Includes index.

Introduction: falling into place / Peter Guralnick -- Bringing it all back home / Bob Dylan -- In me around me and everywhere / Irvine Welsh -- Meaty, beaty, big and bouncy / Pete Townshend -- Looter / Nick Hornby -- A world worthy of our yearning / Salman Rushdie -- And if it dances / Levon Helm, Martin Scorcese, and Robbie Robertson -- From the introduction to The Sound of the City / Charlie Gillett -- Me and the devil / Robert Johnson -- The land where the blues began / Alan Lomax -- Blind Willie McTell / Bob Dylan -- From the Delta to Chicago / Robert Palmer -- The myth of Staggerlee / Griel Marcus -- King of the Delta Blues / James Miller -- Jerry Lee Lewis sees the bright lights of Dallas / Nick Tosches -- Fats / Grace Lichtenstein and Laura Dankner -- Up against the wall with Little Richard / Bumps Blackwell -- 706 Union Avenue / Colin Escott and Martin Hawkins -- The five styles of rock'n'roll / Charlie Gillett -- Do you remember? / Brian Wilson -- Elvis, Scotty, and Bill / Peter Guralnick -- Got to be rock and roll music / Chuck Berry -- The godfather of soul / Nelson George -- A good stomping band / Philip Norman -- Words to the wild / Tom Wolfe -- dog dream / Patti Smith --

Hendrix in black and white / Charles Shaar Murray -- These are the good old days / Joel Selvin -- Next year in San Francisco / Richard Goldstein -- Return of the king / Peter Guralnick -- Riding the lapping tongue / Terry Southern -- I dreamed I was onstage with Kiss in my Maidenform bra / Jaan Uhelszki -- Worth dying for / Bob Marley and Timothy White -- A life at the crossroads / Anthony DeCurtis -- I wanna know if love is real / Dave Marsh -- Primadonna / Joyce Millman -- Precious oddball / Jon Pareles -- Articulate speech of the heart / Gavin Martin -- Testimony in the payola hearings / Mae Boren Axton -- The plane crash / Unknown -- A fool in love / Tina Turner with Kurt Loder -- Merchants of filth / Dave Marsh -- More popular than Jesus / Maureen Cleave -- Inflatable Phil / Ronnie Spector with Vince Waldron -- Altamont / Stanley Booth -- Gear / Richard Goldstein -- Every inch of my love / Pamela Des Barres -- Free of old saints and martyrs / Don DeLillo -- The ballad of John and Yoko / John Lennon -- Ruined for life / Jon Savage -- Rock and roll tragedy / Robert McG. Thomas, Jr. -- Fed by things we hate / William S. Burroughs and Devo -- Statement to the Senate Commerce Committee / Frank Zappa -- Strangelove / Lynn Hirschberg -- Our little Satan / Jeffrey Rotter -- Treatise on the blues / Doc Pomus -- The T.A.M.I. show / James Brown with Bruce Tucker -- Rise of the sacred monsters / Patti Smith --

How does it feel? / Al Kooper with Ben Edmonds -- A teen-age hymn to God / Jules Siegel -- Waiting for Morrison / Joan Didion -- Woodstock Nation / Bill Graham and Robert Greenfield -- Video pioneer / Michael Lindsay-Hogg -- The load-out / Jackson Browne -- Tribal rites of the new Saturday night / Nik Cohn -- Punk apostles / Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain -- Integrating MTV / Tom McGrath -- Licensed to download / Jason Gross -- Girl groups / Lucy O'Brien -- A change is gonna come / Daniel Wolff -- Life according to Motown / Patricia Smith -- Otis Redding, king of them all / Jon Landau -- Dan and Spooner / Robert Gordon -- The queen of soul / Jerry Wexler with David Ritz -- Soul men / Gerri Hirshey -- The Commitments / Roddy Doyle -- What's going on / David Ritz -- The mothership connection / Rickey Vincent -- My father named me Prince / Michael Gonzales -- Hip-hop defined / Greg Tate -- Little Willie John / Joe McEwen -- Rock lyrics are poetry (maybe) / Robert Christgau -- All along the watchtower / Paul Williams -- Reviews of After the Goldrush and Live Dead / J. R. Young -- Of cock rock kings and other dinosaurs / Cintra Wilson -- Inside the cages of the zoo / Ellen Sander -- The delicacy of rock and roll / Dave Hickey -- Fanzine / Jeff Gomez -- Psychotic reactions and carburetor dung / Lester Bangs -- Saving Jimi / Lewis Shiner -- Where were you when Elvis died? / Lester Bangs -- Statement to the press / Yoko Ono -- More than "The Piano Player" / Joel Selvin -- Kurt Cobain's road from nowhere / Mikal Gilmore -- Save the last dance for me / Phil Spector.