Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues
Veteran music journalist Selvin focuses on a figure little known to those outside of the music business of the fifties and sixties and delivers an authoritative look at a crucial point in American popular culture. The main subject, Bert Berns, wrote or co-wrote many rhythm-and-blues classics, notably “Twist and Shout” and “Piece of My Heart.”  Though hardly without clunkers, the extraordinary discography of compositions and productions included here testifies to Berns’ stature. The supporting cast includes the best musicians and songwriters of the period, particularly songwriters Leiber and Stoller, Atlantic Records’ Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler, and performers Ray Charles and Solomon Burke. Berns, afflicted with a heart condition since childhood, felt himself doomed and incorporated signature wails of despair into his songs, typically “Cry Baby.” As Selvin makes clear, the independent R&B and rock-music business then was sleazy, gangster-ridden, and, like Berns’ life, short in duration. Sometimes the book reads like an annotated list of recordings and erratically named performers, but if you grew up with the songs, you’ll leave the book happily singing to yourself, though also saddened (this being the blues). --Mark Levine