"Kemp's anecdotal and affectionate remembrance of Southern rock provides a solid panoramic view of an important chapter in the history of rock and roll."
—Publishers Weekly

"A cathartic treatise on the author's life in and with the music of his formative and adult years and the musicians who brought it to him . . . For anyone who digs the music but never gave the politics a fleeting thought, this book is a must. It will open your eyes and your mind, whether you're white or black, a Southerner or a recent immigrant to this land of paradoxes."
—Jackson Free Press

"When cultural suppression transforms into cultural embrace, with music the vehicle, it's a beautiful thing, and music critic Kemp drives home the impact on Southern music in turning an entire nation's head. . . . Kemp's grace and insight into a complex cultural scenario forms a combination that's hard to beat."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Though surely too much of a southern gentleman to admit it, Mark Kemp is every bit as audacious as the musicians he writes about. The story he tells here encompasses everything that is important about modern life. And he tells it beautifully, the cultural criticism and memoir blended seamlessly. He will make you see the South anew."
—Stephen J. Dubner, author of Turbulent Souls and Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper

"Mark Kemp was part of the generation of young white southerners for whom Allman Brothers-style southern rock was not just music, but, as he persuasively argues, a redemptive escape from racism. Dixie Lullaby is a compelling memoir of growing up in the post-civil rights era South from a young man whose life was truly 'saved by rock & roll.'"
—Dennis McNally, author of Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation, and America and A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead.

"As a child of the South and the '60s, I know in my heart that Mark Kemp has told the truth about what growing up here and loving music was like. But you don't have to be a Southerner to get it. Anybody who's listened to rock & roll or voted for the last forty years or so ought to be delighted by this fascinating, well-written, and entertaining new book."
—Larry Brown, author of The Rabbit Factory and Faye

"Dixie Lullaby is as evocative as the music it celebrates. Mark Kemp, who grew up in North Carolina, instinctively understood that rock and roll, particularly SOUTHERN rock and roll, was his salvation. . . . Music fans should not miss this memoir. Kemp's interviews and insights are worth much more than the price of the book."
—Southern Scribe

"Kemp, who rose to national prominence critiquing the bands of the alternative era in Option magazine, turns his considerable skills as a critic and journalist to the Southern rock of his youth."
—Jim DeRogatis, Chicago Sun-Times

"Dixie Lullaby offers quick and useful sketches of rock history from the 1970s on, tracing Southern rock's influence to the current crop of jam bands . . . It also covers the impact of MTV and punk rock as well as bands such as R.E.M. and Nirvana. Kemp also provides political and social context for these shifts in musical styles and popularity. . . . The questions Kemp asks and the answers he searches for will speak to any Southerner who has struggled with 'the duality of the Southern thing.'"
—Tampa Tribune

"Kemp, a former Rolling Stone journalist, uses rock'n'roll to expunge his Southern-bred guilt and insecurity and highlight the dramatic transformation of Southern culture. . . . A well-written, fast-moving, revelatory, and thought-provoking glimpse into the evolving, multifaceted ethos of the American South."
—Library Journal

Durham Independent Weekly: "Kemp levels the playing field with his steadfast honesty and seamless pairing of first-person recollection and a thorough sense of the music's historical context . . . It's a complex, iconoclastic analysis in which the stereotypically biased brutes, miscreants and hoodlums of the musical South become contradictory disciples responsible, in large part, for giving rise to a new breed of Southern youth." (For full story, click here .)

Associated Press: "In a new book, a former Rolling Stone editor and MTV executive casts the music of such groups as The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd differently -- as an art form born out of the civil rights era that defied stereotypes and gave voice to a generation of young, white Southerners uneasy with the region's backward image and racist icons." (For full story, click here.)

CMT.COM: "The flashpoint in Kemp's rock 'n' roll identity crisis and his rock 'n' roll revelation was his realization that Southern rock provided him with a healing process while shedding the identity of the old South, of finally discarding the racism of his parents and grandparents, of seeing role models in Southern rockers instead of in Southern politicians like George Wallace. And also in standing up to the ridicule and disdain that's often heaped upon Southerners for simply being from the South. Anyone with a Southern accent can still count on being ignored or ridiculed. Kemp recognizes, rightly, that it's a class issue, not a regional one. It's bias against the working class that exerts itself as cultural fascism. (For full Chet Flippo column, click here.)

Harp (music magazine) : "Kemp begins each chapter with a personal anecdote and goes on to intertwine personal history, in-depth interviews and reflections on music into a greater socio-political context (roughly spanning from the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to the end of the Clinton administration) . . . More than anything, the book seems to be a personal catharsis for Kemp in facing his own demons of Southern identity. In coming to terms with it, he finds redemption not only in his acceptance of being Southern, but also in the shared, collective experience of so many others like him captured within the pages of Dixie Lullaby." (For full review, click here.)

Mountain Xpress, Asheville, NC: "The author airs all of it in his book – shame, guilt, addictions, unease and the unmentionables swept out of view. But Dixie Lullaby isn't about rock 'n' roll's dirty laundry: It's about music's ability to heal." (For full story, click here.)

WUNC, "The State of Things": In the early 1970's, Mark Kemp was a teenager in Asheboro when he first heard the music of the Allman Brothers. It was a southern rock sound that gave him and others like him a sense of purpose and community. Host Melinda Penkava speaks with Mark Kemp about southern rock and its social and political influence, which he writes about in his new memoir, Dixie Lullaby: A Story of Music, Race, and New Beginnings in a New South. (For 60-minute radio interview with me, click here.)

WTMD, "Clear Reception," Sept. 26, 2004: After 150 years of disdain and amusement, the South is rising again, in the imagination and cultural politics of the nation.  In this Clear Reception we dig into some of the most exported pieces of southern culture: the literature, the music, and the newly discovered  phenomenon, NASCAR racing. (Show features three segments -- Mark Kemp is the second guest in this 60-minute public radio broadcast from Baltimore. To listen, please click here.)