Sharlet: I recently met an activist and memoirist named Michael Patrick McDonald, who for his second book, Easter Rising, got the only blurb I’ve ever truly been jealous of. He’d been trying to contact Patti Smith to win permission to quote a line from her amazing “Gloria” — “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine” in his memoir of punk and South Boston. Patti Smith, not surprisingly, does not respond to mail promptly. But then Michael met Smith at one of her book signings, and lo, she remembered the manuscript he’d sent her, and made him wait while she took to a corner to write his blurb, a job she labored over for many minutes and many revisions until she returned with this: “Easter Rising is a brave, heartbreaking piece of truth.” Can you beat that!

The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing, just published, comes close. Who could rank with Patti Smith as a blurber? I know of only one living vocalist: Dolly Parton. Says Dolly of this fabulous collection, “God bless America and God bless The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing.” I have an an essay in this book, which means, I think, that I have been blessed by Dolly Parton. Then again, she started out with God bless America, so odds are you have, too. Great blurbs are generous like that.

As for the book, I just got my copy in the mail, so I don’t have too much to report yet. My piece is in fact a bit of religion writing — a story about Al Green, falsettos, and fundamentalism titled “Raw and Born Again” in the The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing‘s “Dept. of Al Green,” where I’m joined by novelist Susan Straight. Also included in the book are some of my favorite writers who write about music: Peter Guralnick, Tom Piazza, Nick Tosches, R. Crumb, and Paul Reyes, among them. It’s mostly a boy’s club, but there’s also an essay by Rosanne Cash I can’t wait to read, a piece on R.E.M. by Prozac Nationalist Elizabeth Wurtzel that I’m afraid will make me cringe, and a piece on Bessie Smith by OA editor Carol Ann Fitzgerald I remember as one of my favorites when it first appeared.

Since I’m justifying this post by virtue of Patti Smith’s “Gloria,” Dolly Parton’s blessing, and Al Green’s salvation, I ought to point to the entries of interest to religion observers in this collection. It’s a bit hard to do so, since the book is broken up into sections of Blues, Country, Rock, Jazz, Folk, Bluegrass, R&B, Soul, Family, Rockabilly, Department of Elvis, Southern Heavy Metal, Classical, and Playing, which includes Steve Martin on learning the banjo. There is no gospel, but then, there is no punk, either. I suspect religion has filtered through, nonetheless, as I know punk has, since novelist Mark Binelli writes on the Sex Pistols, who are not even Southern. But Doc Watson was, and I’m betting William Gay’s essay on him and several other pieces besides have enough Southern fried Jesus in them to justify purchase of The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing by all the religion watchers hearing of it for the first time on The Revealer.