Craig Inciardi was a rising star at Sotheby's, wheeling and dealing in rock memorabilia, when he got the call to help launch the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum. The catch? There was no museum. Just "a guitar of no importance and three interesting sheets of paper."

With a green light and few guardrails, Inciardi hit the road--working out of Rolling Stone's offices, answering to Jann Wenner, and chasing down legends for their sacred stuff. His journey took him to Ozzy Osbourne's country estate (where Ozzy greeted him with a gun), Keith Moon's untouched boyhood bedroom, and Art Garfunkel's secret stash of letters from Paul Simon. Along the way, he landed the guitar Pete Townshend used to write "Tommy," Otis Redding's leather coat worn before his fatal plane crash, Patti Smith's duct-taped boots, Aretha Franklin's handwritten notes, Debbie Harry's stagewear, and John Lennon's glasses worn the day he died.

And that's only a fraction of the rock-relic stories on offer. Meanwhile, Inciardi pulls back the curtain on the hall's chaotic birth: the cutthroat induction debates, the backstage meltdowns, and the legendary all-star jams with Jagger, Dylan, Springsteen, and more.

Told with grit, reverence, and a gleeful sense of mischief, The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is a front-row seat to music history--and the madness behind the museum that almost wasn't.