Understanding about membership and roles was pretty difficult for me too, as you said there are not many reliable and detailed content you will find on web. I tried watching several videos to Understand about this topic but wasn't clear. But then two articles from a website called Code Project came for the rescue. I am sharing these Link where you can see a step by step guide about customize membership
Link 1
The link 1 will help you to replace an email with username for login authentication this is one of the most common customization the developers need in the microsoft provided Identity Module.
Link2
The second article will help you understand adding and attaching roles to the created user and how to limit the access of user registration page to an Admin only. This way with the help of these two articles I hope that you will Understand the Basics of Authentication and Authorization.