I tend to read non-fiction and these days a lot of music biography.
Currently into Howard Sounes bio of Lou Reed. He was interviewed by Heppers on a Word podcast and has written some impressive books on Dylan. He is highly opinionated so when he starts getting into the solo career it could get a bit contentious. There is a lot of salacious detail about the drugs and sex but I love the gossip, they are inextricably part of the whole Lou Reed persona and why would you bother with a book on someone without the grubby bits?
Sitting on the bedside table are 2 books just in from the tax dodgers. John Collins is a great west African musicologist having moved to Ghana in 1952. I’ve got another book on Fela by Carlos Moore which was indulgent crap (but some nice pics) so expecting much better this time.
Books on Zimbabwean music are usually scholarly works by ethnomusicologists. I’ve never seen a book on a Zim “pop” artist. Banning Eyre has worked with and promoted Thomas in America. I think he got exposed to him in Zim a lot later than me but reading will confirm. Banning wrote a good book about going to Mali to be taught by the grat Djelimady Tounkara and withThomas being a musical obsession of mine I cant wait to get into this book
I’ve just finished the audiobook of Fortunate Son the John Fogerty autobiography, inspired by your earlier thread JW.
Narrated by Fogerty himself (with help from his wife Julie), this could be one of the strangest music biographies I’ve ever read. As we know, Fogerty was screwed royally, not only by his record company and manager Saul Zaentz, but by his fellow CCR band members too, one of which was his own brother.
Consequently 75% of the book is given over to bile, resentment and undisguised fury at the way he was robbed, cheated and lied to for more than 30 years. His anger is perfectly justified of course, but there’s so much of it and it makes for depressing reading.
John Fogerty was the heart and soul of Creedence Clearwater Revival of course and sadly we learn that the other band members Tom Fogerty, Doug Clifford, Stu Cook often couldn’t cut it musically and basically obstructed and held back John the main (often only) guitarist, songwriter and singer.
Post-Creedence the rancour continues unabated until Fogerty’s second (or is it third?) wife Julie enters the picture and he begins to rebuild his life and career.
At this point the book takes a quite bizarre, almost Mills and Boon-ish turn with John and Julie endlessly expressing undying love for each other in the most cloying terms.
Then, to cap it all, right at the end Fogerty finds religion and we get half a chapter on God and how He can be found in all of us.
I was more than ready for the book to end by this point.
Fogerty is a very strange, simple cove and his reading/writing style reflects this. He never misses a chance to slag off the San Francisco hippie bands of the 60s such as the Grateful Dead for their drug taking and general unprofessionalism, all of which makes him come across as a bit of a fuddy duddy square.
But I did enjoy the early chapters with great tales of the Golliwogs and Credeence, before it all turned nasty. And that’s the stuff we really want to read about, isn’t it?
He says they couldn’t cut it but there live shows were well regarded at the time.and wasn’t him who had them left out of the Woodstock movie coz it wasn’t up to scratch. I’ve seen hm twice in recent years and he is in remarkably fine voice and as you’d expect the band is note perfect but it sounds rather sterile.
Did you notice his often strange, stilted stage announcements JW? The entire book is read that way
He blames the Dead for CCRs non appearance at Woidstock too. The Dead overran their set by hours and Fogerty thought the CCR set wasn’t very good because they went on in the early hours. He did add that they had no inkling that Woodstock would become so historically important when they turned the film down.
John’s not big on a forgiving God, then…?
yes awkward.
He did comment that CCR was a great example of how to fuck up a good thing.
When I say “CCRs non appearance at Woodstock” I mean in the Woodstock film, obviously.
Be careful out there!
The other day I picked up a book called Fortunate Son and was about to buy it when I had a closer look and put it right back. What a bizarre title for the subject.
http://i875.photobucket.com/albums/ab313/cookieboymonster/urban.jpg
Bizarre. Although Urban’s book was published in 2009 and so pre-dates Fogery’s bio, I reckon the Proud Mary hitmaker has got a stronger claim to the title.
Kill Em & Leave – James McBride’s look at the life of James Brown (review coming up shortly)
LOOK FORWARD TO IT
I’m slowly catching up with Electric Eden, Rob Your ung’s book on th folk tradition. I’ve just reached the section on the 60s folk clubs, before my time but the core of much of my listening, and enjoying it very much.
