"When I first met Jerry Lee Lewis I was so intimidated I took my Jerry Lee Lewis Fan Club membership card out of my wallet and showed it to him. On another level, what made these relationships difficult is that I've always wanted to understand and empathize, but I also felt a responsibility to report the truth as I saw it.

"When I first spoke to Charlie Rich at the Vapors in Memphis, I had never met anyone I liked more on first acquaintance. What he told me that night, however, was a story of guilt and alcoholism and crippling self-consciousness and feeling unsuited to the life he led. When it came to writing the piece, I wanted to be empathetic but felt obligated to portray him honestly.

"As I wrote it I thought, 'This is terrible: Here's a guy I really like and he'll never want to talk to me again.' As it turned out, when the book with the essay about Charlie finally came out, I got a call from the secretary at [my publisher] Outerbridge and Dienstfrey, who told me that Charlie had called and ordered around 30 copies of the book to give to everyone in his family. He told her he liked the book because it was the truth; it wasn't flattering but it was the truth.

"I have never written on assignment," says Guralnick, and there can be no doubt that the impetus for his close-up portraits of musicians stems from a deep affinity for their work. But the very quality that gives his writing its intensity is also what separates it from most consumer-oriented music journalism.

In reviewing "Careless Love," a critic praised Guralnick's reluctance to judge his characters while castigating him for "being too easy on the Colonel." I mention this to Guralnick, wondering whether a work motivated by affection can also be critical.

"When I started there was no such thing as a rock critic, and I never would have chosen that path," he replies. "I consider what I do writing, not music writing or criticism per se. But I think of Edmund Wilson or George Orwell celebrating writers who they admired and trying to point the reader towards a similar admiration -- that's the kind of criticism that I value most.

"I don't think you have to get up on a soapbox and shout out your opinions to announce them. They are implicit in your writing. What you put in and what you leave out are tantamount to a critical point of view. I think there are a good many critical perspectives on the music expressed in the Elvis biography, for example, but they may be passed over by people who are only going to recognize A plus or D as the grades of criticism."

As we speak, Guralnick is getting ready for a 4 a.m. flight to Florida, where he will conduct another round of interviews for the Sam Cooke book, a project he says he has wanted to do for years. "I love doing it; I've loved doing it from the beginning," he says of his work, and one is inclined to believe him. He continues to write fiction and is the author of "10 or 12" novels. When I ask about new music he remains sanguine, advising me "not to cling to the old forms" and professing enthusiasm for the records of Alvin Youngblood Hart, Steve Earle and Nick Lowe.

"I only had two ambitions in my life," Guralnick says. "One was to be a writer and the other was to play baseball. One of my biggest regrets is that I never played on the baseball team at Columbia. In my fantasy life, I would watch every pitcher on TV and say, 'I could hit that guy.'"

I suggest that had things gone differently in 1968, he could have faced the St. Louis Cardinals' Bob Gibson in the World Series.

"He was a personal hero of mine," Guralnick says a little sadly. "But I never thought I could hit Bob Gibson."

Recent Stories