About the Book

Tastykakes, Soul Songs and Shining Stars is a labor of love, half a century in the making, for music industry veteran Joe McEwen. A Philadelphia native and legendary A&R executive for Columbia, Sire/Warner Brothers, Verve, and Concord Music Group, McEwen now McEwen gathers a lifetime’s worth of encounters, essays, and reveries into one radiant collection—a love letter to the rhythm-and-blues and soul music that shaped him. 

Its pages are bursting with vivid, compelling, up-front and personal profiles and encounters with a host of important figures: Pops and Mavis Staples, George Clinton, Allen Toussaint, Betty Wright, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Don Covay, and many more. Alongside these portraits are heartfelt musings spanning the 1960s through the ’80s, illuminating the creative processes behind the songs that defined a generation.

Interwoven throughout are reflections on basketball, memory, and movement—parallel sources of rhythm, improvisation, and joy. The book culminates in an extended 2024 conversation with esteemed music author and longtime confidant Peter Guralnick (Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke), a fitting finale to a collection that captures the soul of a lifetime in music.

Praise for Tastykakes, Soul Songs and Shining Stars

“Joe McEwen has long been one of our most incisive connoisseurs of Black music, a journalist with the rare gift of radical empathy. Among the hits collected here: the best profile of Michael Jackson ever written. Read the book, play some music, and rediscover the gospel truth of American soul music.”

—James Miller, author of Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock & Roll 1947–1977 and editor of The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll

“Joe McEwen’s collection is an essential text that captures the textures of pre-hip hop Black pop culture with a sensuous eye. The writing here is as soulful as the music it celebrates.”

—Nelson George, author of The Death of Rhythm & Blues and City Life: A Writer’s Memoir of Ghetto Life and Post-Soul Success

“Joe McEwen’s essays on essential musicians and athletes are so heartfelt and deep that this collection has the emotional wallop of a searing memoir. Every piece here is sweeter than a Tastykake.”

—Steven Levy, author of Hackers, Insanely Great and Facebook: The Inside Story

“Joe McEwen writes beautifully about the Soul greats that he encounters in this book. It’s as electrifying as hearing ‘Dancing in the Street’ for the first time. Each chapter sends you straight back to the music. American art at its finest.” 

—Geoff Travis, Founder and Joint MD of Rough Trade Records

About the Author