David Menconi

Before he achieved his dream of being an internationally known rock personality, Ryan Adams had a band in Raleigh, North Carolina. Whiskeytown led the wave of insurgent-country bands that came of age in the mid-1990s, and for many people it defined the era. David Menconi witnessed most of Whiskeytown’s rocket ride to fame as the music critic for the Raleigh News & Observer, and in Ryan Adams: Losering, a Story of Whiskeytown, he tells the inside story of the singer’s remarkable rise from hardscrabble origins to Whiskeytown success, as well as Adams’s post-Whiskeytown solo act. Adamswas an irrepressible character, and as a singer-songwriter he blew people away with a mature talent that belied his youth. Menconi draws on early interviews, conversations with people close to him, and Adams’s extensive online postings to capture the creative ferment that produced his music. From the start, Adams had an unshakable confidence in his own worth. At the same time, his inability to hold anything back, whether emotions or torrents of songs, often made Adamshis own worst enemy. Ryan Adams is a fascinating, multifaceted portrait of the artist as a young man. Menconi has been the music critic at the Raleigh News & Observer since 1991. His writing has also appeared in Spin, Billboard, The New York Times, and a host of publications that regrettably no longer exist. Chief among the latter is No Depression magazine, for which he was a contributing editor. His byline appeared in every issue except one during the magazine’s 13-year run.

At the Festival: Ryan Adams: Losering, a Story of Whiskeytown (American Music Series) and Rock 'n Roll Saturday, October 27 Lit Crawl Austin: Shangri-La