Soul Mining

Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, U2, Peter Gabriel, and the Neville Brothers all have one thing in common: some of their best albums were produced by Daniel Lanois. A French speaking kid from Canada, Lanois was driven by his innate curiosity and intense love of music to transcend his small-town origins and become one of the world’s most prolific and successful record producers, as well as a musician in his own right.

Lanois takes us through his early years, from his single mother raising four kids on a hairdresser’s salary, to his discovery by the artist Brian Eno, to his work on albums such as U2’s Joshua Tree and Dylan’s Time Out of Mind. He delves into the ongoing evolution of technology, the birth of the microchip and the death of discrete circuitry, and the arrival of the download era.

Part technological treatise, part philosophical manifesto on the nature of artistic excellence and the overwhelming need for music, Soul Mining brings the reader viscerally inside the recording studio, where the surrounding forces have always been just as important as the work itself. Beyond skill, beyond record budgets, beyond image and ego, says Lanois, music is love and truth.