NEW & FORTHCOMING

Here's a list of new and forthcoming titles that should be of interest :

The True Adventures of The Rolling Stones by Stanley Booth (Canongate) Re-issue.

My Cross To Bear by Gregg Allman (William Morrow & Co)

The Ellington Century by David Schiff (University of California Press)

Who Is That Man : In Search of the Real Bob Dylan by David Dalton (Omnibus Press)

Everything Is An Afterthought : The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson by Kevin Avery (Fantagraphics)

Too High To Die : Meet the Meat Puppets by Greg Prato (Greg Prato)

Arcade Fire : Behind The Black Mirror by Mick Middles (Omnibus Press)

Black By Design : A 2-Tone Memoir by Pauline Black (Profile) 

Patti Smith : A Biography by Nick Johnstone (Omnibus Press)

The Life & Music of James Brown by R.J.Smith

Listen Whitey : The Sights & Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975 by Pat Thomas (Fantagraphics)

Looking Back At Me by Wilko Johnson with Zoe Howe

True North : A Life In the Music Business by Bernie Finkelstein (McClelland & Stewart) 

The Fan Who Knew Too Much : Aretha Franklin, the Rise of the Soap Opera, Children of the Gospel Church and Other Meditations by Anthony Heilbut (Knopf Publishing Group) 

Stone Free by Andrew Loog Oldham

My Song : A Memoir of Art, Race and Defiance by Harry Belafonte (Canongate)

Fug You : An Informal History of The Peace Eye Bookstore, the Fuck You Press, the Fugs, and Counterculture in the Lower East Side by Ed Sanders (Da Capo Press)

Woolgathering by Patti Smith (Bloomsbury)

Big Day Coming : Yo La Tengo and The Rise of Indie Rock by Jesse Jarnow (Gotham Books)

THE MUSIC BOOK READER BULLETIN Revisited

In case anyone's interested here's the first Music Book Reader Bulletin I wrote for Caught By The River. New column up soon (I hope).

FIRE AND RAIN :
The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY and the Lost Story of 1970
by David Browne
Da Capo Press 384pp hdbk.


