Anarchy In The Music City! The Other Side of Nashville's Musical Pioneers (2021 book)

Since the early 1960s, Nashville has been known worldwide as the "Music City" for its robust country and gospel music industries. For over 40 years now, Nashville has also been home to a thriving hotbed of rock, blues, rap, and Americana music. "The Other Side of Nashville" has grown from a few makeshift bands playing original songs and scraping for gigs into an internationally-respected scene that has attracted creative immigrants from across the globe.

Anarchy In The Music City! is an oral history of the origins and evolution of Nashville's alternative music scene as told by the pioneers that made the music. Using artist interviews culled from the pages of Rev. Keith A. Gordon's critically-acclaimed book The Other Side of Nashville, this illustrated volume includes conversations with both well-known music-makers like Jason & the Scorchers, Webb Wilder, Tony Gerber, David Olney, and Chagall Guevara as well as regional cult rockers like Tommy Womack, the Dusters, Donna Frost, and Aashid Himons, among many others.  

The “Reverend of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Rev. Gordon has been writing about rock and blues music for 50 years. A former contributor to the All Music Guide books and website, and the former Blues Expert for About.com, Rev. Gordon has written or edited 25 previous music-related books and eBooks, including Blues Deluxe: The Joe Bonamassa Buying Guide, Planet of Sound, The Other Side of Nashville, and Scorched Earth: A Jason & the Scorchers Scrapbook.

Buy an autographed copy for $14.99 directly from the Reverend! (U.S. orders only)

 

 

Prefer to buy from Amazon.com? Here's a link to the print version of Anarchy In The Music City! (also available as a Kindle eBook)

Scorched Earth: A Jason & the Scorchers Scrapbook (2013 book)

Scorched Earth: A Jason & the Scorchers Scrapbook was a true labor of love for writer Rev. Keith A. Gordon and photographer/graphic designer Paul Needham, both longtime fans of the band. The 92 page trade paperback (7.5" x 9.25") features a truly electric cover photo by Tony Mottram and over three dozen B&W interior photos, including many rare, unpublished live shots from Needham's private stash. Needham's dynamic graphic design is befitting the band's high-voltage live performance style. 

The words in Scorched Earth are by Rev. Gordon, who has been covering Jason & the Nashville Scorchers since the very beginning, the scrapbook offering up interviews with Jason Ringenberg, Warner Hodges, and band manager Jack Emerson from across the Scorchers' lengthy career (1984 through 2010) as well as an illustrated discography and reviews of all the band's albums, including releases from Farmer Jason and the Bluefields.

Scorched Earth was created for the dedicated Scorchers fan and includes editorial content from Gordon's The Other Side of Nashville book alongside long out-of-print material from several obscure publications. The book can be ordered for $12.00 postpaid in the United States (no overseas or Canadian purchase available...sorry).

To order the United States, use this link ($12.00 postpaid):

The Other Side of Nashville: An Incomplete History & Discography of the Nashville Rock Underground, 1976-2006 (2012 book)

The Other Side of Nashville is a big-ass book, 8.5" x 11" and 620 pages, sub-titled "An Incomplete History & Discography of the Nashville Rock Underground, 1976-2006." The book covers the growth and evolution of Nashville's non-country music scene as witnessed firsthand and documented by the Rev. Keith A. Gordon, who was there on the street in the 1980s and '90s as it happened.

The final tally for the book is 500+ artists/bands listed and around 540 photos of bands, CD and LP covers, posters, and other Music City memorabilia in a profusely-illustrated volume. The Other Side of Nashville cover was created by artist Tim Shawl. Tim created a dynamic cover for the book that makes it stand out. Tim, some may remember, created some of the most memorable covers for the old Metro magazine in Nashville during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The Other Side of Nashville has a cover price of $29.95 and can be ordered from Amazon.com by using this link, or you can get a copy directly from the Reverend by using the PayPal link below.

Here's the deal on direct orders...the cost of this monster 620-page trade paperback book is $33.00 with shipping at the Media Mail rate (slower than Priority, but still pretty fast!). The PayPal link below is good for U.S. orders only, but the book is available from Amazon.com worldwide.


Buy The Other Side of Nashville from Excitable Press: