Your Questions, Answered

  • Preston Lauterbach is an author and historian specializing in African American music history. His books include The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock 'n' Roll (2011), Beale Street Dynasty (2015), and Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King (2025). His work has been named a book of the year by the Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Rolling Stone. He lives outside of Charlottesville, Virginia.

  • The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock 'n' Roll is his best-known work. Published in 2011, it traces the network of Black-owned venues that shaped American music before rock and roll broke into the mainstream, and was named a Wall Street Journal Best Nonfiction book of the year.

  • Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King, published January 2025, tells the story of the Black musicians whose sound and style shaped Elvis Presley's rise. It builds on Lauterbach's long-running project of documenting the musicians history has pushed to the margins.

  • Yes. He co-authored Brother Robert (2020) with Annye C. Anderson, Robert Johnson's stepsister. The memoir draws on Anderson's firsthand memories to correct decades of myth surrounding the blues musician's life and death, and was named a Rolling Stone-Kirkus Best Music Book of 2020.

  • What other books has Preston Lauterbach written or co-authored?
    Beyond his solo histories, Lauterbach has co-authored three memoirs with major figures in Black music: Brother Robert with Annye C. Anderson, Timekeeper (2021) with Memphis soul drummer Howard Grimes, and Spirit of the Century (2024) with the Blind Boys of Alabama. He's also the author of Bluff City, on photographer Ernest Withers, and Beale Street Dynasty, a history of Memphis's Beale Street.

  • His books are available through Bookshop.org and other major retailers, with direct links on this site's Books page. Signing up for his email list is the fastest way to hear about new releases and events.

  • Preston has been a music fan sine early childhood— he begged his mother to take him to his first concert— Don McLean— at age 5 after hearing a radio ad. As a child, he became an Elvis afficinado, and a teen interest in The Grateful Dead led him to Pre-War blues. It just snowballed from there.

  • Lauterbach is known for his deeply thorough research — much of his adult life has been spent in front of microfilm readers, tracing stories through early 20th-century Black newspapers, where he's considered an expert source. He pairs that archival depth with interviews: musicians, their families, and industry figures have come to trust him as a perceptive and reliable interviewer, willing to sit with a subject long enough to get past the received version of events. He relies on archives both public and private, and has spent a career cultivating sources.

  • Preston was born in Richmond, Virginia and grew up in San Diego, California. He lived in Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee for a decade, before returning to Virginia.

  • Yes, but he does a poor job keeping track of them, so this list is incomplete.

    The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock and Roll

    A Boston Globe’s Best Book of the Year

    A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year

    An NPR Best Book of the Year

    American Library Association. Booklist Editors' Choice: Adult Books

    Before Elvis

    Living Blues Best Blues Book of the Year 2025

  • Yes. Please contact the Bresnick Agency to get in touch.

  • His book on the Harlem Underground will be published in 2027 by Da Capo. He is currently working on a project about Nashville’s crime networks and their relationship to the development of that city’s music infrastructure.