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.

Through the very best criticism, the writer instills into readers and would-be listeners the magic, creativity, and the vibrating synapses of excitement that result from the first taste of life-changing sounds. It’s not an easy task, but Guralnick is among the greatest at this. Holding forth on everyone from Robert Johnson to Leiber & Stroller, from Ray Charles to Tammy Wynette, Guralnick takes readers through a wide swath of the essential figures in American music, including those we know and those we should know, in a way that demonstrates both the unique qualities of these amazingly artistic individuals and the author’s own extraordinary ability to get to the heart of the matter.

A career-spanning anthology of profiles by the acclaimed music critic and journalist.