Michael Barson has worked in book publicity since 1984 at such houses as Doubleday, Pantheon, FSG, G.P. Putnam and (currently) Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks. He is the author of more than a dozen books on popular culture, including RED SCARED!, TEENAGE CONFIDENTIAL (both with Steven Heller), TRUE WEST and LOST, LONELY, & VICIOUS. Barson has a Master’s degree in Popular Culture and a PhD in American Culture from BGSU in Ohio. He has worked with such authors as Kurt Vonnegut, Mickey Spillane, Tom Clancy, Lee Child, Clive Cussler, C.J. Box, Nick Hornby, Robert B. Parker, Art Spiegelman and Dave Barry, and was often referred to by Professor Harold Bloom as “noble Barsonius.”

He now lives in New Hampshire with his wife, their dog, a band of itinerant turkeys, and a hundred or so boxes of vintage books, movie posters, magazines, comics and 45’s.

Reviews by Michael Barson

Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King

by Preston Lauterbach - History, Music, Nonfiction

After Baz Luhrmann’s movie, Elvis, hit theaters, audiences and critics alike couldn't help but question the Black origins of Elvis Presley’s music and style, reigniting a debate that has been circling for decades. In BEFORE ELVIS​, author Preston Lauterbach answers these questions definitively, based on new research and extensive, previously unpublished interviews with the artists who blazed the way and the people who knew them. Within these pages, Lauterbach examines the lives, music, legacies and interactions with Elvis of the four innovative Black artists who created a style that would come to be known as Rock ’n’ Roll: Little Junior Parker, Big Mama Thornton, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, and mostly unknown eccentric Beale Street guitarist Calvin Newborn.