As a singer and songwriter, Gram Parsons stood at the nexus of countless musical crossroads, and he sold his soul to the devil at every one. His intimates and collaborators included Keith Richards, William Burroughs, Marianne Faithfull, Peter Fonda, Roger McGuinn, and Clarence White. Parsons led the Byrds to create the seminal country rock masterpiece "Sweetheart of the Rodeo," helped to guide the Rolling Stones beyond the blues in their appreciation of American roots music, and found his musical soul mate in Emmylou Harris. Parsons' solo albums, "GP" and "Grievous Angel," are now recognized as visionary masterpieces of the transcendental jambalaya of rock, soul, country, gospel, and blues Parsons named "Cosmic American Music." Parsons had everything-looks, charisma, money, style, the best drugs, the most heartbreaking voice-and threw it all away with both hands, dying of a drug and alcohol overdose at age twenty-six. In this beautifully written, raucous, meticulously researched biography, David N. Meyer gives Parsons' mythic life its due. From interviews with hundreds of the famous and obscure who knew and worked closely with Parsons-many who have never spoken publicly about him before-Meyer conjures a dazzling panorama of the artist and his era.

What makes a distant oboe's wail beautiful? Why do some kinds of music lift us to ecstasy, but not others? How can music make sense to an ear and brain evolved for detecting the approaching lion or tracking the unsuspecting gazelle? Lyrically interweaving discoveries from science, psychology, music theory, paleontology, and philosophy, Robert Jourdian brilliantly examines why music speaks to us in ways that words cannot, and why we form such powerful connections to it.