After a succession of near misses with ill-fated bands, he eventually finds himself past thirty years-old, homeless and bucket-drumming in the subway stations of New York City. Along the way, the rock n’ roll romance between veteran drummer Kam Rodgers and transcendent lead-singer Cora Saint James is tested, as the road proves to be a realm where past ghosts linger, passions collide, and destinies are chosen.įull Description: Kam Rodgers has spent the last decade of his life behind a drum kit chasing rock n’ roll immortality. The Roll is an adventure for all music lovers as it follows a band on tour, taking the reader from the dank subway stations in New York City, down to the raucous jook joints of the Mississippi Delta, back up to the subterranean jazz clubs on the South Side of Chicago, before heading west across mountain and desert highways toward the musical Promised Land of Los Angeles, California. Ask Cora and she will tell you that as she continues to struggle and evolve in a life that's rooted in heartache and despair, she remains at her core, a mystical Chicago soul child from the South Side, who truly suffers from the blues - nothing more, nothing less.”

Yet while these personas may add to the eccentricities that validate her as a radical, revolutionary performer, it is what eventually emerges off the stage that is altogether more tangible and significant. She's one part kooky, voodoo-medicine woman, one part free-spirit, pagan-hippie, and one part Mississippi-Delta mud queen not to mention she is the most intelligent person I have ever met. From the back of the book: “Cora Saint James is a lot of things and more often than not, I can't quite figure her out, which I have to admit adds to her allure.

The Roll by Joe Hnida