One of America’s greatest music journalists offers an impassioned eulogy for a singular era

Profiles of George Harrison, Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, Jim Morrison, 

Johnny Cash, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, 

& others icons of the 1960’s and 1970’s

STORIES DONE

Writings on the 1960s and Its Discontents

By 

NBCC Award-Winner

Mikal Gilmore

 

“Mikal Gilmore understands the soul of rock & roll artists.  He’s as good as it gets.”

—Danny Goldberg, President and CEO, Mercury Records

 

“More than a collection of essays, [Gilmore’s Night Beat] is a literary box-set from one of our finest voices.  Music means more because Mikal Gilmore has written about it.”

—Cameron Crowe

The 1960s and 1970s represent a rare moment in our cultural history—music was exploring unprecedented territories, literature was undergoing a radical reinvention, politics polarized the nation, and youth culture was at the zenith of its influence.  There has never been, or is there likely to be, another generation that matches the contributions of the artists of that time period.

 

In STORIES DONE: Writings on the 1960s and Its Discontents (Free Press; November 11, 2008; $27.00), veteran music journalist and NBCC award-winning author Mikal Gilmore weaves a narrative of the ‘60s and ‘70s as he examines the lives of the era’s most important cultural icons.  Keeping the power of rock & roll at the forefront, Gilmore gathers together stories about major artists from every field—George Harrison, Ken Kesey, Johnny Cash, Allen Ginsberg, just to name a few. Gilmore reveals the truth about this idealized period in history, never shying away from the ugly influences that brought many of rock’s most exciting figures to their knees.  He examines how Jim Morrison’s alcoholism led to the star’s death at the age of twenty-seven, how Jerry Garcia’s drug problems brought him to the brink of death so many times that his band mates did not believe the news of his actual demise, how Pink Floyd struggled with the guilt of kicking out founding member Syd Barrett because of his debilitating mental illness.  

 

As Gilmore examines the dark side of these complicated figures, he paints a picture of the environment that bred them, taking readers from the rough streets of Liverpool (and its more comfortable suburbs) to the hippie haven of Haight-Ashbury that hosted the infamous Summer of Love.  But what resulted from these lives and those times, Gilmore argues, was worth the risk—in fact, it may be inseparable from those hard costs.

 

In STORIES DONE, Gilmore weaves together these dynamic and diverse cultural figures and events while exploring the social, political, and emotional characteristics that defined the 1960’s and 1970’s.  His insights and examinations combine to create a eulogy to a formative period of American History.  “Almost all the arguments that have mattered in our culture and politics these last forty years,” writes Gilmore, “have been a reaction to the brink that those times approached.”

 

STORIES DONE is a paean to the music and culture of an unforgettable era. 

 

About the Author

Mikal Gilmore has written for Rolling Stone magazine since the 1970s.  His first book, Shot in the Heart, was a National Book Critics Circle and Los Angeles Times Book Award-winning memoir about his older brother Gary, the infamous subject of Norman Mailer’s Executioner’s Song. It was adapted into a movie for HBO.

Praise for Mikal Gilmore’s Shot in the Heart

"Remarkable, astonishing... Shot in the Heart reads like a combination of Brothers 

Karamazov and a series of Johnny Cash ballads... chilling, heartbreaking, and alarming."

--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"Mesmerizing... riveting and immensely moving... Shot in the Heart is a gesture of sustained courage that just happens to be a page-turner." --The New Yorker

"One of the most beautifully written, moving nonfiction books published in the past five 

years." --USA Today

STORIES DONE: Writings on the 1960s and Its Discontent; Free Press; November 11, 2008

Pages: 352; Price: $27; ISBN: 978-0-7432-8745-6

 

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