LOVE GOES TO BUILDINGS ON FIRE

From 1973 to 1977, New York City was a place where all the major styles of modern music were reinvented - all, at once, by musicians who knew, admired and borrowed from one another. As they remade the music, the musicians at the center of the book invented themselves: Willie Colón and the Fania All-Stars introduced salsa to the masses; Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith took Manhattan by storm; Grandmaster Flash transformed the turntable into a musical instrument; and David Byrne and the Talking Heads proving that rock music "ain't no foolin' around." In LOVE GOES TO BUILDINGS ON FIRE, Hermes captures the creativity and drive of the great musicians, who knew that the music they were making would change the world.

This is the first book to tell the full story of New York's music scene in the 1970s, a subject which Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger are developing a period series for HBO on.

Will Hermes is a senior critic for Rolling Stone and a longtime contributor to NPR's All Things Considered. His work has appeared in The New York Times and the Village Voice. He was co-editor of SPIN: 20 Years of Alternative Music.