Recently published by ZE Books, ‘Tastykakes, Soul Songs and Shining Stars’ is a rich and passionate record of a life-long obsession with soul music and Rhythm & Blues from music industry stalwart Joe McEwen, legendary A&R man for acts including Elvis Costello, Paul Simon, K.D. Lang, Wilco, Nick Lowe, Built To Spill, Queen Latifah, the Frank Sinatra catalogue, and many others. Jeb Loy Nichols reviews, finding 230 pages of reasons to remember why we love music.

Fragments are the only form I trust. – Donald Barthelme

Let’s begin where we should always begin, by saying thank you. Joe McEwan has given us something to be thankful for; his book Tastykakes, Soul Songs & Shining Stars is, in turn, is a thank you letter to the soundtrack of his life. It’s told in a series of gathered fragments, like scribbles on the back of an endless collection of ticket stubs. Joe McEwan reminds us not only of the heartbreaking beauty of American Cosmic Music, but of an essential fact: it’s all about the music. In this age of the gaze, it’s sometimes hard to remember that music isn’t about looking, it’s about hearing. In Emmett Grogan’s book Ringolevio, he told us that one of the great mistakes of modern culture is our inability to remember a simple truth: It’s The Song, Not The Singer. Joe McEwan reminds us.  

A friend of mine recently gave me a biography of a well known musician. When asked, a month later, if I’d read it, I confessed that not only hadn’t I, I had no intention of doing so. He asked me why. I said that, for me, the attraction of art is bound up in mystery. It’s all about discovery. Reading about an artist, about their life, their likes and dislikes, their opinions, having them explained, robs the art of mystery. It becomes an exercise in knowing. I want to go back to the first moment of hearing; to that first moment of not knowing. To the moment I said, what the hell is this? I want to go back and stay there. 

That’s where Joe McEwan takes us. He takes us back to the first moment of a new thing. He says: this is what I heard, this is what I felt. He doesn’t try and tell us who Joe Tex is, he tells us what Joe Tex did. Who could ever explain Michael Jackson or Betty Wright or George Clinton? Joe McEwan doesn’t make that mistake; he tells us what he heard and what it meant to him.  He’s an enthusiast.  He’s a cheerleader for all the good stuff. He gives us 230 pages of reasons to remember why we love music. It’s not about him; it’s about that first burst of excitement you get when you collide with the unmeager world of music.

One thing I’m reminded of, while reading this, is that there’s no such thing as a genius. Genius is more along the lines of a verb than a noun. Genius resides not in people but in deeds. Shakespeare wasn’t a genius. Nor Mozart or Stevie Wonder or Picasso or Curtis Mayfield. They were people who did what they did. They made mistakes and they wronged people and they were difficult and easy to offend. They were also the opposite. Genius, when it happens, is a song, a gesture, a greeting, a picture. It’s about what remains and what doesn’t. Stevie Wonder gave us moments of genius. As did James Brown. Ditto Muhammad Ali. They got lucky and occasionally it all came together and it was there for a minute and they captured it. Genius is the Thing, the act.  Genius is the moment, not the person. And the moment either lasts or it doesn’t. It’s recognised or it isn’t. Joe McEwan’s book is about these moments of passing genius. The genius of Miami Soul, of Don Covay, of Dan Penn, of basketball, of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.

I once read a story about an ancient Japanese monk who tried to determine which was a greater work of art, a painted screen or a cricket. He pondered the question for months and finally came to the conclusion that both were perfect and both were imperfect. Both, he said, were distinct and pleasant. Both served a function. Both existed on many levels. Both were impermanent. The question, he said, isn’t about which is greatest, but which is remembered. Joe McEwan’s gift is his remembering. His ability to both say I was there and it’s not about me. At no point does his ego get in the way. It’s all about the music. It’s about the uncertain pathways of memory, about the joy of remembering, about the depth and width of a life well lived. My father once explained to me what it means to live honestly. Find your place, he said. A real place of dirt and stone and stay there. Move in. Apologise. Take what you need. Make a friend and be quiet.

Joe McEwan found his place and moved in. He set up home in the world of music and has never left. You can find him there still, with his neighbours Swamp Dogg and Aretha Franklin and Frank Sinatra and Sam Cooke. It’s a good, honest neighbourhood and Joe McEwan sits at its funky heart. We’re lucky to have him. Thank you Joe.

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‘Tastykakes, Soul Songs and Shining Stars’ by Joe McEwen is out now and available here (ZE Books, £14.24).