Stories Done: Writings on the 1960s and Its Discontents

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About Stories Done: Writings On The 1960s And Its

Product Description The NBCC Award-winning author of Shot in the Heart presents a series of profiles on forefront music performers from the 1960s and 1970s, in an account that also recounts famous rock-and-roll events and includes coverage of such figures as John Lennon, Bob Dylan, and Bob Marley. 60,000 first printing. From Booklist Rolling Stone writer Gilmore looks back on the powerful cultural influences of the 1960s, not from nostalgia but out of respect for its representation as an upheaval of social conventions, something not seen among youth on the same scale before or since. Gilmore offers biographical sketches of iconic figures of the time, including Allen Ginsberg, John Lennon, Johnnie Cash, Bob Marley, and Led Zeppelin. Gilmore confesses to surprise at the extent to which drugs and alcohol affected almost every one of his subjects and how LSD contributed to the creativity of the era—think Ken Kesey, the Grateful Dead, and Pink Floyd. Gilmore acknowledges the incompleteness of this book as a recollection of the 1960s, with nothing on jazz, R & B, or feminism. Still, it is an incredible recap of the kinds of social and artistic forces—and personal demons—that stretched the boundaries of personal freedom, sometimes with fatal results. Not just writing as an observer but also as a participant, Gilmore (Shot in the Heart, 1994) brings a sharp eye to a turbulent period on the American arts scene. --Vanessa Bush About the Author Mikal Gilmore is a journalist and music aficionado who has written for Rolling Stone magazine since the 1970s. His first book, Shot in the Heart, is a National Book Critics Circle and L.A. Times Book Prize-winning memoir about his older brother Gary, the first man to be executed in Utah after pleading guilty to murder.