists responsible for our musical landscape."-Mark Oppenheimer, New York Times Book Review "Having the best of DeCurtis in one volume is a great and overdue pleasure."-Bill Flanagan, Editorial Director, VH1 "Rocking My Life Away... passionately blends music, journalism, remembrance, and argument with a fresh perspective... Like bell hooks and Mikal Gilmore, DeCurtis understands the links between culture and music. His book brilliantly chronicles the chaotic times in which they coexist."-Michael E. Ross, Vibe "Rocking My Life Away is a fan's notes and far more: DeCurtis's erudite prose combines passionate thinking about popular culture and an informed feel for what moves us at the most personal level. It is a highly satisfying collection."-Barbara O'Dair, Editor of Us Magazine and the Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock "DeCurtis enters a scene without an agenda, providing a sparkling and untainted view and permitting the essential truths of each experience to emerge. The top-notch writing in this book has remarkable clarity."-Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix "

"Anthony DeCurtis's collection offers literate and deeply inform ed profiles of the artists responsible for our musical landscape."-Mark Oppenheimer, New York Times Book Review "Having the best of DeCurtis in one volume is a great and overdue pleasure."-Bill Flanagan, Editorial Director, VH1 "Rocking My Life Away... passionately blends music, journalism, remembrance, and argument with a fresh perspective... Like bell hooks and Mikal Gilmore, DeCurtis understands the links between culture and music. His book brilliantly chronicles the chaotic times in which they coexist."-Michael E. Ross, Vibe "Rocking My Life Away is a fan's notes and far more: DeCurtis's erudite prose combines passionate thinking about popular culture and an informed feel for what moves us at the most personal level. It is a highly satisfying collection."-Barbara O'Dair, Editor of Us Magazine and the Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock "DeCurtis enters a scene without an agenda, providing a sparkling and untainted view and permitting the essential truths of each experience to emerge. The top-notch writing in this book has remarkable clarity."-Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix "

It's no coincidence that the most interesting contribution in this wide-ranging "greatest hits" package is an off-the-cuff interview with R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, in which he and the author discuss at length the cultural value of such an endeavor as writing critically about rock and popular entertainment. Too often an assumption is made by and about writers for magazines such as Rolling Stone, where DeCurtis spent nearly a decade as an editor: the writer may want to define consumer taste, but generally his assignment is simply to reflect upon it. DeCurtis is something of an anomaly from the decades before popular culture became a province of social theoreticians, years when rock 'n' roll could be discussed as art. He defends the academic study of pop culture, in such essays as "Pop Goes to College" and his examination of Don DeLillo's Great Jones Street, but his work is informed by a gutsy street sensibility absent from that of DeCurtis's more academic peers. This unique blend of intellect and bravado might well lead readers to argue a point here and there, but that is the purpose of criticism. DeCurtis reminds us of this basic point with the ease of recalling a classic Keith Richards riff. (May)