In his 21st book, Screen Gems: Pop Music Documentaries & Rock and Roll TV Scenes, published on Feb. 11, 2026, by BearManor Media, pop culture historian Harvey Kubernik—native Angeleno, child of Hollywood, and a music journalist for more than 50 years—offers a bio-regional memoir perspective as he dives deep into 24 noteworthy productions. The book is available in the U.S. here, in Canada here and in the U.K. here.

As music documentaries enjoy what some insiders are calling the genre’s “Golden Age,” Kubernik, a regular contributor to Best Classic Bands, explores films spotlighting the Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Tina Turner, the Doors, Leon Russell, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles in India, Motown, Stax and Chess Records recording artists, Frank Zappa, Laurel Canyon, the Monterey International Pop Festival, David Bowie, the Seeds, Stevie Van Zandt, the Go-Go’s, and Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd, as well as seminal television programs like The Ed Sullivan Show, Women of Troy, Ready, Steady Go!, and Elvis Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite.

Kubernik’s skill is in coaxing his subjects to share anecdotes that otherwise would be forgotten. Bill Carruthers, son of The Johnny Cash Show‘s executive producer of the same name (and director of its first season), tells a story of the significant appearance of Bob Dylan on the series’ premiere episode, that aired in June 1969. “My dad was very cool with letting me hang when the musicians were there,” Carruthers told the author, “and yes, I got to fetch coffee and stuff for Bob Dylan.

“I distinctly remember Dylan having two very sedate western-style, two-piece suits laid out, and him saying to my dad, ‘Bill, which one of these do you think would be best?’ A few minutes later, my dad said to the assistant director, ‘I can’t believe Bob asked me what he should wear!'”

Watch Dylan on The Johnny Cash Show in a “sedate western-style, two-piece suit”

According to an announcement for the book’s publication, “Kubernik, who has been involved in the documentary world for decades, follows his distinctive muse in this lively compendium that reveals the intersection of TV, film and music. He implements exclusive interviews conducted over the last half-century with groundbreaking, influential documentarians D.A. Pennebaker, Murray Lerner, Albert Maysles, Michael Lindsay-Hogg and Mel Stuart, alongside contemporary filmmakers like Baz Luhrmann, Andrew Solt, David Leaf, Morgan Neville, Alison Ellwood, Thom Zimny, Roddy Bogawa, Beverly Lindsay-Johnson, Jonathan Holiff, Alex Winter, Neil Norman and Bill Teck.”

Providing further depth and perspective are Kubernik’s interviewees Keith Richards, the Doors’ Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore, Jerry Garcia, Ice Cube, Johnny Cash, Tina Turner, George Harrison, Ravi Shankar, the Supremes’ Mary Wilson, David Bowie, Merry Clayton, Micky Dolenz, Phil Spector, Jack Nitzsche, Bobby Womack, Tom Petty, Steve Cropper, Wayne Jackson, Marshall Chess, the Temptations’ David Ruffin, Roger Steffens, Jon Burlingame, Janie Hendrix, Eddie Kramer, Billy Cox, Jello Biafra, Paul Stanley,  Smokey Robinson, the Seeds’ Daryl Hooper and Jan Savage, Ice-T, Andrew Loog Oldham, Howard Kaylan, Berry Gordy Jr., Al Kooper, Kim Fowley, Jim Keltner, Marty Balin, Henry Diltz, the Miracles’ Bobby Rogers, Bill Graham, Ken Scott, Tony Funches, Martin Lewis, Bob Johnston, Robbie Robertson and many more.

In the chapter about the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” Kubernik shares an interview he conducted with Merry Clayton, who famously sang the female vocals on the track. Jack Nitzsche, who worked closely with the band, phoned her late one night. “Merry, I really need you to do this part,” she recalls him saying on that 1969 night. “There is no other singer who can do this.”

“I always loved Jack. Like Lou Adler, he always took a chance on me.” Clayton was pregnant at the time. “I was really tired that night,” but agreed to go to the studio, where she was greeted by Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. “They played me the song and asked if I could put a little somethin’ on it.

“I said, ‘Stop the song and tell me what all this stuff meant’ before I went any further. Because this is a real high part and I will be wettin’ myself if I sing any higher!’ ‘Cause my stomach was a little bit heavy…”

Related: Behind the scenes with Harvey Kubernik for the Buffalo Springfield Again album

Continues the press release, “Kubernik’s cinematic, multi-voice narrative also mixes the recollections of record producers, engineers, photographers, university professors, authors and writers discussing the documentaries.”

Nearly 100 photos and artifacts illustrate Kubernik’s 378-page expedition through the documentaries and exploration of the genre’s surge in popularity in recent years. [Even his acknowledgements at the back of the book are an entertaining read.]

Screen Gems: Pop Music Documentaries & Rock and Roll TV Scenes opens with a foreword penned by Andrew Loog Oldham, the Rolling Stones’ 1963-1967 record producer/manager, author, DJ and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee.

The book wraps with a back cover testimonial from another Rock Hall member: DJ, actor, author, singer-songwriter and producer Stevie Van Zandt, musical director of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, noting “[Harvey has] made a career of documenting the Renaissance of the 1960s by going directly to those who created it.”

Watch the trailer for the Seeds’ Pushin’ Too Hard documentary