Author:Irwin Winkler

Whether you know Winkler’s name or not, you are bound to have seen one of his films. His production credits include the “Rocky” / “Creed” series, “Raging Bull”, “Goodfellas”, “The Right Stuff”, “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “They Shoot Horses Don’t They” and he directed “The Net”, “At First Sight” and “Night And The City”. Winkler sets out his career chronologically, taking each film in turn. The anecdotes come thick and fast, the book full to the brim with the names of stars he worked with, and it’s a who’s who of industry “names”.

Some films get a few paragraphs but others a detailed description. His first major success is an example of the latter – “They Shoot Horses Don’t They” – where Winkler relates the power struggles over casting, writers who want to direct but can’t, how he was fired but got himself re-instated, stars last minute demands, the post preview screening edits. It’s a powerful description of just how stressful and challenging getting a movie made can be and the resilience required to succeed. “Guilty By Suspicion” also gets the longer form treatment but is done in diary format which doesn’t work as quite » Continue Reading.

Author:Alan Longmuir

Looking for Roller revelations? Best keep looking. Alan Longmuir was one of the founding members of the Bay City Rollers, playing bass with younger brother Derek playing drums but here’s not just a shortage of kiss here, there’s not much tell either.

Longmuir sets out his stall at the start of the book – “I will not be dishing dirt, speculating, commenting or making any shocking revelations about the personal lives about any of my band colleagues. What happened or didn’t happen is their business and not for me to judge”. Not only has any debauchery been airbrushed out, there’s a general lack of substance, suggesting that Longmuir wanted to make money (nothing wrong with that), as easily as possible, leaving boats unrocked. The early days of hard graft on the Scottish “chicken in a basket” circuit, building a fan base, hoping for the big time are an entertaining read. Unfortunately, once the Rollers become a teenage tartan cult and “Rollermania” becomes a thing, all the spectacular somehow becomes pedestrian. We learn almost nothing about the other band members – towards the end Longmuir makes reference to Stuart Wood having issues with him but without any further comment » Continue Reading.

Author:Tom Stephen

A familiar story, a tragic end. Boy meets blind virtuoso guitarist, they form a band and make platinum little ones and even a movie. Virtuoso has a roving ear (for other types of music) and boy loses virtuoso. There’s no happy ending. The virtuoso dies aged just 41, and the boy is told to stay away from the funeral and excluded from the memorial concert. There are two sides to any story, and this is one of them.

Tom Stephen wasn’t just The Jeff Healey Band’s drummer, he was their manager too (I once saw him at Healey Band gig, front of house at the Hammersmith Odeon – noticed by no-one else as far as I could see). Much of the book hinges on the contradictions this posed.

Stephen enthusiastically indulged in all the excesses that came his way as a band member once the band hit the big time. But as manager he also had to crack the whip and make the band get their shit together, He’s unstinting in his recognition of Healey’s talent, but clear that Jeff needed Stephen’s managerial energy and determination to bring his talent / their music to a wider audience.

» Continue Reading.

Author:Roger Daltrey

In a 2016 Rolling Stone interview Daltrey mentioned he was working on his biography. He said there was no publishing deal, so he could take as long as he liked, and only publish if he liked it. Pretty much sums up how he likes to live life.

To me Daltrey has always seemed edgy, a bit of a hard nut and most definitely not one to mince his words. Generally, the book doesn’t disappoint. A few scores are settled, some stories put straight and we get Rog’s worldview as he sees it. There’s also plenty of humour – a story about a “cut and shut” Aston Martin had me laughing out loud.

Some of Daltrey’s perspectives aren’t that surprising – like many others in their senior years (he’s now 75) he looks back longingly at the simpler times gone by, professing not to understand the modern world demands for instant gratification, although his nostalgia seems undiminished by the poverty of his upbringing. Content and comfortable with his lot now, it’s done little to take the edge off him. Witness his description of Kenney Jones drumming – and he regards Kenney as a mate!

Daltrey is driven and » Continue Reading.

