Rocks Off: 50 Tracks That Tell the Story of the Rolling Stones

Bill Janovitz is a singer, guitarist, and songwriter in the band Buffalo Tom. He's also released three solo albums. He wrote Exile on Main Street about the iconic Stones album in the critically acclaimed 33 1/3 series. He has written extensively for the All Music Guide online site and has also contributed to BostonMagazine.com, the Boston Phoenix, and Post Road magazine. He lives in Massachusetts with his family.

""Rocks Off" is an intense pleasure--a series of love letters plus a few notes of despair--and almost as good as the music it celebrates." --"Wall Street Journal " "A book that will have you dusting off your LPs (or turning on your iPod) with a new appreciation for the iconic band." --"Parade Magazine""[Janovitz] is an astute observer of the Stones' remarkable canon of songs, offering fresh and insightful analyses and exploring numerous "underappreciated album gems." His vibrant description of "Gimme Shelter" alone is worth the price of the book...a must for Stones fans everywhere." --"Booklist" Review "A book about 50 significant Stones recordings could have practically written itself. But it wouldn't have written itself nearly as well as Janovitz has; close listening and an ear for detail distinguish his analyses." --"Kirkus" Review"In this glimmering set of unabashed fan's notes, guitarist and music writer Janovitz (Exile on Main Street) enthusiastically and movingly traces the evolution of the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band, song by song...Reading Janovitz is like sitting with a friend in a basement surrounded by albums, and spending the entire day listening to, arguing about, and worshipping the many licks that have become part of our musical vocabulary." --"Publishers Weekly""Through loving and informed close readings of fifty pivotal Stones songs, Bill Janovitz finds a new way to tell the band's story--and reminds even the biggest fans that for all the drama, gossip, and myth that has always surrounded the Rolling Stones, it is the music that will stand forever." --Alan Light, author of "The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen "and "Jeff Buckley and the Unlikely Ascent of "Hallelujah"""By focusing intently on individual songs, Bill Janovitz has written a stealth history of the Stones, tracking their personal lives and complicated relationships, illuminating the many phases of their artistic evolution, and makingd