{"id":213176,"date":"2026-03-10T14:27:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T14:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/213176\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T14:27:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T14:27:23","slug":"greil-marcus-daveed-diggs-do-a-book-talk-on-musical-history-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/213176\/","title":{"rendered":"Greil Marcus, Daveed Diggs do a book talk on musical history"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do you do when you\u2019re a famous music critic whose well-known book just had its 50th birthday? Throw a party<\/a>, of course, and invite your equally famous musical friend.<\/p>\n

On March 7, Greil Marcus is holding a book talk at Oakland\u2019s California Ballroom<\/a> to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his 1970s tome, \u201cMystery Train: Images of America in Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Music.\u201d A veteran of Rolling Stone and The Village Voice, Marcus has seen his work become a sacred tract for generations of music fans and cultural historians \u2014 drilling down on influential acts like Sly Stone, Elvis, The Band and blue singer Robert Johnson. No less than Bruce Springsteen called it his favorite book of all time<\/a>; it\u2019s also one of Time magazine\u2019s best nonfiction books of the modern era.<\/p>\n

Marcus will discuss the book\u2019s legacy and how music still defines much of America\u2019s ideology, along with Daveed Diggs<\/a>, director of the Oakland-set 2018 film \u201cBlindspotting<\/a>.\u201d A native of the city, Diggs has a long list of creative accomplishments, from winning a Tony, Grammy and Emmy to appearing in the original \u201cHamilton\u201d on Broadway. It should be a treat to see what insights these two heavyweights have on something that\u2019s energizes so many lovers of music.<\/p>\n

Details: Details: Talk runs 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m. March 7 at 1736 Franklin St., Oakland; admission begins at $27, for details visit baybookfest.org\/events<\/a> or search Eventbrite<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What do you do when you\u2019re a famous music critic whose well-known book just had its 50th birthday?…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[94513,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-213176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-book-talks-events-bay-area-san-francisco-oakland-greil-marcus-and-daveed-diggs-mystery-train-images-of-america-in-rock-n-roll-music-authors","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}