Table of Contents

Introduction: Staying Real. 1 Beginnings. 2 A Young Man's Initiation. 3 "I Was Lost, I Was Drifting". 4 An Alarm Clock in Church. 5 Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay. 6 Out of the Commonplace into the Rare. 7 Good-bye to All That. 8 A Quality That Lets You In. 9 "A Pure, Simple Thing". 10 Renaissance. 11 A Partially Hidden Legacy. 12 The Next Century. 13 The Singing Waiter. Acknowledgments. Appendix: Awards, Albums, and Songs. Bibliography. Index.

About the Author

David Evanier is a critically acclaimed and award-winning author of both nonfiction and fiction. He was formerly senior editor of the Paris Review , and his work has appeared in Best American Short Stories . He is a recipient of the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction and the McGinnis-Ritchie Short Fiction Award. Evanier has written for the New York Times (including "Paper Cuts," its music blog), the New York Times Magazine , the Village Voice , the New Republic , the Nation , and many other publications. He has received residence fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Wurlitzer Foundation, is a full-time member of the Writers Room where he wrote this book, and has taught at UCLA. His other books include Making the Wiseguys Weep: The Jimmy Roselli Story , which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and Roman Candle: The Life of Bobby Darin .