Ryan Adams: Losering, a Story of Whiskeytown

David Menconi

Published by University of Texas Press 2012

Ryan Adams

Losering, a Story of Whiskeytown

David Menconi

In the series American Music Series

https://doi.org/10.7560/725843

Overview
Contents

About this book

Before he achieved his dream of being an internationally known rock personality, Ryan Adams had a band in Raleigh, North Carolina. Whiskeytown led the wave of insurgent-country bands that came of age with No Depression magazine in the mid-1990s, and for many people it defined the era. Adams was an irrepressible character, one of the signature personalities of his generation, and as a singer-songwriter he blew people away with a mature talent that belied his youth. David Menconi witnessed most of Whiskeytown’s rocket ride to fame as the music critic for the Raleigh News & Observer, and in Ryan Adams, he tells the inside story of the singer’s remarkable rise from hardscrabble origins to success with Whiskeytown, as well as Adams’s post-Whiskeytown self-reinvention as a solo act.

Menconi draws on early interviews with Adams, conversations with people close to him, and Adams’s extensive online postings to capture the creative ferment that produced some of Adams’s best music, including the albums Strangers Almanac and Heartbreaker. He reveals that, from the start, Ryan Adams had an absolutely determined sense of purpose and unshakable confidence in his own worth. At the same time, his inability to hold anything back, whether emotions or torrents of songs, often made Adams his own worst enemy, and Menconi recalls the excesses that almost, but never quite, derailed his career. Ryan Adams is a fascinating, multifaceted portrait of the artist as a young man, almost famous and still inventing himself, writing songs in a blaze of passion.

Author / Editor information

David Menconi has been the music critic at the Raleigh News & Observer since 1991, and he misses the days when it was possible to see Whiskeytown play in Raleigh every week. His writing has also appeared in Spin, Billboard, the New York Times, and a host of publications that regrettably no longer exist. Chief among the latter is No Depression magazine, for which he was a contributing editor. His byline appeared in every issue except one during the magazine’s thirteen-year run.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Part one: Before
Chapter One Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter Two Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
Chapter Three Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
Part Two: During
Chapter Four Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
Chapter Five Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
Chapter Six Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	67
Chapter Seven Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
Chapter Eight Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
Chapter Nine Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
Chapter Ten Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	107
Chapter Eleven Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
Chapter Twelve Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
Part Three: After
Chapter Thirteen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Chapter Fourteen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
Chapter Fifteen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
Chapter Sixteen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
Chapter Seventeen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
Selected Discography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201

Language: English
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 224

eBook

Published: July 25, 2012
ISBN: 9780292744592