An insightful music writer brilliantly reinterprets the lives of three pop geniuses and the soul revolution they launched.Soul music is one of America's greatest cultural achievements, and Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, and Curtis Mayfield are three of its most inspired practitioners. In midcentury America it was soul music—particularly the dazzling stream of recordings made by these three stars—that helped bring the gospel vision of the black church into the main...

". . . extraordinarily far-reaching. . . . highly accessible."—Notes"No one has written this way about music in a long, long time. Lucid, insightful, with real spiritual, political, intellectual, and emotional grasp of the whole picture. A book about why music matters, and how, and to whom."—Dave Marsh, author of Louie, Louie and Born to Run: The Bruce Springsteen Story"This book is urgently needed: a comprehensive look at the variou...

Lessons of the RoadAfter years at sea, Rhys Taylor thought life on the open road would be simpler.With his partner Kat and his loyal Labrador Ted, Taylor sets out from Lake Tahoe in a battered camper van to explore the vast spine of America—the Rocky Mountains and the Continental Divide. But what begins as a journey of freedom and discovery quickly turns into something far more dangerous.A chance meeting in Colorado reveals a disturbing secret: a br...

A quiet morning in the Tahoe pines turns into a nightmare when Rhys Taylor's chainsaw hits something that shouldn't be there.A steel spike—buried decades ago—explodes the chain in a spray of metal and blood, leaving Taylor fighting for his life in a Reno ICU. But the sabotage doesn't end in the woods.Minutes after surgery, the hospital goes dark. Monitors fail. Ventilators flicker. Patient records vanish behind a skull-and-crossbones ransom screen. A voice over the...

In 1968, a Soviet ballistic-missile submarine vanished into the Pacific with nuclear weapons still aboard. Officially, the wreck of K-129 became another Cold War ghost story—until someone starts killing ships in the same waters, with no distress calls and no survivors.When a U.S. Navy research vessel is destroyed near the long-lost wreck site, Rhys Taylor is pulled from his hard-won quiet life into an operation that feels bigger—and darker—than anything he's faced. Alongside his tr...

A desert vacation was supposed to be simple.A little rock hunting.A little peace.A few quiet days under a wide Arizona sky.But when Rhys "Taylor" Taylor and his family stumble across a sealed railroad spur buried deep in the Sonoran Desert, they uncover something far older—and far more dangerous—than forgotten copper ore.Hidden beneath the sand lies a wartime secret: a vanished Japanese submarine mission, a clandestine American cover-up, and a cache of...

Lost CargoA Rhys Taylor StoryWhen two massive container ships disappear on the same route to South Africa, the shipping world is left with nothing but questions—no distress calls, no wreckage, no survivors.World Trade Logistics turns to former merchant mariner Rhys Taylor, asking him to take command of a third vessel and deliver a replacement cargo while secretly investigating what happened to the missing ships.Reluctantly leaving h...

No Chinese WhiskeyA Rhys Taylor StoryRhys Taylor thought the quiet life in Lake Tahoe was finally within reach.But when an old contact from British intelligence calls with a troubling mystery at the docks of San Francisco, Taylor and his longtime friend Harold "Digger" Graves are pulled back into the shadows of international intrigue.What begins as a simple investigation into suspicious cargo shipments quickly reveals something far m...

A quiet life on the shores of Lake Tahoe was supposed to be Rhys "Taylor" Taylor's reward for years spent chasing trouble across the world's roughest waters. A warm cabin. A brilliant wife. A loyal yellow Lab at their feet. And a six-month-old son whose laughter finally makes the past feel… distant.Then a single text shatters the peace:Taylor, it's Red. Need your help in N.O. Urgent. Seawind Shipping. Dark secrets. Can't trust anyone.Red Hawkins—old shipmat...

On a quiet spring afternoon in Lake Tahoe, Rhys "Taylor" Taylor is repairing a warped porch rail while his son plays nearby. It's the kind of peaceful moment he fought to earn—after years of maritime danger, covert operations, and enemies made in dark corners of the world.Then the phone rings.An attempted abduction.A professional hit on his closest friend.A warning carved in blood and smoke.What begins as a targeted strike against Taylor's family quick...

SHADOWS ON THE WATERRhys Taylor has spent ten years riding steel hulls across dangerous seas, trusting his crew, trusting his instincts, and trusting that trouble usually stays in port.In Istanbul, that illusion ends.A stranger with a British accent slides into Taylor's booth and offers him a job that doesn't exist on any manifest: become an MI6 informant—an extra set of eyes and ears in a world where smugglers, radicals, and terrorists move through...

For a Kentucky rifleman who spent his tour trudging through Vietnam's Central Highlands, it was Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'." For a "tunnel rat" who blew smoke into the Viet Cong's underground tunnels, it was Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze." For a black marine distraught over the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., it was Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools." And for countless other Vietnam vets, it was "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die," "Who'll Stop the Rain," or the ...