Not Fade Away: A Backstage Pass to 20 Years of Rock & Roll

Where rock scribes are concerned, you've got provocateurs of the Lester Bangs school, academics of the Greil Marcus variety, and the nuts-and-bolts sorts who, while perhaps less colorful wordsmiths, excel at capturing their subjects by putting them at ease. Early Rolling Stone contributor/editor Ben Fong-Torres may be the best known and most durable member of that third school. Not Fade Away gathers 34 Fong-Torres profiles and interviews ranging from Woodstock-era pieces centering on Sly Stone and Janis Joplin to '80s articles on Eddie Murphy and Tom Hanks. Despite the occasional foray into film writing, Not Fade Away centers around rock & roll. Solid journalist that he is, Fong-Torres can stretch from James Brown to Neil Diamond, from Bob Dylan to Iggy Pop--all without straining. Vignettes update and add color to Fong-Torres's out-of-the-archives articles. --Steven Stolder