Paul Muldoon's Five Favorite Rock-And-Roll Books

When the New York Times Magazine recently asked, What Makes a Writer Want to Rock Out? it was primarily thinking about fiction writers. But what about poets? If you were in New York yesterday, you might have gone to see Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Paul Muldoon and his band, Wayside Shrines, perform songs at Joe's Pub from his most recent  collection, The Word on the Street: Rock Lyrics.

Sadly, we were not in New York yesterday, and we are not in New York today, but we're reading Muldoon's list of  favorite rock-and-roll books over at The Daily Beast. The list includes some obvious classics, like Keith Richard's Life, but also some more unexpected choices like The Chitlin’ Circuit: And the Road to Rock ’n’ Roll, by Preston Lauterbach. Muldoon writes:

Among those precursors to whom Keith Richards is deeply indebted are the blues guitarists so memorably summoned up in Preston Lauterbach’s The Chitlin’ Circuit: And the Road to Rock ’n’ Roll, including his near namesake Little Richard.

You'll find the rest of the list on The Daily Beast.