For all of us of a certain age – cultural historians, economists, academics, old hippies, revolutionaries and music fans alike, the hoary old debate about exactly when the ‘Sixties’ actually began depends entirely of course on what your take on the sixties is and as such renders the question completely pointless. There is however, as this well-researched and perceptive book asserts, a good case for stating that any meaningful concept of the sixties well and truly ended in 1970. In retrospect the hippie/Woodstock idyll ended when the last person shut the gate on Max Yasgur’s farm in August of the previous year and the notion that a new generation of young idealists could change the world (and specifically the U.S.) was drastically revised in the wake of the Kent State University shootings in Ohio, the escalation of the Vietnam War, and the violence and mayhem perpetrated by the anti-government/capitalist Weathermen movement which contributed to the hardening of mainstream public opinion against any kind of revolutionary cause. Add to that an increasingly downbeat global economy, the Apollo 13 crisis which spelt the beginning of the end of the Apollo space programme, the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and the trial of Charles Manson, and the perception was that the world was becoming more troubled, unstable and difficult to predict and make sense of.
One of the ideas that David Browne suggests, but understandably doesn’t fully explore, in ‘Fire And Rain’ is that people generally had finally come to terms with the death of sixties idealism and, with their senses bludgeoned by a succession of turbulent and disturbing social and political events sought refuge in the music of artists who could provide an aural balm for the times. Hence the phenomenal success of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ by Simon & Garfunkel, CSNY’s ‘Deja Vu’ , and James Taylor’s ‘Sweet Baby James’. This book plainly isn’t meant to be an overview of the state of popular music in 1970 as there was so much more going on that doesn’t get a mention here, but as a way of symbolising what was happening in the big picture then a snapshot view of the crisis-torn, insecure, tempestuous and self-centred careers of these particular artists, plus the break-up of The Beatles (perhaps the most momentous musical event of 1970) is both revealing and entertaining.
Very few of the protagonists emerge from Browne’s descriptions of this stage in their lives as being particularly likeable. James Taylor is depicted as chronically introverted, morose and drug-addled for most of the time, Paul Simon appears to have been an aloof, paranoid control freak and something of a martinet, CS&N (but not perhaps Young) had (and might still well have) egos, tempers, drug dependencies and sexual appetites of literally mind-numbing proportions, and The Beatles by then were just obviously completely fed up with being ‘loveable’ Beatles and were determined, individually, on being anything but. Even the saintly George Harrison was said by a Beatles associate to have “had a distinct way of making ‘Hare Krishna’ sound like ‘fuck you’”. If 1970 wasn’t exactly the year when these artists’ careers fell apart it was definitely a watershed and Browne weaves a lively, anecdotal, interconnecting tale of rampant egos, pathetic, juvenile behaviour and of course life-changing success.
Simon & Garfunkel released ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ which sold 1.7 millions copies within three weeks, topped the charts in the U.S. and was at No.1 in the album chart here for nearly half the year. That didn’t stop them breaking up acrimoniously though, Garfunkel to pursue the acting career that irritated Simon so much, and Simon himself, to his great credit, forging ahead with a solo career that has been both prolific and artistically rewarding. CS&N had seemingly lost the cosy, hippie vibe that smothered their debut album and with the addition of Neil Young had become embroiled in a near-comical war of egos and one-upmanship that had its origins in drugs, status and women. ‘Deja Vu’ was hardly a group effort but it cemented their reputation as a supergroup and sold accordingly. The in-fighting, cancelled shows and solo projects didn’t auger well for a long-term future for CSN&Y though. The fact that James Taylor actually managed to make a record, play shows, retain a coterie of friends and cultivate a huge following of (mostly female) admirers is a minor miracle if everything Browne relates here is true. His temperament, looks and general demeanour were obviously perfect for the time though and his album ‘Sweet Baby James’ and his subsequent career flourished. The Beatles’ tale of 1970 is messier and sadder. Their break-up was something of an inevitability after well-publicised spats between Lennon and McCartney and much political in-fighting, but their final album, ‘Let It Be’ spent three weeks at No.1 in the UK chart. McCartney has the final say on the year when, on Dec 31st he sues the other Beatles to dissolve their legal partnership.
Browne, author of highly-recommended books on Tim & Jeff Buckley and Sonic Youth, relates all of this in some detail without ever becoming bogged down in the potential tedium of it all. What emerges from his narrative is the realisation that, apart from the astounding fact that all of these artists save Lennon and Harrison are around today and seemingly thriving, their lives in 1970 had now become careers, the music business was fast becoming an industry, and artists’ egos had become too big to be reigned in by the conventional band format. 1970 was the year when solo albums became almost an artistic necessity – if you didn’t make one you couldn’t be taken seriously. Even Ringo Starr made solo albums. These safer, blander, more introspective artists were obviously hugely popular but they of course don’t tell the whole story. 1970 also saw the release of the MC5′s ‘Back In The USA’, Miles Davis’ ‘Bitches Brew’, ‘Loaded’ by The Velvet Underground, Spirit’s ’12 Dreams of Dr.Sardonicus’ and at least another twenty or so brilliant albums that were subsequently judged to be both influential and indespensible.
The most sobering fact that emerged from the book for me personally concerned the ongoing Vietnam War which was that “on June 24 1970 changes in the Selective Service System brought both good and damaging news. Instead of drawing from the large pool of eighteen-to twenty-six year-olds, the draft would limit its intake to nineteen-year-olds, those born in 1951”. The year I was born.

BOOK OF THE WEEK : How Soon Is Now? The Madmen and Mavericks who made Independent Music 1975-2005 by Richard King (Faber)

I'm a little late with this one as it's already been quite extensively and enthusiastically reviewed. And rightly so. King really captures the spirit in which the independent label scene was born and developed and of course with the characters involved it can't fail to be entertaining as well as informative. There is a real sense that this was a unique time for fearless people who were passionate about music to take the opportunity to create what amounted to a parallel music business alongside the long-established major labels and to find a different way of doing things that satisfied their ambitions, their predilection for taking risks, and their sheer enthusiasm. King interviewed all the important people at length, filtered and distilled their recollections and has produced a 600 page tome that will stand as an important chronicle of a seminal era in British music.

New James Brown book

There's a new book out on James Brown – The One : The Life and Music of James Brown by R.J.Smith. Review here in City Journal by Ian Penman.

SINGLE NOTES

An interesting new project from Rhino Records. You'll need a kindle or ipad though.

BOOK OF THE WEEK - The True Adventures of The Rolling Stones by Stanley Booth (Canongate)

I read this when it first came out in 1984 and, as everything else you've read about it will confirm, it's still the definitive book about The Rolling Stones. It's fitting that Canongate have re-issued it and entirely appropriate that Greil Marcus has written an introduction to the new edition that places it very firmly in the category of great writing about rock music. Apart from anything else it makes you realise how futile a genre like rock music fiction really is. How could you make up anything more dramatic, bizarre, outrageous and just plain fascinating than this? No-one's managed so far.