Looking to Get Lost: Adventures in Music and Writing
Being a dedicated biographer, researcher and music aficionado, Peter Guralnick has quite a portfolio in the realm of music related book releases, having had penned tomes about the lives of the who-is-who of rock royalty. Looking to Get Lost is in essence a collection of curated excerpts of his journalistic exposes along with editing and recent additions with the common denominator being Guralnick’s interest in them.
While being exposed to Guralnick’s writing will be illuminating for the uninitiated, a tad more structure would have added to the appeal as his elaborations lack context and information about how and when they were written. This would have added an interesting facet as around the time when some of the pieces emanated, they were hardly any other sources or magazine one could tap into for information.
However, if you look at it from a different angle, Looking to Get Lost could be perceived as Guralnick’s autobiography as his interactions with the greats of the music world and related anecdotes serve as milestones throughout his life and career.
An added bonus are not only Peter Guralnick’s endnotes but his song recommendations, which adds credence to the notion that the author is as passionate about the subject matter of his writings as his readers might be, i.e. written by a fan for fans, and thereby catering to an unlikely overly critical audience that won’t be disappointed by his essays.
A nice addition to your music related library and worth the price of admission for the chapters on Howlin’ Wolf and Jerry Lee alone. It could have been a tad more inclusive though, as I struggle to find more than one female artist covered.
