Preston Lauterbach is the author of Bluff City, Beale Street Dynasty, The Chitlin’ Circuit, a Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe book of the year, and co-author of Brother Johnson: Growing Up with Robert Johnson. He is a former visiting scholar at Rhodes College and a Virginia Humanities Fellow. He lives in Virginia.

"Lauterbach spins the tale with enormous vitality and it's terribly fun to read. He masterfully explains the complex logistics of the entertainment industry, and studs the book with fascinating, little-known characters... The reader will finish with an overwhelming urge to turn up the volume." -- Kate Tuttle "A well-researched valentine to a lost world of seedy con men, promoters and club owners, the power brokers and hustlers who made the 'circuitry spark.'" -- Eddie Dean "...crucial to our understanding of late-20th-century pop music and all the more impressive for its exhaustive research. Preston Lauterbach's book-spirited, studious, surprising, occasionally hilarious-is absolutely persuasive on its subject." -- Stephen M. Deusner "Opens new doors in pop-music scholarship as well as American (and African-American) cultural history." -- Michaelangelo Matos "This sprawling, fascinating history drops readers into a chaotic, dangerous, utterly vanished world." -- John Repp "[T]he genius prequel to an oft-told epic."

Preston Lauterbach is the author of Bluff City, Beale Street Dynasty, The Chitlin’ Circuit, a Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe book of the year, and co-author of Brother Johnson: Growing Up with Robert Johnson. He is a former visiting scholar at Rhodes College and a Virginia Humanities Fellow. He lives in Virginia.

"Lauterbach spins the tale with enormous vitality and it's terribly fun to read. He masterfully explains the complex logistics of the entertainment industry, and studs the book with fascinating, little-known characters... The reader will finish with an overwhelming urge to turn up the volume." -- Kate Tuttle "A well-researched valentine to a lost world of seedy con men, promoters and club owners, the power brokers and hustlers who made the 'circuitry spark.'" -- Eddie Dean "...crucial to our understanding of late-20th-century pop music and all the more impressive for its exhaustive research. Preston Lauterbach's book-spirited, studious, surprising, occasionally hilarious-is absolutely persuasive on its subject." -- Stephen M. Deusner "Opens new doors in pop-music scholarship as well as American (and African-American) cultural history." -- Michaelangelo Matos "This sprawling, fascinating history drops readers into a chaotic, dangerous, utterly vanished world." -- John Repp "[T]he genius prequel to an oft-told epic."

Preston Lauterbach is the author of Bluff City, Beale Street Dynasty, The Chitlin’ Circuit, a Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe book of the year, and co-author of Brother Johnson: Growing Up with Robert Johnson. He is a former visiting scholar at Rhodes College and a Virginia Humanities Fellow. He lives in Virginia.

"Lauterbach spins the tale with enormous vitality and it's terribly fun to read. He masterfully explains the complex logistics of the entertainment industry, and studs the book with fascinating, little-known characters... The reader will finish with an overwhelming urge to turn up the volume." -- Kate Tuttle "A well-researched valentine to a lost world of seedy con men, promoters and club owners, the power brokers and hustlers who made the 'circuitry spark.'" -- Eddie Dean "...crucial to our understanding of late-20th-century pop music and all the more impressive for its exhaustive research. Preston Lauterbach's book-spirited, studious, surprising, occasionally hilarious-is absolutely persuasive on its subject." -- Stephen M. Deusner "Opens new doors in pop-music scholarship as well as American (and African-American) cultural history." -- Michaelangelo Matos "This sprawling, fascinating history drops readers into a chaotic, dangerous, utterly vanished world." -- John Repp "[T]he genius prequel to an oft-told epic."