Our band could be your life – 14 US indie bands between punk and grunge. Great stuff if universally grim living conditions. Includes Black Flag, Husker Du, Sonic Youth (who seem remarkably careerist compared to the others) and more. Shortish chapters on each band which was a great taster.
The last one was Sick on you by Andrew Matheson, about the Hollywood Brats, London in the early 1970s. There are several laugh out loud moments and I enjoyed it.
The Last Sultan: The Life and Times of Ahmet Ertegun by Robert Greenfield.
Just belatedly getting thru’ Unicorn etc, the Sandy Denny bio by Mick Houghton, and jolly good it is too. Have just got to the collapse of Fotheringay and to North Star Grassman. I sense it isn’t going to end happily.
I thought it a very good book, but never felt that that it gave a strong impression of Sandy’s inner life. It doesn’t help that so many of the people to whom she was closest are deceased, of course, but I got the idea that no-one really knew her well away from the ‘office’.
Peter Guralnick’s Bible-sized tome on Sam Phillips (”The Man Who Invented Rock and Roll’) was on my Christmas list and I’ve finally finished it. Hugely enlightening. I only knew the ‘bits about Elvis’ but it transpires that I didn’t even know those bits very well. I was also fascinated to know what he did after Elvis had moved on to RCA. This book told me and it was gripping stuff.
It made me return to the two-volume biography of Elvis that Guralnick had written previously. I’d tried the first volume before but, for some reason, had never finished it. Now I persevered because I felt it was a tale I ought to know. The second volume, ‘Careless Love’, must be the saddest music book I’ve ever read. Poor old Elvis. So lonely, so mis-managed. A warm and instinctively intelligent man who you constantly wish had been just a little bit more intelligent.
I’m currently reading a nice biography of Cannonball Adderley by Cary Ginell and have pre-ordered The Hep’s glorious tribute to 1971 and Phillip Norman’s biography of Macca. That one should be good after Norman’s famously professed preference for Lennon.
I still check to see when the 2nd volume of Lewisohn’s ‘Tune In’ will emerge. No sign of it yet.
Reading Graeme Thomson’s new Phil Lynott bio. I’ve found it pretty uncaptivating up to now, but maybe it will warm up once we get to the “Nightlife” and “Jailbreak” era.
I suppose it’s an inevitable truism about music biogs that the ‘middle bits’ are the most interesting.
Haven’t read a bio in a while, although I’ve just finished that excellent book on Radio 1 someone here recommended. I’m just about to start Diana Ross’s autobiography Secrets of a Sparrow (bought at least 18 months ago for a penny), which I’m hoping is as dreadful as it appears. Mind you, at nearly 300 pages of Diana’s own scribblings, it’ll probably serve as an occasional read, to be dipped into between other, more substantial material.
And roll on the Hep’s 1971! Are we doing a ‘book club’ thread for this?
I just bought “Bright Lights Dark Shadows: The Real Story Of Abba” by Carl Magnus Palm, although I am about to start a contract which involves a fuckload of reading and won’t get near this till a leat the end of May. Looking forward to it though…
Might not be your bag Junior but two 80’s ones worth a read are Julian Copes “Head On” and Billy MacKenzies “The Glamour Chase” are both great reads
I read the Viv Albertine biog while on holiday last week. Surprised it doesn’t seem to have been discussed on here at all.
Really good book; Albertine is incredibly, almost painfully, candid and, while it’s clear she’s probably quite a difficult human being in many ways, her fundamental honesty and refusal to be put in her box makes her weirdly likeable.
I’ve never really been a fan of the Slits, but I’d still recommend this, if only for a vivid portrait of the good old days when wearing the wrong sort of trousers could get you beaten up. These days only red trews will get you there.
The last one I read was Billy Idol‘s autobiography “Dancing With Myself”, which may not be your cup of tea!
As a bit of a fan of the old peroxide sex pot I rather enjoyed it, though it’s a weird read in many ways. Written by himself, apparently, and most of the time he writes well enough but all of a sudden he can throw in some strange passage full of “poetic” metaphors that are quite appalling.
If you’re curious to know what it feels like to smoke crack, this book will cure you of any desire to try…
I recommend both Dylan books by Ian Bell, published within the last 5 years or so: “Once Upon a Time” and “Time Out of Mind”. Very well written, much better than Greil Marcus and Howards Sounes and a lot of other Dylanology.
Yes they are excellent. Very dense and a lot of socio political context but a lot of insight , inclined to be quite damning and overly harsh but yes essential.