James M. Curtis

When I was growing up in Tupelo, Mississippi, I saw our hometown hero Elvis Presley perform live, and I'll never forget it. Elvis was a force of nature--that's the only way I can describe the effect of seeing him. Since then, I've gone far from Tupelo, and done things like get a PhD that can't be done in Tupelo. Still, I've never forgotten that I want to understand Elvis and the South and rock and roll as part of American culture. And even beyond that, to understand American culture as part of world culture. (My background in Russian studies gives me lots of material to compare and contrast with the South and with America in general.)

While I was teaching at the University of Missouri, I created a course on popular culture, and out of that course came my book "Rock Eras." Although that book contains a long section on Bob Dylan, I kept thinking that I had more to say about him, so I wrote "Decoding Dylan."