Alrighty, lets see about combing the two usual focuses of this blog into one post – music and books, books about music.
A good book about music or musicians isn’t as common as you’d think. There are shit loads of duffers out there – poorly researched and badly written fluff pieces. Some musicians who you’d expect a really good book out of tend to spend more time talking about their model railway collection than about the making of After The Gold Rush and some make it a little too obvious that they have an ulterior motive in a book release other than just a memoir – Kim Gordon’s Girl in a Band, for example.
But, there are some bloody belters out there and there’s a reason that a good chunk of my library is given over to a ‘music’ section. I’m sticking close to this blog’s wheelhouse here, obviously, but honourable mentions should go to The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross and Peter Doggett’s There’s a Riot Going on: Revolutionaries, Rock Stars, and the Rise and Fall of 60s Counter-culture.
In no particular order, then, are my ten favourite music biogs / auto-biogs / books etc…
Pearl Jam – Twenty
Put out as part of the celebrations surrounding the band’s twentieth anniversary – the clue is in the title – which included a Cameron Crowe helmed documentary, CD, live album, two-day festival and short tour… Pearl Jam Twenty is a year-by-year oral history of the band’s career. Stuffed to the bindings with imagery and photos, this is as intimate and candid as you’ll get for Pearl Jam, notoriously shy of publicity and exceedingly unlikely to offer anything resembling an official biography. There’s a wealth of humour and details in here given the format and it’s fuelled many a post on this blog and every time I open it up to refresh my memory I end up absorbed again.
Keith Richards – Life
Did you know Mick Jagger started an autobiography? Sometime in the 80’s – presumably during the lull in Stones activity, he got quite far with his book but promptly forgot about it – when he was later approached by a publisher he could neither remember writing it or let it be published. Somehow, Keith Richards remembered even more and not only finished but published his autobiography, Life. Could have been something to do with the publisher giving an advance of $7m based on a short extract, but Life is an essential read for even a minor Stones fan like me. Yes there’s the thrills and vicarious spirit of rock ‘n’ roll excess – but it’s his honesty and unflinching and everlasting love for music that really comes across, you understand how he became known as the human riff. Worth following up with the Netflix doc on Keith too if you’re in the mood.
Mark Yarm – Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge
This book is, frankly, immense. In its scope, its telling and impact. Just reading it you can feel how much work and love has gone into this telling of the Seattle music scene – from its origins to its current status. The highs (both natural and chemical) and lows – some of which are pretty fucking dark and were a real discovery for me – are all covered in a forthright manner that manages to remain factual and detailed while also a clearly affectionate chronicle, sometimes gossipy, often hilarious and regularly revealing. It can’t be easy to build a narrative from so many and often conflicting memories (The Melvins’ Buzz Osborne comes across as a bit of a contrary prick) but Yarm has created what can only be described as the Bible of the scene here.
Bob Dylan – Chronicles Vol. One
“I’d been on an eighteen month tour with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. It would be my last. I had no connection to any kind of inspiration. Whatever was there to begin with had all vanished and shrunk. Tom was at the top of his game and I was at the bottom of mine.”
Wait, what? Nobody was expecting it, but Bob Dylan’s Chronicles Volume One appeared like a revelatory bolt from the blue in 2004 after he got ‘carried away’ writing linear notes for planned reissues of Bob Dylan, New Morning and Oh Mercy. The memoir – apparently the first of three (who know when) – is a detailed and candid insight into Dylan’s life, thinking and writing at the time of those three albums. The dejection and lack of direction he felt for his career while on tour with Petty is pre- Oh Mercy which, it turns out, came about thanks to Bono, an obscure singer with a little-known Irish band called U2* who, for some reason, Dylan showed the songs he’d started putting together and, while old Bob thought about burning them, suggested he call Daniel Lanois instead…
There’s a lot to discover in these three ‘vignettes’ considering the brevity of the periods covered and it’s a vital read for any Dylan fan. For a less personal and fuller Dylan read, Howard Sounes’ Down The Highway does a comprehensive and enjoyable job of telling Dylan’s story while keeping clear of the myth(s).
Speaking of stripping away the myth..
Peter Guralnick – Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of AND Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley
This isn’t a double-header, I’m not sneaking two books into one slot, both deserve a spot on this list but as you just can’t read one and not the other I’ll cover both in one go. I bought these books a long time before I got to reading them. I’m not a big fan of Elvis, I can quite quickly name a Top Ten but I don’t go deep with the King. These books do and I’d mark them as essential.
