ROADHOUSE BLUES

Shrouded in mystery, pop culture history, and the swirling psychedelic sounds of the Sixties, the Doors have captivated listeners across seven decades. Jim Morrison - haunted, beautiful, and ultimately doomed - transformed from rock god to American icon. With each successive generation of rock fans, the Doors became more popular and transcendent, yet the band's full significance is buried underneath layers of mythology and folklore.

In Roadhouse Blues, award-winning cultural historian Bob Batchelor presents an epic tale of one of rock's (and America's) most significant periods, as the Age of Aquarius gave way to a new age of mayhem, presidential misdeeds, and murder. Batchelor combines cultural history, musical and lyrical analysis, and a broad stroke of pop-culture mythos to give fresh perspective on a pivotal time.

Candid, authoritative, and utterly absorbing, Roadhouse Blues is a biography of a man, a band, and an era that set the tone for the contemporary world. Beyond the mythology, the hype, and the mystique around Morrison's untimely death, this book takes readers on a roller-coaster ride, examining the impact the band had on America as the nation veered from decadence to debauchery.

Bob Batchelor is a noted expert on American culture and history. He was the on-air commentator for the National Geographic Channel's 10-part series "The '80s Greatest" and 10 episode "The '90s Greatest" series. He is the author of Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel, Mad Men: A Cultural History, Gatsby: The Cultural History of the Great American Novel, Bob Dylan: A Concise Biography, and John Updike: A Critical Biography, among others.