American roots music is not a product of an elite leisure class, as some academics contend, but of explosive creativity among slaves, hillbillies, fieldhands, drunks, slackers, and hucksters. Yet these poor, working-class people, built the foundations of jazz, gospel, blues, bluegrass, rock ‘n’ roll, and country music, an unparalleled burst of invention.

This is the counterfactual to the academics’ story. Manning takes us down a long, strange path, following music to deeper understandings of racism, slavery, inequality, meditation, addiction, the science of our brains, and ultimately to an enticing glimpse of pure religion.