ZE Books has announced the release of Joe McEwen’s ‘Tastykakes, Soul Songs and Shining Stars’ on April 28, a labor of love – half a century in the making – from a respected music industry stalwart. A Philadelphia native and an A&R executive for Columbia, Sire/Warner Brothers, Verve, and Concord Music Group – McEwen gathers a lifetime’s worth of encounters, essays, and reveries into one radiant collection, a love letter to rhythm-and-blues and soul music. Its pages are bursting with vivid, compelling, up-front and personal profiles (predominantly written by McEwen while working as a music journalist in the 1970s) with a host of indelible figures: Pops and Mavis Staples, George Clinton, Allen Toussaint, Betty Wright, Michael Jackson, Gamble and Huff, Don Covay, and many more.
“This book is meant to be a fan’s notes with, as its heart and soul, a collection of profiles all written between 1973 and 1978,” reflects McEwen in the book’s introduction. “While rereading these during Covid down time, the vitality of the voices and the vivid memories reconnected me with feelings and emotions that had been long stored in my mental attic. I thought they deserved a second airing.”
Alongside these portraits of legends at the peak of their powers are heartfelt musings spanning the 1960s through the ’80s – illuminating the creative processes behind the songs that defined a generation. Interwoven throughout are reflections on basketball, memory, and movement — parallel sources of rhythm, improvisation, and joy. The book culminates in an extended 2024 conversation with esteemed music author and longtime confidant Peter Guralnick (Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke), a fitting finale to a collection that captures the soul of a lifetime in music.
“This is a tribute to some of the music and artists that have provided me with the building blocks, the sturdy foundation for a career and a never-ending journey of wonder,” McEwen summarizes as the book’s final chapter concludes. “I saw James Brown at the Arena in West Philadelphia in the fall of 1966. It was the first music performance I had ever attended. Somewhere inside remains the heart of a 16-year-old kid at the Arena, overcome by a sense of uncomprehending, incredulous amazement at the drama and spectacle unfolding before me.”