Menu
Maybe someday
49
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
46/100Critics
53/100Scholars
Author:
Peter Guralnick
Publisher:
Little, Brown and Company
Date:
October 27, 2020
It covers old ground from new perspectives, offering personal portraits of creative artists, both musicians and writers, at the height of their powers.
What The Reviewers Say
For readers it’s an opportunity to appreciate Mr. Guralnick’s career, the music that has excited him, and the progress of his style.
Unlike his previous biographies and music histories, Looking to Get Lost is, on its face, simply a collection of profiles and essays (plus one adapted commencement address), cultivated from across Guralnick's half-century career. Individual chapters feature a variety of musicians, record-business icons, and even a couple of literary figures, but the absence of an overarching genre theme creates a void at center-stage, into which the author is drawn time and again to insert personal opinions and anecdotes. Even in chapters which retread memorable narratives from previous books, Guralnick's more pronounced presence in the retelling adds a welcome new layer that makes them worth reading again.
It’s not so commanding. There’s something warmed-over about it. Reading it is like watching Merle Haggard perform in an uptight club with a quiet policy and a two-drink minimum.
Guralnick’s obsession with the blues prompted him to become a music scholar.
