It was December 1949. King and his band were playing a juke joint in the small town of Twist, Ark., when two men got in a fight and knocked over a flaming garbage pail half-filled with kerosene, ...

The joke in This Is Spinal Tap about an amp that “goes to 11” has particular resonance for anybody who’s ever picked up a solid-body electric guitar. The history of rock music is a gloriously loud one ...