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House of Anansi, 352 pages, $26.99

When the loss reverberated throughout the Canadian music world. The journalist and critic’s byline was ubiquitous throughout the country before finding a home in the pages of the Star for more than 30 years. Goddard left a legacy that offers lessons for any aspiring music writer on capturing the zeitgeist and placing your subject into the broader cultural context.

Before he passed, Goddard was working on a new book. Its premise: to reflect on how, over 50 years of writing about the music scene, rock had changed. Many of these original essays are included here along with a curated selection of Goddard’s best writing.

Through lively description and clever literary devices, Goddard made readers feel as if they were attending a performance with him. Describing a 1969 Chuck Berry concert and the hypnotizing effect that occurred when his voice collided with his guitar, Goddard wrote, “The effect was that of a pneumatic drill caught in the iron cage of the beat.”

Featuring record reviews, artist interviews and pop-culture rambles, this collection highlights the depth and breadth of Goddard’s published work. It’s a rock ’n’ roll journey well worth taking.

Ten Telecaster Tales: Liner Notes for a Guitar and Its Music

Rik Emmett

ECW Press, 208 pages, $24.95

Artists — no matter their chosen medium — are storytellers. Whether through lyrics, melody or prose, Rik Emmett has made a career of sharing tales with the hope these creations resonate. For more than a decade — from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s — the singer-guitarist played with the . Since leaving the band and becoming a solo artist, he has also written books, including “Reinvention: Poems” and “Lay It on the Line: A Backstage Pass to Rock Star Adventure, Conflict and Triumph.”

In “Ten Telecaster Tales,” Emmett proves yet again that he is as adept at non-fiction as he is at arena-rock anthems. This project began with Emmett’s idea to design a hybrid electric Telecaster guitar — which he nicknamed Babs — and use this newfangled instrument to guide and inspire him to compose 10 solo pieces that move, groove, swirl, slink and sigh. This brief book offers extended liner notes for these new songs while also letting readers in on the musician’s creative process.

Buy the companion album, “Ten Telecaster Tales,” and listen to each song while reading Emmett’s descriptions on how each of these compositions — including waltzes and nocturnes — were born.

Richard Manuel: His Life and Music, From the Hawks and Bob Dylan to the Band

Stephen T. Lewis

Schiffer, 400 pages, $50

In the introduction to this biography of one of the least understood , Stephen T. Lewis writes of a series of “coincidences, connections and conversations” that convinced him to tell Richard Manuel’s story. I, for one, am glad for these connections, and any lover of the Canadian group will also celebrate this long-overdue portrait of the soulful musical misfit from Stratford, Ont. As Lewis, a writer from upstate New York, admits in the introduction, this was no easy task: “Richard’s talent was immense and his soul so complex that to capture his essence was like shoveling smoke.”

Other members of the Band have chronicled their stories ( and Levon Helm in “This Wheel’s on Fire”), but singer-pianist Manuel’s life, which ended tragically by suicide in 1986, has never been fully explored, until now.

This well-researched examination (available May 28) fills in the gaps in Manuel’s musical journey: learning about the blues by listening to radio from south of the border; getting into trouble in rural Ontario as a teenager; and Through interviews with friends and family members, Lewis presents the most complete portrait yet of this often-misunderstood musical genius.

Cold Glitter: The Untold Story of Canadian Glam

Robert Dayton

Feral House, 408 pages, $51.99

As the aphorism goes, “All that glitters is not gold.” Fittingly, all the artists that appear in this massive romp through the history of glam rock in our country are not shiny stars. And that’s the point. It’s also what makes this exhaustive examination so interesting and fun.

Robert Dayton, a comedian, musician and performer, admits that by the time he finished writing, the book had “become a beast, almost savage and difficult to wrestle, going further than I ever thought.” His cheeky and informal writing style suits the hundreds of stories of such flamboyant artists as Sweeney Todd (fronted by Nick Gilder and, later,��), Johnnie Lovesin, the Clichettes and

This photo- and ephemera-packed book takes the reader on a seductive road trip, from west to east, revealing how these artists faced the same struggles — chasing record deals, getting radio play — as their counterparts in more mainstream genres.

Glam rock is an important part of our collective cultural story. I’m glad Dayton pursued his passions to produce this important addition to the canon of Canadian music books.