Roots & Rhythm Out Today

Or, how I'm grateful for every reader. Thank you.

Today, February 4th ends a long, circuitous climb to the release of my memoir, Roots & Rhythm—50 years as a working musician.

First, welcome new readers. Thank you for joining us. Old friends and frans you have been so loving and kind while Andi and I shoehorned our book into every other post, and then you endured all the ramp-up to today—the release of Roots & Rhythm. Thank you. You are a mannered and patient bunch. I am grateful for every one of you. I cannot wait to write about something other than a monetized project. Seriously, if there were any means that I could give this book away in the beautiful hardcover version that Eerdman’s Publishing created, I’d do it!

This is going to be a long day of interviews, then the local Nashville book launch in the evening at Parnassus Books. Hence, my part of today’s newsletter is about to end.

I appeal to your kindness, your entrepreneurial skills, Substacking, spreading the word, and purchasing multiple copies for your book club, the Music Lit Lollygaggers. Basically, I have trust in you to do your thing from here on out.

However, if you were to ask me, for say, a plan for your life, I would lean toward purchasing a book, enjoying it immensely (with or without adult beverage). Then writing reviews more better written and stuff and junk than I can write. That would be dope and delightful.

Thank you, thank you, and thank you.

Pure hubris here: My goal is to chart higher than Paul McCartney’s new book. My wife Andi still has a wee bit of a schoolgirl crush on Paul, and frankly, I need to crush Paul and pass the Beatle once and for all (or at least for 24 hours). Let’s do it.

If you purchase from Amazon, for hardcover, Kindle, or Audible, please leave a review.

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From the publisher:

A beautifully crafted memoir unveiling the ancestral, musical, and spiritual roots of Grammy Award-winning music producer Charlie Peacock.

In this artful memoir, Grammy Award–winning music producer Charlie Peacock flexes his literary chops and gives readers the gritty backstage stories they crave: biographical anecdotes, geeky trivia, and how the hits were written and recorded (from jazz to rock and pop). Threaded throughout is Peacock’s unique ancestral and spiritual story—the roots. Like Coltrane, Dylan, and Bono before him, Peacock reveals a Christ-affection while refusing genres too small for his music.

Peacock, the great-grandson of a Louisiana fiddler, is an American musical polymath. He’s been the young jazz musician sitting at the feet of trumpeter Eddie Henderson and pianist Herbie Hancock; the singer-songwriter plucked from the Northern California punk/pop underground by legendary impresarios Bill Graham and Chris Blackwell; a pioneering, innovative contributor to the nascent rise of gospel rock in the 1980s; and the genre-busting producer behind such diverse artists as Al Green, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Chris Cornell, Audio Adrenaline, The Civil Wars, Switchfoot, Turtle Island Quartet, and John Patitucci.

Roots and Rhythm includes Peacock’s seminal NorCal days, the story of indie labels Exit and re:think, his first decade as a Nashville producer (1989–1999), and his essential role in the 21st-century folk/Americana boom (The Civil Wars, Holly Williams, The Lone Bellow). While his exploits and achievements grace the book (including the story of Amy Grant’s “Every Heartbeat” and the evergreen “In the Light”), Peacock is hardly the only character. Instead, he writes as a Joan Didion-style essayist, weaving together a quintessential American story. Beat poet Gary Snyder, evangelist Billy Graham, producer T Bone Burnett, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and writers Wendell Berry and Isabel Wilkerson all appear in this sweeping tale where ancestry, migration, teenage love, Jesus, and Miles Davis collide.

The book is an invitation to all, including aspiring musicians: embrace the roots and rhythm of our own lives, letting the music and God’s insistent love lead us to gratitude and wonder.

Many thanks to my agent Don Pape at Pape Commons, my primary editors Sharifa Stevens, Elisa Stanford, and final acquisitions and development editor at Eerdmans, Lisa Ann Cockrell. Well done. Thank you Jeremy Cowart for the author photo, Stephen Dean Holsapple for the vintage cover photo of me in 1979. Jordan Wetherbee, your jacket design is perfect, as is the overall book design—props to Lydia Hall. A round of applause for all the staff at Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company for your beautiful work. Finally, thank you to Milestone Publicity for their commitment to the project. Please contact Jessica Bonner or Mike Gowen directly with any podcast or interview requests.