Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music

by Greil Marcus

Hillbilly Music “This is the mystery of democracy,” intoned Woodrow Wilson (dedicating the log cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born, in words ponderous enough to suit the mayor of Tupelo, Mississippi, when he dedicated the birthplace of Elvis Presley), “that its richest fruits spring up out of soils which no man has prepared and in circumstances where they are least expected …”