A fun compendium of music facts, fictions, legends, and lyrics, Peanut Butter and Mashed Potatoes: Satisfying Trivia for Rock and Pop Fressers by award-winning author, poet, and visual artist Deborah Godin proves to be another wild romp down memory lane. As a follow-up to Papa Do Run: A Baby Boomer Looks (and Laughs) at Vintage Rock & Roll, the book that launched a thousand laughs and a new breed of musicologists, this sequel reveals a number of pop culture’s best- and worst-kept secrets.
As funny as it is playful, Godin once again dissects the whole truth and stops to enjoy more than a few roadside attractions. In fact, her sidebars and tangents are what make this book enjoyable and so incredibly readable. Readers familiar with her original dissertation on the rock and roll revolution of the fifties and sixties will love this broad look back at the sixties, the whole of the seventies, and a few snippets of eighties. In five chapters with titles like, “Here, There, Everywhere: Songs about Real Places,” “What’s Your Name, Who’s Your Daddy: Songs about Real People,” and “From Califon-ya to the New York Eye-land: Searching for America’s Band,” Godin insists on having a heck of a good time along the way as she shares little-known tidbits such as the location of the real “Hotel California,” “Tobacco Road,” and “The House of the Rising Sun,” not to mention who the original Mrs. Robinson really was. Godin even provides a bird’s eye view of the goings on at the infamous Chelsea Hotel. Music and lyric lovers unite! So hang on, Sloopy, and let those good times roll, better yet, let the good times rock!
You can read excerpts with the Search Inside feature at AMAZON, and I'll be posting the book trailer here as well soon.
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