Since it was first published in 1975, Mystery Train has established itself as one of the best, most insightful, and fascinating essays on popular rock music ever written. His influence has not stopped growing over the years and his aesthetics have marked the future of music and cultural criticism. It was one of the first books that was able to see —and that made it clear— that rock & roll was not a minor art, but that some musicians and bands, some songs, projected a very powerful and inextinguishable image that explained as well as Moby Dick by Herman Melville or The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald the greatness and contradictions of America, its miseries and its glory, the origin and consecration of its myths.
Using the songs of six leading musicians and bands, Greil Marcus traces the emotional geography and the Zeitgeist of an entire continent: from the revulsive Harmonica Frank through the tormented universe of Robert Johnson's devilish blues; of The Band and its dream to build a community from uprooting to the frictions and terrors that erupt in that community from Sly and the Family Stone; from talent on the fringes of the industry and Randy Newman's fight for creative freedom to the excessive ambition and talent, debacle and resurrection of one of the most indisputable icons of rock and the 20th century: Elvis Presley.
Over the years, Greil Marcus has been expanding the second section of this volume —a magisterial lesson in music criticism—, the one devoted to commenting on the discography of the aforementioned musicians, which in this edition presents its most up-to-date version, notably more extensive than the previous one published in our language and with additions by the author especially written for this occasion. This edition of Mystery Train is thus the most complete and exhaustive published in any language to date.