Tastykakes, Soul Songs And Shining Stars: Affections And Reflections 1973-2025

Tastykakes, Soul Songs and Shining Stars is a labour of love, half a century in the making, for music industry veteran Joe McEwen. A Philadelphia native and legendary A&R executive for Columbia, Sire/Warner Brothers, Verve, and Concord Music Group, McEwen now McEwen gathers a lifetime’s worth of encounters, essays, and reveries into one radiant collection—a love letter to the rhythm-and-blues and soul music that shaped him. 

Its pages are bursting with vivid, compelling, up-front and personal profiles and encounters with a host of important figures: Pops and Mavis Staples, George Clinton, Allen Toussaint, Betty Wright, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Don Covay, and many more. Alongside these portraits are heartfelt musings spanning the 1960s through the ’80s, illuminating the creative processes behind the songs that defined a generation.

Interwoven throughout are reflections on basketball, memory, and movement—parallel sources of rhythm, improvisation, and joy. The book culminates in an extended 2024 conversation with esteemed music author and longtime confidant Peter Guralnick (Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke), a fitting finale to a collection that captures the soul of a lifetime in music.

“Joe McEwen writes beautifully about the Soul greats that he encounters in this book. It’s as electrifying as hearing ‘Dancing in the Street’ for the first time. Each chapter sends you straight back to the music. American art at its finest.” Geoff Travis, Founder and Joint MD of Rough Trade Records