Musicians - Peter Guralnick

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	Musicians - Peter Guralnick

Peter Guralnick (born December 15, 1943 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American music critic, author, screenwriter, and historian of American popular music.

Peter Guralnick graduated from Boston University in 1971 with a master's degree in creative writing. He has authored several books chronicling the history of blues, country, rock and roll, and soul; his 1994 biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis, is considered by many fans and critics as the definitive work on the icon. The 1999 book, Careless Love:The Unmaking of Elvis Presley completed Guralnick's massive examination of Presley's life. The two books encompass more than 1,300 pages, some 1,150 of which are text. The quality of his work on Presley led to Guralnick being selected by Rolling Stone to contribute to the Presley section in their book, The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll.

In contrast to contemporaries such as Lester Bangs and Nick Tosches, whose music writing is marked by an idiosyncratic, self-referential, and highly personal style, Guralnick's writing is characterized by a style that is, though colloquial, clean and understated by comparison. In his best passages, Guralnick shows an uncanny ability to simultaneously empathize and remain objective. Above all, Guralnick writes as a fan of music; his enthusiasm powers his writing but doesn't overpower it.

Guralnick was hired to write the script for the A&E television documentary, Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll narrated by Billy Bob Thornton. He also wrote the script for the video production, Sam Cooke - Legend that was narrated by Jeffrey Wright.

Books

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