Home » Tastykakes, Soul Songs & Shining Stars
Product Image

Tastykakes, Soul Songs & Shining Stars

Joe McEwen
€19.99
Quantity:
In stock with our UK publisher. 14-28 days
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days
14 days return policy Shipping & Delivery
A01=Joe McEwen
Al Green
Aretha Franklin
Author_Joe McEwen
basketball
Betty Wright
Category=AV
Category=AVC
Category=AVLP
Category=DNL
Columbia records
Don Covay
Elvis Costello
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
forthcoming
George Clinton
George Clinton Stevie Wonder
Greil Marcus
Hanif Abdurraqib
Jackson 5
Joe Boyd
Joe Tex
Johnny Mandel
k.d. lang
Kelefa Sanneh
Marvin Gaye
Michael Jackson
Motor City Soul
music criticism
Music essays
music memoir
Nick Lowe
Paul Simon
Peter Guralnick
Philadelphia
Queen Latifah
Questlove
r and b
rhythm and blues
SireWarner Bros.
Sonny and Cher
soul music
Staple Singers
The Drifters
The Staple Singers
The Temptations
Verve Records
Wilco

Product details

  • ISBN 9798988670124
  • Dimensions: 140 x 210mm
  • Publication Date: 11 Jun 2026
  • Publisher: ZE Books
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Paperback
Secure checkout Fast Shipping Easy returns
Description
Tastykakes, Soul Songs and Shining Stars is a rich and passionate record of a life-long obsession with soul music and Rhythm & Blues from music industry stalwart Joe McEwen, legendary A&R man for acts including Elvis Costello, Paul Simon, K.D. Lang, Wilco, Nick Lowe, Built To Spill, Queen Latifah, the Frank Sinatra catalogue, and many others. 

Tastykakes, Soul Songs and Shining Stars is a labor of love, half a century in the making, for music industry veteran Joe McEwen. A Philadelphia native and legendary A&R executive for Columbia, Sire/Warner Brothers, Verve, and Concord Music Group, McEwen now McEwen gathers a lifetime’s worth of encounters, essays, and reveries into one radiant collection—a love letter to the rhythm-and-blues and soul music that shaped him. 

Its pages are bursting with vivid, compelling, up-front and personal profiles and encounters with a host of important figures: Pops and Mavis Staples, George Clinton, Allen Toussaint, Betty Wright, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Don Covay, and many more. Alongside these portraits are heartfelt musings spanning the 1960s through the ’80s, illuminating the creative processes behind the songs that defined a generation. 

Interwoven throughout are reflections on basketball, memory, and movement—parallel sources of rhythm, improvisation, and joy. The book culminates in an extended 2024 conversation with esteemed music author and longtime confidant Peter Guralnick (Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke), a fitting finale to a collection that captures the soul of a lifetime in music.
About Joe McEwen
Joe McEwen was born in Philadelphia and raised in the near suburbs, where his affection for soul, R&B, blues, and jazz thrived.  His first major experiences as a music writer and critic and radio DJ took place in and around his college years in Boston, writing for the Boston Phoenix and Real Paper, and graduating to the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and other outlets in the US and UK. He contributed five chapters to the original Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll (1976), to Greil Marcus' Stranded (1978), and numerous anthologies. His first book was Sam Cooke: The Man Who Invented Soul (Sire Books/ Chappell Music Company, 1977).  Joe McEwen currently resides in Laguna Niguel, California.

More from this author