Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music

Foreword by Sasha Frere-Jones.
Afterword by Daphne Carr and Evie Nagy.

In 1968, the New Yorker hired Ellen Willis as its first popular music critic. Her column, Rock, Etc., ran for seven years and established Willis as a leader in cultural commentary and a pioneer in the nascent and otherwise male-dominated field of rock criticism. "Out of the Vinyl Deeps" collects for the first time Willis?s Rock, Etc. columns and her other writings about popular music, claiming her rightful place in rock music criticism.

"I?d call Ellen Willis the Ida Lupino of music writing, but even that wouldn?t say enough about this book's value. 'Out of the Vinyl Deeps' is a time capsule, the publication of which invigorates and illuminates our grasp of the period it covers -but it is also a timeless compendium of clear thinking and fresh, humane, and persuasive prose" (Jonathan Lethem)



"Finally, Willis?s game-changing music writing is available in one place. It is like unearthing the holy grail of rock criticism!" (Kathleen Hanna)

"A pleasure to read and a crucial challenge when truly considered, Willis?s essays on rock, freedom, sex, and dancing in your bedroom continue to teach me every time I return to them" (Ann Powers)

"As a writer and a thinker, Willis set out many of the ideas that define my calling to this day. The persona she established was pretty cool too - skeptical, sexual, and political; affectionate, vulgar, and very smart" (Robert Christgau)

CONTENIDO:

Foreword: Opening the Vault (Sasha Frere-Jones)

Introduction: Wake-up Call (Nona Willis Aronowitz)

Before the Flood
-"Dylan," from Cheetah (1967)

1. The World-Class Critic
-"Two Soul Albums" (November 1968)
-"The Who Sell" (July 1969)
-"Songs of Innocence and Experience" (February 1970)
-"'New Morning': Dylan Revisited" (December 1970)
-"Breaking the Vinyl Barrier" (July 1971)
-"Morrison Live" (June 1972)
-"'Elvis Presley? In Person?'" (July 1972)
-"Bowie's Limitations" (October 1972)
-"Frankenstein at the Waldorf" (November 1973)
-"The Rolling Stones Now" (December 1973)
-"The Best of '74" (January 1975)
-Liner notes from Lou Reed's Rock and Roll Diary, 1967?1980 (1980)
-"The Velvet Underground," from Greil Marcus's Stranded (1979)
-"The Decade in Rock Lyrics," from Village Voice (January 1980)
-"The New Talking World War III Blues," from Salon.com (2001)

2. The Adoring Fan
-"The Big Ones" (February 1969)
-"East versus West" (July 1971)
-"Their Generation" (August 1971)
-"Yesterday's Papers" (August 1972)
-"Creedence As Therapy" (September 1972)
-"Believing Bette Midler, Mostly" (December 1973)
-"Dylan and Fans: Looking Back, Going On" (February 1974)
-"The Abyss," from Village Voice (June 1979)

3. The Sixties Loyalist
-"Pop Ecumenicism" (May 1968)
-"Randy Newman" (August 1971)
-"George and John" (February 1971)
-"Consumer Revolt" (September 1971)
-"My Grand Funk Problem?and Ours" (February 1972)
-"Into the Seventies, for Real" (December 1972)
-"Roseland Nation" (October 1973)
-"Sympathy for the Stones" (July 1975)
-"Creedence Clearwater Revival," from Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock 'n' Roll (1980)
-"Janis Joplin," from Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock 'n' Roll (1980)
-Selections from "Don't Turn Your Back on Love," Liner Notes to Janis, a Janis Joplin Box Set (1993)

4. The Feminist
-"But Now I'm Gonna Move" (October 1971)
-"Joni Mitchell: Still Traveling" (March 1973)
-"Women's Music" (June 1974)
-"After the Flood" (April 1975)
-"Beginning to See the Light," Village Voice (1977)
-Preface to Barbara O'Dair's Trouble Girls: The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock (1997)

5. The Navigator
-"Newport: You Can't Go Down Home Again" (August 1968)
-"The Scene, 1968" (November 1968)
-"Summer of Love in Queens" (July 1969)
-"Elvis in Las Vegas" (August 1969)
-"The Cultural Revolution Saved from Drowning" (September 1969)
-"Stranger in a Strange Land" (December 1969)
-"The Return of the Dolls" (January 1973)
-"San Francisco Habitat" (August 1973)

6. The Sociologist
-"Pop Blues" (April 1968)
-"The Ordeal of Moby Grape" (June 1968)
-"The Star, the Sound, and the Scene" (July 1968)
-"Roots" (February 1969)
-"Dylan's Anti-Surprise" (April 1969)
-"Elliott Murphy's White Middle Class Blues" (February 1974)
-"Mott the Hoople: Playing the Loser's Game" (May 1974)
-"Springsteen: The Wild, the Innocent, and the Street Kid Myth" (November 1974)
-"The Importance of Stevie Wonder" (December 1974)
-Introduction to Beginning to See the Light: Sex, Hope, and Rock 'n' Roll (1981)

Afterword: Raise Your Hand (Daphne Carr and Evie Nagy)