Author:Jas Obrecht

For around 20 years Jas Obrecht was the editor of Guitar Player magazine and he acknowledges in the books introduction that Jimi was a boyhood hero, enjoying the rare privilege of having worked with Jimi’s dad co-authoring “My Son Jimi”.

Obrecht documents in detail Jimi’s arrival in the UK in 1966 and the nine months that followed concluding with his return to the US to headline at the Monterey International Pop Festival. The timeframe allows the book to focus on Jimi’s rapid ascent to rock stardom, and is done and dusted before the difficulties began.

Obrecht’s research is meticulous and it yields some interesting reminders, such as Keith Richard’s girlfriend Linda Keith being responsible for Chas Chandler coming to see Jim. It seems Jagger was indifferent and Richards jealous, attitudes that would be swiftly revised just a few months later. Obrecht also reveals that – for one rehearsal only – the Experience tried being a 4 piece with Redding switching to rhythm guitar and David Knights of Procol Harum playing bass.

From Hendrix’s touch down in London on September 24th 1966 to the Monterey Festival in mid June 1967 Obrecht gives a close to day by day » Continue Reading.

Author:Michael Cox

A fascinating read given the rather dry title. Published last year when the Premier League had it’s 25th anniversary, this substantial tome describes the evolution the game underwent once the new league was founded. The title suggests a focus tactics, and that’s certainly a significant part of the book, but there’s also detailed discussion of the managers and players who were the catalysts of change. Author Michael Cox runs the website www.zonalmarking.net and has been a regular contributor to The Guardian. He’s been smart enough to see that the human story is what makes this readable, not just tactics and statistics.

As a fan in the 90’s I’d always check the results on a Sunday and catch Match of the Day whenever I could but the emergence of the Premier League, tucked away on BSkyB meant a lot of what is described in the early sections here is less familiar to me until we reach the more recent years. Whilst not strictly chronological the book has 25 chapters each with a different theme, and spans Cantona to Conte finishing with a neat analysis of Leicester’s Premiership success.

Cox is particularly adept at relating how managers such as » Continue Reading.

Author:Lucy Mangan

This was a tough one to review. As a lifelong bookworm myself, – who could disagree with Lucy’s assertion – “the bookworm’s prime directive: any book is better than no book”, I was keen to read her story. Unfortunately, having read almost none of the books she considers about, it turns out that a mutual love of reading isn’t entertaining in of itself.

I was already familiar with Lucy’s sharp and sassy observations on daily life from her Guardian column, with a baby called Buggerlugs and a husband known as Toryboy, and there is plenty of humour in this book. Her parents and sister play major roles, her father depicted with great affection, a key figure in both stimulating and supporting her reading habit. Her family provide plenty of comedic material; her mother – “gynaecologist, cleaner, laundrywoman, scorched earth gardener” who “if she ever has an unexpressed thought, she’ll die” and sister – “a born manager of others”, although once past the half way mark the references sometimes become a little too familiar

The affection and regard she has for the books she encountered as a child shines out, and each book she critiques is accompanied with » Continue Reading.

Author:Simon Wells

In a week where the Tories have decided that Leverson 2 can be brushed under the carpet this book provides a timely reminder of just how long the press have made money from moralistic muck raking. Few will come to this book up not knowing how it ends, or who the main characters are; instead Wells focuses on telling the story with sometimes forensic detail, painting the wider context in which the drug busts occurred, and debunking the myth of the mars bar for once and for all.

The early chapters lend the book a bit of a slow start as they are given over to a potted band history and it takes it’s not until Keith has purchased Redlands that the story hits its stride. Wells casts a caustic eye over proceedings and doesn’t spare any of the cast when the occasion arises. Jagger is described as a “massive dichotomy” with an adjustable accent, putting his days as “Mike” behind him to bolster his street cred, with an outlaw image punctured after just one tearful night in jail. In contrast Wells is better disposed to Richards “sneering dissent” and stoicism.

If there was anything positive to say » Continue Reading.