Rating: 
Summary: Not your typical music writer...
Review: After reading an article on the web which mentioned Joe Pernice introducing Mr Zanes to his publishers, I was intrigued enough to read what Zanes came up with. While this book is closer to conventional "rock criticism" than Pernice's - which is a short novel - it still takes an unusual approach to its subject. First off, Mr Zanes is clearly an extremely bright man. There are a few passages in here, mostly towards the end of the book, where he almost lost me, such is the depth of his argument. But what he has to say is very interesting: most of it to do with the fact that Dusty (and not just Dusty but the people who produced this album too) was an outsider in the American South, and how the album is a product of that conflict. The book starts off brilliantly when Zanes describes how he originally fell in love with the album as a teenager. Zanes is very good indeed at conveying how a great album gradually slots into place in your head - it's hardly ever an instant love affair, more like a lifelong relationship. Zanes has some fascinating interview material that he got with Jerry Wexler, and his writing is amusing at times, too. It was only towards the end of the book, when he wrote about the American South in the popular imagination, that my enthusiasm for this book flagged a little. But on the whole, this is a very clever and nicely written book about a truly wonderful album.
Rating: 
Summary: Not really about the album...
Review: As much as I can appreciate being original, and trying a fresh approach to writing, Warren Zanes spends about 20% of his time discussing the album and 80% discussing his childhood, his take on the South, Atlantic records, and other miscellaneous things that have very little if anything to do with "Dusty In Memphis" the famous LP the book is supposedly about. I don't mind that Zanes has taken this different approach, and in a sort of roundabout way, he has covered some of the material necessary to understand this classic pop album, but eventually, even the most open-minded of readers will tire of his tangential musings. There are a few interesting insights into his views on what made Dusty Springfield such a special singer, and what made the material, the arrangements and the musicians on the album so special, but definitely not enough. If you want to really learn more about "Dusty In Memphis" the LP and what went on in the studio, skip this. It's a waste of time. Instead, you can learn much more just by reading the chapter on Memphis in Lucy O'Brien's biography DUSTY or even on the various websites on Dusty Springfield.
Rating: 
Summary: Smart, funny, insightful
Review: Dusty in Memphis was my first dip into the 33 1/3 series, and it's set the bar high. Zanes has the ability to write seriously, think seriously and create an enjoyable, often funny read along the way. His meditation on the American South gives the Dusty fan fresh perspective on her music and a new understanding of American music and culture as a whole. Thoroughly entertaining (see the story on his exotic childhood neighbor) and highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Dusty In Memphis
Review: Given the range of ways we respond to music, it's odd that we have so few ways to write about music. This isn't the case with the visual arts, so why must it be the case with the aural arts? In the visual arts, criticism often goes beyond straightforward history and evaluation. If I've often wished that the same could happen in relation to music writing, Warren Zanes has answered my wish. Zanes digs deep to understand how, in his words, a seminal album, Dusty in Memphis, got under his skin. In the process, he goes to some unlikely places. But, most importantly, he reminds us that our experience of music is not simple--we make bizarre, even if unconscious, connections as we listen. Music takes us to strange places, otherwise it would not be as important to us as it is. If you want dry facts, perhaps this is not for you. But if you want to see music writing expand its possibilities, then this is a book you should read. I returned to my Dusty in Memphis CD with a new capacity to listen, really listen.
Rating:
Summary: Dusty In Memphis
Review: Given the range of ways we respond to music, it's odd that we have so few ways to write about music. This isn't the case with the visual arts, so why must it be the case with the aural arts? In the visual arts, criticism often goes beyond straightforward history and evaluation. If I've often wished that the same could happen in relation to music writing, Warren Zanes has answered my wish. Zanes digs deep to understand how, in his words, a seminal album, Dusty in Memphis, got under his skin. In the process, he goes to some unlikely places. But, most importantly, he reminds us that our experience of music is not simple--we make bizarre, even if unconscious, connections as we listen. Music takes us to strange places, otherwise it would not be as important to us as it is. If you want dry facts, perhaps this is not for you. But if you want to see music writing expand its possibilities, then this is a book you should read. I returned to my Dusty in Memphis CD with a new capacity to listen, really listen.
Rating:
Summary: A Labor of Love
Review: Glancing through the reviews already posted, it's easy to see that repsonse to Zanes' book is quite polarized: half love it, half hate it. This at least suggests that the book has been provocative. I loved Zanes on Dusty in Memphis because it's a work of true rock criticism, rather than the kind of lick-spittle-ism (as The Simpsons' Montgomery Burns would call it) that some of the die-hard Dusty fans seem to be insisting on. "The book's not about the album," they claim. What they seem to be hollering for is fan writing: mere gossip from a favorable source. Instead, Zanes masterfully pursues the course first described by Walter Pater more than a century ago, in his writing on art: that the best possible description of the work of art, and thus the only true art criticism, is an honest exploration of what a particular piece of art means to me. As Pater writes in his preface to The Renaissance (1873): "'To see the object as in itself it really is,' has been justly said to be the aim of all true criticism whatever; and in aesthetic criticism the first step towards seeing one's object as it really is, is to know one's own impression as it really is, to discriminate it, to realise it distinctly." Some of rock writing's strongest texts to date adopt this strategy: Greil Marcus's weird and wonderful Lipstick Traces, Dave Marsh's Louie Louie, Gina Arnold's Route 666, and most spectularly, everything that Lester Bangs ever wrote (love it or hate it). Popular music only matters as part of a relationship with its audiences, past, present, and to come: like the words of the dead poet, in W. H. Auden's formulation, music is always "modified in the guts of the living." Zanes has paid Dusty in Memphis the compliment of allowing it to change his life, and he's invited us readers to explore those changes with him. I can't believe that Ms. Springfield wouldn't have felt honored, too.
Rating:
Summary: feed your head?
Review: I guess I'm biased, as I love Zanes' approach, but the criticism here seems small-minded and muddled, at best. The comments dissing Zanes' take admit that the book is "an interesting little read," "well-written and informed," "good writing," and "a fresh approach." With pans like this, who needs accolades? But you've been forewarned--if you're hankering for an anally retentive rendering of track-by-track performance on the part of all major and minor players involved, find another source, or better yet, write your own. If you're interested in expanding your understanding of the context in which this record was created and the way that art and music moves those of us not busy keeping a box score, pick this up.
Rating:
Summary: feed your head?
Review: I guess I'm biased, as I love Zanes' approach, but the criticism here seems small-minded and muddled, at best. The comments dissing Zanes' take admit that the book is "an interesting little read," "well-written and informed," "good writing," and "a fresh approach." With pans like this, who needs accolades? But you've been forewarned--if you're hankering for an anally retentive rendering of track-by-track performance on the part of all major and minor players involved, find another source, or better yet, write your own. If you're interested in expanding your understanding of the context in which this record was created and the way that art and music moves those of us not busy keeping a box score, pick this up.
Rating: 
Summary: Should Have Been Titled Warren Zanes by Warren Zanes
Review: I was hoping for a track by track analysis of Dusty's classic album, and was led to believe that's what I'd be getting. Good writing, but not what I was looking for. I'm disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Very little about the album itself
Review: I'm a big fan of Dusty in Memphis, and always looking for new information and comments. I bought this book thinking that it would actually be about the album. It's not. Don't get me wrong -- it's actually an interesting little read. But it's more about the author and his opinions on the American south. There's very little in the book about the album itself. The writing is a tad self-absorbed, although it is well-written and informed. It's just not about Dusty in Memphis -- or, if so, only peripherally. False advertising, if you ask me.
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