Last Train to Memphis does a magnificent job in detailing – and I mean detailing – the rise of Elvis Presley right up to the point where he’s shipped out to Germany in 1958. Where he’s from, who he was as a person, his love for music, getting started, this book is rich in detail and interview and a real eye-opener. Guralnick finds the truth behind what has become a much retold and embellished story that’s become so familiar that the truth of a poor young truck driver who loved nothing above his mother and music and came out of nowhere to become the biggest thing the world had seen is far too often forgotten. Take, as an example, the words of Marion Keisker, the secretary at Sun records who recognised something special in the polite teenager’s voice, words on the enigma surrounding Elvis: “He was like a mirror in a way: whatever you were looking for, you were going to find in him. It was not in him to say anything malicious. He had all the intricacy of the very simple.”
The degree to which Last Train to Memphis manages to deliver the real Elvis Presley makes Careless Love all the more affecting. Once again – the demise of Elvis’ career and the man himself are too often mistold and the stock of parody: fat Elvis dying on the throne trying to take a dump surrounded by hamburgers and tv sets….
Careless Love gets underway with Elvis’ time in the army in ’58 and chronicles the gradual unravelling of the dream that had burnt so bright in Last Train To Memphis and details in disturbing detail the complex playing-out of Elvis’s relationship with his plotting, money-grabbing and manipulative manager, Colonel Tom Parker. The lying Dutchman’s desperate attempts to stop Elvis returning to the road after his comeback special (he’d have less control of him on the road), his continual pushing of terrible movie after terrible movie, the appalling contract and commission he took which fuelled his greed…. it wasn’t drugs that did for Elvis if you ask me. Written with a grace and affection for its subject, Careless Love is the real deal, a true insight into the end of one of the biggest and misunderstood figures of the 20th century.
While neither made me run out and buy anything beyond the couple of compilations that sit on my shelves, both of these books changed how I thought about Elvis.
Oddly, looking back as I write this, it’s not an Elvis song that comes to mind here:
George Harrison – I, Me, Mine
My love for this book isn’t so much down to what’s revealed or any ‘shocking truths’ – this aren’t necessary really. Though apparently John Lennon was pissed off (it came out a few months before he was murdered) and claimed to be hurt as the book doesn’t refer to Lennon as being a musical influence. What I love is the warmth and feel of I, Me, Mine. My version is that which was published in 2002, not long after Harrison had passed, with a new forward from his wife Olivia. The autobiography itself isn’t essentially long or detailed but it’s everything else about this book I love – the bounty of photos and the song lyrics- copies of handwritten lyrics included – with details on the writing of each: “‘What is Life’ was written for Billy Preston in 1969. I wrote it very quickly, fifteen minutes or half an hour maybe…. it seemed too difficult to go in there and say ‘Hey I wrote this catch pop sing; while Billy was playing his funky stuff. I did it myself later on All Things Must Pass.”
Aerosmith – Walk This Way
My first taste of musical bios is a pretty extreme one. I bought this when it came out (first edition hardback still sitting on my shelves looking rather well read) and I was really starting to get into Aerosmith. Written by Stephen Davis and the band, Walk This Way was the first official telling of the Aerosmith story, from the band members’ origins and the formation of the group through to its early rise and debauchery to its drug-fuelled collapse and nadir before being reborn via sobriety in the mid-80s – much is given over to this process and the resentment Tyler felt at the time, Perry being involved in the intervention while still using etc and the troubles that nearly caused another break up prior to Nine Lives.
Since publication three of members have written their own memoirs (oddly I’ve only read Steven Tyler’s) and have suggested that Walk This Way is perhaps a little… sanitised and glosses over a few things. Odd considering just how shocking some of what this covers …
Mark Blake – Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd
I mentioned this one recently and I still believe it deserves a place in my Top 10. While there’s never likely to be as complete and comprehensive a Pink Floyd autobiography as desired – Nick Mason’s Inside Out comes close but is obviously his own story – as a) Gilmour and Waters don’t really get on and b) Syd Barrett and Richard Wright are no longer with us… Pigs Might Fly is a thoroughly detailed and researched ‘as close as you’ll ever get’.
Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run
Of course this is bloody well going to be on here. This is pretty much top of the list and sets a new benchmark for how autobiographies should be written. I wasn’t expecting this one to be written so well or so candidly. In my original review for this, which was extensive so I won’t go overboard here, I said: It is an absolute blast to read. Written completely solo and without the assistance of a ghost-writer, the voice is clearly that of Bruce – at times cuttingly honest, at others poetic and then written as though delivering a sermon from the stage on the LIFE SAVING POWERS OF ROCK AND ROLL!!! (yes, the caps-lock button is Bruce’s friend). Contained within its five hundred or so pages is the story of how a young man from a poor, working class family in the town of Freehold, New Jersey, fell in love with music, got a guitar, learned how to make it talk, refined his craft and cracked the code. It’s fascinating and joyous stuff.
