ELIJAH WALD is a writer and musician based in Philadelphia. As a musician, he has recorded two solo albums and worked with Dave Van Ronk, Eric Von Schmidt, and the African American string band master Howard Armstrong. He is widely published as a journalist and has written a dozen books, including Dylan Goes Electric, Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues, How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music, and Dave Van Ronk's memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street, which inspired the Coen Brothers' movie Inside Llewyn Davis. (Also Exploding the Gene Myth in collaboration with Ruth Hubbard.) He has an interdisciplinary PhD in ethnomusicology and sociolinguistics, has taught at UCLA and Boston College, has won numerous awards including a 2002 Grammy, and currently performs in a duo with his wife, clarinetist Sandrine Sheon.