11 books to give music lovers this holiday season

Giving the gift of music is always a winner for the holidays — concert tickets, vinyl albums, gift cards and even earplugs. Some music lovers appreciate reading about their favorite artists or obsessing over photos of them.

Here are some suggestions from this year’s crop of music books.

In the year of the Brat (Charli XCX), Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift is still the queen. There are two Taylor books of note to consider for your gift list. “Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music” (Dey Street, $27.99) is an unfortunate mouthful of a title but author Rob Sheffield, a thoughtful and clever columnist for Rolling Stone, insightfully and cannily explains all things about Taylor — her popularity, songwriting, marketing, etc. Although Sheffield comes across more as a fan boy than a critic, he has delivered the perfect book for parents to learn why their daughters adore Taylor.

For those adoring Swifties, “Taylor Swift — The Eras Tour Book” (sold exclusively at Target, $39.99) is a must-have. Along with a handful of reflections from Tay Tay, the photo-intensive book features official Era Tour photos of backstage, rehearsals, onstage closeups, her guitars and microphones, as well as shots of the recently added “The Tortured Poets Department” era concert segment that we didn’t see at U.S. Bank Stadium in June 2023.

Speaking of photo books, “Prince: Icon” (ACC Art Books, $75) is the Purple coffee-table showpiece fams have been waiting for. While photographers like Steve Parke and Afshin Shahidi have published terrific books of their Prince photos, “Icon” collects photos from 18 photographers from Europe and the States, including such Minnesotans as Greg Helgeson and Nancy Bundt. Especially striking are the concert shots by Claude Gassian (including Prince doing flying splits) and the offstage photos by Dafydd Jones, Sophie Roux, Parke and Shahidi as well as the caricatures by graphic artist Robert Risko that close the book.

Bruce Springsteen has been the subject of many books over the years, including his own massive 2021 memoir, “Born to Run,” but there’s been nothing like “Springsteen @75″ (Motorbooks, $55). Photos capture long-haired Bruce, bearded Bruce, bandanna Bruce, buff Bruce, bolo tie Bruce, Barack Bruce, Broadway Bruce … all the way to graying Bruce, now 75 years old. Gillian G. Gaar writes short essays for all 75 entries, amounting to a gloriously illustrated Cliffs Notes on the Boss.

If you’re looking to understand some historical trends, veteran music journalists Geoffrey Himes and David Browne have commendable explorations.

Himes, a longtime contributor to Paste and the Washington Post, has coined a new genre in his book “In-Law Country” (CMF Press, $45.95). The subtitle explains “How Emmylou Harris, Rosanne Cash, and Their Circle Fashioned a New Kind of Country Music, 1968-1985.” Himes makes persuasive and articulate arguments that Harris, Cash, the Byrds, Gram Parsons, Guy Clark and others took country traditions and blended them with folk and rock innovations. Writes Himes: Harris “seemed to live on the boundary between reluctant confession and wordless swoon.” Today this music is dubbed Americana.

Rolling Stone writer Browne’s “Talkin’ Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America’s Bohemian Capital” (Hachette, $32.50) provides context and depth to the new Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” that focuses on the bard from 1961-65. Browne deftly chronicles the New York City folk scene at joints like Folk City, the Gaslight and Cafe Au Go Go and such artists as Dave Van Ronk, the Roches and, of course, Dylan. This is an insightful, skillfully written history even though there’s not much on the Village’s still-thriving jazz scene.

There are a bunch of new biographies that look at historical music figures, from Ella Fitzgerald to Joni Mitchell.

In “High and Rising: A Book About De La Soul” (Dey Street, $29.99), excellent music journalist Marcus J. Moore makes a case why this trio — Maseo, Posdnuos and the late Trugoy the Dove — belongs on the Mount Rushmore of hip-hop. “De La appealed to the Black alternative, to those who liked rap but also liked jazz and punk and maybe owned a skateboard and played an instrument in the school band.” He argues De La was so influential that, without them, there would be no Mos Def, Common, the Roots, Pharrell, Kanye West or Kendrick Lamar. The book provides perceptive perspective on hip-hop as an industry by tracing the challenges De La faced with their image and lawsuits over sampling. In fact, the two surviving De La Soul members have threatened to sue Moore over the unauthorized book reportedly because they plan their own autobiography.

“Traveling … On the Path of Joni Mitchell” (Dey Street, $35) is not a conventional biography. Rather it is longtime NPR critic Ann Powers’ intensely personal reflection on her life as she follows Mitchell’s career. The book is equal parts reportage, perspective and meditation. It’s a thoughtful, intellectual read that might surprise when Powers sours on Mitchell’s post-aneurysm comeback in recent years. “There was no way that the Joni who’d once flown so close to the clouds that she could see them from all angles, would return,” Powers writes. “She was grounded, a term that could describe someone at peace, but also a creature unable to soar.”

The first bio since her death in 1996, “Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song ” (Norton, $40) is a well-researched if dryly written look at the legendary vocalist who popularized the Great American Songbook. Since most of Fitzgerald’s contemporaries are dead, author Judith Tick, a professor emerita of music history at Northeastern University, relied on press coverage, especially Black publications like the Pittsburgh Courier and Baltimore Afro-American where the press-shy Fitzgerald tended to let her guard down a little. The great song stylist faced racism, sexism, fat-shaming and competition with Billie Holiday, but she had the fortitude, drive and voice to succeed.

Aussie writer Jeff Apter’s “Carl Perkins: The King of Rockabilly” (Kensington, $29) is a well-researched, straightforward bio of the man behind the ‘50s hits “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Honey Don’t” and “Matchbox.” While Perkins (1932-98) may not be as well known as contemporaries Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison, Apter makes a case for his significance in rock history as did Perkins’ long friendships with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Tom Petty.

Don’t forget about Twin Cities author Andrea Swensson’s “Deeper Blues: The Life, Songs and Salvation of Cornbread Harris” (University of Minnesota Press, $22.95), a touching story of the still very active 97-year-old Minneapolis piano man. Swensson digs deep into Minnesota History Center and Black newspaper archives to unearth info that Harris didn’t even remember. In the process of writing the book, she reunited Cornbread with his son, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame producer/songwriter Jimmy Jam, after a nearly 50-year estrangement.