Peter Guralnick

Writer in Residence

Peter Guralnick has been called "a national resource" by Nat Hentoff for work that has argued passionately and persuasively for the vitality of this country's intertwined black and white musical traditions. His books include the prize-winning two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love. Of the first Bob Dylan wrote, “Elvis steps from the pages. You can feel him breathe. This book cancels out all others.” He won a Grammy for his liner notes for Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club and wrote and coproduced the documentary Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll as well as writing the Grammy-winning documentary Sam Cooke/Legend and Martin Scorsese’s blues documentary Feel Like Going Home. Other books include an acclaimed trilogy on American roots music, Sweet Soul Music, Lost Highway, and Feel Like Going Home; the biographical inquiry Searching for Robert Johnson; and the novel, Nighthawk Blues. His latest book, Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, has been hailed as "monumental, panoramic, an epic tale told against a backdrop of brilliant, shimmering music, intense personal melodrama, and vast social changes.” He is currently working on a biography of Sam Phillips.

Peter Guralnick is currently working on a biography of Sam Phillips, to be published by Little, Brown in 2014. He is also working on an expanded version of the Sam Phillips documentary he wrote and co-produced in 2000, to be released as a DVD simultaneously with the book, as well as feature-film adaptations of his biographies of Elvis Presley and Sam Cooke. Future projects include a series of blues albums, featuring previously unreleased “live” recordings by some of the great rediscovered blues singers of the ‘60s, and a collection of loosely connected short stories that he has been working on for the last several years.