Night Beat: A Shadow History of Rock & Roll

mikal gilmore

Few journalists have staked a territory as definitively and passionately as Mikal Gilmore in his twenty-year career writing about rock and roll. Now, for the first time, this collection gathers his cultural criticism, interviews, reviews, and assorted musings. Beginning with Elvis and the birth of rock and roll, Gilmore traces the seismic changes in America as its youth responded to the postwar economic and political climate. He hears in the lyrics of Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison the voices of unrest and fervor, and charts the rise and fall of punk in brilliant essays on Lou Reed, The Sex Pistols, and The Clash. Mikal Gilmore describes Bruce Springsteen's America and the problem of Michael Jackson. And like no one else, Gilmore listens to the lone voices: Al Green, Marianne Faithfull, Sinead O'Connor, Frank Sinatra.

Four decades of American life are observed through the inimitable lens of rock and roll, and through the provocative and intelligent voice of one of the most committed chroniclers of American music, and its powerful expressions of love, soul, politics, and redemption.

Genres musichistorynonfictionculturalcriticism

496 pages, Paperback

First published December 29,1997

This edition

Format: 496 pages, Paperback
Published: February 16, 1999 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
ISBN: 9780385484367
ASIN: 0385484364
Language: English

About the author

mikal gilmore

Mikal Gilmore was born "Michael Gilmore," but later changed the spelling of his name. He was born February 9, 1951 to Frank and Bessie Gilmore.

In 1977, Gilmore's brother Gary, a convicted murderer, was the first person executed after the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. Gary Gilmore was executed for shooting two young Mormons, Max Jensen and Ben Bushnell, in cold blood. He was executed by firing squad in Utah. Mikal Gilmore's 1995 memoir, Shot in the Heart, details his relationship with Gary and their often troubled family, starting with the original Mormon settlers and continuing through to Gary's execution and its aftermath. Shot in the Heart received positive reviews, including a USA Today comment that states the book is "one of the most beautifully written, moving nonfiction books published in the past five years." Gilmore's book won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Gilmore was long interested in music, and in the early 1970s began writing articles for Rolling Stone. In 1999, Gilmore's chronology Night Beat: A Shadow History of Rock and Roll was published by Anchor. In July 2009 Gilmore released another book, Stories Done: Writings on the 1960s and its Discontents. It was published by Free Press.