synposis:Throughout all his work, and also in 'mystery train', Greil Marcus has been concerned not merely with rock 'n' roll on its own, divorced from the greater culture, but with the role it plays in the cultural life of America as a whole. For many cultural critics, Elvis presley was a disruption with what came before. For Marcus, as he writes in 'mystery train', Elvis is a natural outgrowth of primary trends in American life. marcus illustrates this by describing Robert Johnson, in which he emerges as the natural heir to the Puritans, because, like them, Johnson takes the Devil seriously.

Not just in writing about Johnson or Elvis, Marcus seems to believe that there is something uniquely American about rock 'n' roll, as if it were an outgrowth of the American spirit and soul. It is, according to marcus, a part of American history in a way that it is not a part of English history, even if many British bands could take up rock 'n' roll and play it as well or better than its American creators.

on this book:

Marcus wants to go below surfaces to what lies beneath and therefore sometimes makes statements that by many historians are seen as wrong. together with critics like nik cohn (see Awopbopaloobopalopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock) and jon savage (see "History is made by those who say no."), marcus describes music in its cultural context, not from an objective point of view, but in a passionate way.see also: lipstick traces - a secret history of msp [phrases]
"what appealed to me were its gaps..."