A Rolling Stone Best Music Book of the Year, this is an electrifying, “superb” (The Atlantic), and “entirely fresh” (Rolling Stone) journey through the history of rock and roll, told through the lives of fifteen iconic drummers and their percussion rivals—from John Bonham and Charlie Watts to Ringo Starr and Questlove.Rock and roll thrives on rhythm, but the drummers who drive that pulse often stay in the shadows. In Backbeats, a...

An intimate account of country music, social change, and a vanishing way of life as a Shenandoah town collides with the twenty-first centuryWinchester, Virginia is an emblematic American town. When John Lingan first traveled there, it was to seek out Jim McCoy: local honky-tonk owner and the DJ who first gave airtime to a brassy-voiced singer known as Patsy Cline, setting her on a course for fame that outlasted her tragically short life. What Lingan found was a tow...

The definitive biography of Creedence Clearwater Revival, exploring the band's legendary rise to fame and how their music embodied the cultural landscape of the late '60s and early '70sFrom 1969 to 1971, as the United States convulsed with political upheaval and transformative social movements, no band was bigger than Creedence Clearwater Revival. They managed a two-year barrage of top-10 singles and LPs that doubled as an ubiquitous soundtrack to one of the most v...

A Rolling Stone Best Music Book of the Year, this is an electrifying, “superb” (The Atlantic), and “entirely fresh” (Rolling Stone) journey through the history of rock and roll, told through the lives of fifteen iconic drummers and their percussion rivals—from John Bonham and Charlie Watts to Ringo Starr and Questlove.Rock and roll thrives on rhythm, but the drummers who drive that pulse often stay in the shadows. In Backbeats, a...

A Rolling Stone Best Music Book of 2025, this is an electrifying, “superb” (Atlantic), and “entirely fresh” (Rolling Stone) journey through the history of rock and roll, told through the lives of fifteen iconic drummers and their percussion rivals—from John Bonham and Charlie Watts to Ringo Starr and Questlove.**Rock and roll thrives on rhythm, but the drummers who drive that pulse often stay in the shadows. In Backbeats, acclai...

The definitive biography of Creedence Clearwater Revival, exploring the band's legendary rise to fame and how their music embodied the cultural landscape of the late '60s and early '70sFrom 1969 to 1971, as the United States convulsed with political upheaval and transformative social movements, no band was bigger than Creedence Clearwater Revival. They managed a two-year barrage of top-10 singles and LPs that doubled as an ubiquitous soundtrack to one of the most v...