*If there isn’t a tribute band called ‘Not You Too’ then I’ll bloody well start one.
Mumbling About... 
These books all sound pretty intriguing!
Sadly, I have to admit I’m not into reading books. In part, this has to do with the fact that much of job involves reading, so when I‘m off, I prefer to do other things, such as listening to or writing about music.
Given many of the books you mention are about artists I dig, I should probably change my reading habits! It sounds the books about Springsteen and Richards would be a great start…
Well, firstly let me say that it’s nice to see you lot up and running over there. I’m finding the machinations of Boris, Parliament and the others fascinating go watch. And some bloke just got up and changed sides in the middle of him talking? It’s that easy? Jesus. Good luck over there.
Good topic. I have had this same one on my “to-post” list for about, oh, four years. I will get around to it one day. Thoughts:
-What was the deal with Kim Gordon’s book? A vendetta? Please do not spare the juicy details. This is a Boston thing.
-Pearl Jam I like but nowhere near as much as you. I saw a documentary which was, I think, enough for me.
-But I am, to this day, a monstrous Stones fan and have read endless gobs by and about them. I read ‘Life’ twice. It’s interesting that through all the bullshit, Keith is not only kinda shy with women but also somewhat of a family man. Extended family, too.
-Who the FUCk is Mark Yarm?
-Dylan. Oh, yeah. Read that one twice, too. Weird jumps in time. Waiting for another one. Maybe he’ll stop touring now that his voice is a croak and just write.
-I don’t think I was even aware that “I.Me, Mine” was a book. Christmas present!
-Read ‘Walk this Way.” So many of these rock bios are the same- Band that wants to make it, then drugs, then women, then drugs, then rehab, more women, trashing hotel rooms, deaths, sobriety. It gets old. But then again it doesn’t. I think any up and coming band should be made to read 2 or 3 rock bios first so they don’t die at 27 on the back of a tour bus. There is a deadly downside to the music industry.
-Didn’t know about “Pigs Might Fly.” Read a shitload when I was writing a series on them a while back. Christmas present!
-My friend Bill is the Elvis fan supremo. Sings like him too. I’ve always liked the Big E and Bill helped me navigate the waters of his best stuff. Guralnick may be our best music writer. I read both of these when they came out and I have been planning to revisit. Guralnick also wrote the Sam Phillips book I reviewed. He’s a local guy and I met him at a speaking engagement where he signed my book. Gave him a card with my blog URL. He nodded appreciatively and that was that.
-Bruce fucking Springsteen. I need to re-read that and then re-watch the Netflix thing.
I’ve had a little time out and away hunting for fossils and enjoying a quieter pace and made a conscious effort to disconnect from all the bs of the news… seems I’ve missed a real circus. Yes – it is that easy. A few have done so already, more are expected to as well. Twatface has no majority anymore and can barely manage himself. ‘Glad’ to see politics on both sides of the pond remain a farce. Ho hum, hold tight it’s gonna get bumpier still.
Kim Gordon’s book…. I felt it was a little too ‘this is my version of the split, I was wronged and Thurston is a tool’. It may be the truth but for a couple so previously private it felt ott. I was talking to the guy who runs my favourite record store about it just the other day actually and he said it felt like the other ulterior motive was to push hard on the ‘I’m an artist and Sonic Youth was just a minor thing’.
This one was on my to-do list for a while. A day off posed the opportunity to get it done. Soon I may even find the time to finish the Born In The USA posts I’m working up…. I hope
I can watch Parliament ‘live’ on YouTube over here. What a shitshow! Almost as hilarious as Pence staying at a Trump hotel in Ireland.
I was wrong about the Boston thing. You siad Kim Gordon I was thinking Kim Deal.
Or suggesting the next G7 summit should be held at a Trump golf course?
Rather than, say, Camp David where all other international meetings are held.
Is it looking like curtains with this Ukraine thing? BoJo just took a wallop in the Supreme Court here…. is nobody gonna hold the other clown’s feet to the fire?
It has looked like curtains a hundred and fifty times since Cheetolini took office. They SHOULD impeach him. But the Democrats don’t even have enough votes in the House (where it starts) and certainly not enough in the Republican-controlled Senate. So Nancy Pelosi and crew have to do the equation as follows- We know he deserves to be impeached a thousand times over. But if we do this and fuck it up, does he come out stronger for the next election? Trump is a genius at stonewalling and pushing the limits of the law. I thought frankly he’d be gone by now. But somehow he always dodges every bullet.
