It Was All Right

Pardon my dust, but this long-overdue tome proves what everyone from the Stooges to Bob Seger has been saying for decades: that the high octane missing link between Motown and everything else that ever roared out of the Motor City is Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels!

~Robert Matheu

I'm grateful for this inside view of the life and times of Mitch Ryder. It's a story that needed to be told and should be required reading for all young musicians. If you think a hit record will deliver you to a good life, think again. Such is the great lie of fame. This book is the truth of fame for 99.99 % of those who achieve it. Mitch's struggle for fulfillment and dignity in the modern culture industry is a warning for all who choose it. Not that anyone should be discouraged from a life in the arts, but be aware, it's no walk in the park. That Ryder is still singing in his wonderful, deeply soulful voice is a gift to us all. That he's told his cautionary tale is even better.

~Wayne Kramer

Mitch Ryder is one of rock and roll's great unsung heroes, and his story has been criminally untold-or at least under-told-until now. It Was All Right may take its title from a Lou Reed lyric, but it captures the development of one of rock's great voices and great personalities, a ride alongside a career of dizzying ups and downs that has nevertheless maintained dignity and passion. Anyone who reads this will start chanting 'Where's Mitch?!' along with everybody else who thinks Ryder's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is overdue.

~Gary Graff, Award-Winning Music Journalist and Editor of the Ties That Bind: Bruce Springsteen a to E to Z and Travelin' Man: on the Road and Behind the Scenes with Bob Seger

It Was All Right intelligently and personally gives us insight into Mitch Ryder as a pop culture icon - from Richard Nixon repeating Mitch's famous 'Sock It to Me' on Laugh In to 'Devil With a Blue Dress On' becoming a rock anthem - and reveals Mitch as a deeply empathic and creative individual. Mitch's story is really the story of an art form, its business, and its effects on us all, both positive and negative. Cheers to Mitch and cheers to James A. Mitchell for capturing it all.

~Bruce Michael Conforth, Professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan and First Curator at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

Whether the soundtrack of your early years included Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels or if you're new to American pop culture of the volatile 1960s and 1970s, It Was All Right will galvanize you. It's an intimate, spot-on look at the world of rock, celebrity, and Detroit's continuing contribution to world culture.

~Loren D. Estleman, Author of Numerous Books Including American Detective, Nicotine Kiss, and Amos Walker's Detroit