The name of the album is taken from the John Fante book The Road to Los Angeles, in which the main character, Arturo Bandini, writes a book bearing the name Colossus of Destiny.
John F. Kennedy | Pope John Paul II | Elton John | John | John Lennon | John Wayne | John McCain | John Kerry | John Cage | Olivia Newton-John | John Williams | John Peel | John Adams | John Steinbeck | John Travolta | John Milton | John Zorn | John Marshall | John Howard | John Singer Sargent | John Ruskin | John Updike | John Maynard Keynes | John Coltrane | John Cleese | St. John's | John Waters | John Lee Hooker | John Huston | John Ford |
After finding new homes for four of his more major authors — Charles Bukowski, Paul Bowles, John Fante, and Wyndham Lewis — Martin sold the rest of his backlist to a fellow publisher, David R. Godine.
Among the writers known to have been regular patrons of the Rose shop were William Saroyan, William Faulkner, Nathanael West, Jim Tully, Gene Fowler, James M. Cain, Frank Fenton, Horace McCoy, Erskine Caldwell, John Fante, Louis Adamic, A.I. Bezzerides, Jo Pagano and Budd Schulberg.
Capossela's lyrics are highly original and are often inspired by literary sources such as John Fante, Geoffrey Chaucer, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others.