Well, done deal. I could not possibly be happier. Champagne time
I’ve just read the released version of the transcript. How that clown thinks it makes him look good is beyond me… Champagne on ice
Fuck, it’s released? Thanks.
Click to access Unclassified09.2019.pdf
Yeah, reading it now. As to Trump, he is a sick, twisted, deluded fuck who lives in his own reality. He had no choice but to release the transcript. Back to the wall. Jesus, I hate this motherfucker.
Do me a favor though….
And?
I was paraphrasing the mob boss in the White House. Just shocking…. how they think this plays well is beyond me. Is it a test? How much further can his gang of suck-ups in the Republican part support him with this… what will it take for them to realise the jig is up?
Am I, as a non-American, not seeing something here?
Yes, I realized that afterwards. My former governor, previous presidential candidate and now senator from Utah, Mitt Romney, made some very interesting observations today. In a nutshell, it’s really about power, about clinging to it and not letting go. But it’s also very much about tribalism, us vs.them, if you will. They are well aware of what a shit he is. Privately. But it’s also about fear, the fear of Trump getting his followers to crush them in their elections. Which brings us back to the power thing. So no, you’re seeing things quite clearly as do virtually all (minus Fox) of the media. A very similar thing happened during Watergate. And slowly but surely, as the truth leaked out, Republicans either chose or were forced by circumstances to vote to impeach. Each one is making a political calculation- am I better off supporting him or impeachment? The country? By their actions it is of secondary importance.
That explains the Republican “leadership” to a certain extent. Hopefully you can see this article which explains his followers. By and large they are a bunch of aggrieved, “poor us” people.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-jennings-trump-republicans-clinton-election-20190310-story.html
Surely the point isn’t the whole “quid pro quo” thing – it’s more that the fuck asked a foreign power to investigate his political opponent and can’t separate his personal bloody lawyer and interests from presidential?
100% correct. But what you just quoted is the White House spin. If Trump were caught on camera murdering someone they would have a spin. If you want to see how the WH is spinning this situation you’re in luck. They accidentally released their “talking points” to the Democrats. It’s a tissue of lies aimed at the stupid losers who continue to support this scumbag. Google it and compare to transcript.
Just caught up with what was happening overnight – whistleblower report sounds promising. It feels like watching Trump having a breakdown live on twitter at the moment
I’m watching the Director of National Intelligence get grilled on TV. He’s fumbling and bumbling.
I watched that too, and read through the report from the whistle blower. It’s Nunes who comes across worse
Nunes is a piece of work and one of the worst, most flagrant sycophants ever. Too many stories.
Giuliani says he will be seen as a hero. And the actual transcript was hidden away – per the whistleblower – on a secret, classified system. Why?
BTW, old chap. Glad to see things are going swimmingly over there with Boris, Parliament and that picky Supreme Court.
#FuckBoris
Dat’s a lot of summer reading, dat is!
May I mention a couple I’ve really enjoyed?
Clinton Heylin – The Act You’ve Known For All These Years (in and around Sgt Pepper; detailed and insightful)
David Sheppard – On Some Faraway Beach – The Life and Times of Brian Eno (self-explanatory and fascinating)
Brian Eno has managed to escape my attention really but I’ll keep an eye out for those two, thanks
Love The Rest is Noise and Chronicles. One music book I loved is Giles Smith’s Lost In Music – it was short and it’s probably well out of print, but it’s a fun story of music fandom.
Ah, sounds good, a little like John Sellers’ Perfect from Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life. Will add to the list to keep an eye out for
Are any of these pop up pictures books? If so I’m in.
The Elvis one is, I won’t tell you what it does if you pull the tab
Lots of good books in this category. I have a couple shelves of them. Lots of jazz ones. I’ll being looking for the Elvis one.
Loads of interesting books here, Tony. I’ve read a couple of them and a couple I wasn’t aware of at all – particularly Yarm’s Grunge book. I’ve read Greg Prato’s (Grunge is Dead) which is also a good read… loads of insight from those who were right in about it and on the fringes.
I have both of Guralnick’s Elvis books and despite reading Last Train to Memphis nearly 15 years ago, I only got around to buying Careless Love a couple of years ago and haven’t yet finished it (I put it down when moving and it was left packed away).
I’m also surprised to hear that Walk this Way glossed over some stuff, cause I remember thinking that was quite eye opening. A pal bought it for me for a birthday a long time ago and I think it was the first book of its kind I read (y’know, the debauchery and the likes). Anyhoo, Slash’s autobiography is also very entertaining (and honest)… as is Miles Davis’. They are two I would add to the music book list. My summer reading has been slow… and it consists of making my way (very slowly) through Pete Hamill’s Why Sinatra Matters.