Rate End Of Year Music Books As: Worth Buying, Worth Taking Out Of Library, Worth Browsing in Store, Wouldn't Touch With A Tenpole Tudor

There's a doorstop-sized new tome about Gram Parsons out also. Recall reading a fairly good review of it in the NYT Book Review. Of note: Keith Richards thought GP had a drug problem. That says it all.

I read a favorable Washington Post review of "Petal Pusher-A Rock n Roll Cinderella story" by Laurie Lindeen of the 80s Minneapolis band Zuzu's Petals. It's about her days touring with her band on the 80s indie-rock scene and her battles with multiple sclerosis. I think it is also about her meeting and marrying Paul Westerburg.

I enjoyed and learned from, despite its flaws, The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's: A Secret History of Jewish Punk by Steven Lee Beeber that came out earlier this year. Interesting stuff on Jonathan Richman, Richard Hell, Lou Reed, Joey and Tommy Ramone, and many more (although Jonathan Richman and Richard Hell and some others would not speak to Beeber on the subject)

Michael Veal, an ethnomusicologist at Yale, came out with a pretty cool book on dub this year: Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae. I've been reading it on and off for the past few months, it's very good. Best thing about it is how enthusiastic the guy is about dub, and how much that actually comes across through all the analyzing.

The guy being a professor, it's obviously an academic work, not pop crit, but he's a very good writer and the book is quite accessible. There's some musicological/sonic analysis of the music, some history of how the genre developed, technical exploration of how dubs were made, the role dub played in Jamaican reggae, a good amount of social contextualizing of dub in the greater narrative of the African diaspora, and some overviews of how dub has influenced other popular music (esp. electronic music).

He organized the book in a way that seems to let you go as deep or as shallow as you want in terms of exploring the genre, e.g. chap. 1 is basically an overview of dub, while subsequent chapters go much further in depth with the themes mentioned above.

Also included is a good list of recommended recordings to go along with everything he talks about. He wanted to include a disc to be sold alongside the book, but unfortunately licensing issues didn't work out.

Oh yeah, I saw that GP book too, it's called Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music, by David N. Meyer. But I feel like the material has already been covered in the Fallen Angel DVD.

Of note: Keith Richards thought GP had a drug problem.
There is a great story on the DVD of Gram hanging around in the studio with the Stones while the Burrito Bros were about to go on and Mick telling him: "Now, Gram, we must be professional. Chris and the others are waiting for you."

Also kind of curious about Wilfrid Sheed's The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty from earlier in the year, but sometimes his style can be, as David Lodge said about Roberton Davies's style, "too gamey for some tastes."

Dave Marsh's new book on The Beatles Second Album is pretty engrossing -- the best rockbook I've read in years.

New music books I've read and liked this year:
Joe Boyd - White Bicycles: Well-written, for the most part fascinating, account of the 60s jazz, blues, folk and rock worlds from a guy who seemed to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Great material on Coleman Hawkins, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Nick Drake and more.
Ben Ratliff - Coltrane, The Story of a Sound: Pretty in-depth exploration of Coltrane's effect on jazz history. Ratliff takes on Trane's tougher material with a clear and not totally reverent eye. He doesn't bow at the altar, but his writing definitely had me wanting to go back to the recordings.
And I'm not sure if I'd totally recommend it, but that Everett True Nirvana bio was fairly entertaining ... and long!

I'm halfway through the Clapton book, and I'm really enjoying it so far. Definitely worth buying, also, is the Joe Boyd book mentioned above. And I was genuinely surprised this year by a book called Inside the Music of Brian Wilson - it's musicological, obsessive, and revealing, plus it's a nice antidote to reading too many biographies - the author does touch on Wilson's life, but focuses way more on his genesis as a songwriter and composer.

I forgot to ask about Frontman: Surviving The Rock Star Myth, by Richard Barone.

Clapton fired the ghostwriter, and wrote the whole thing himself, or so he claims. Sizable excerpts of Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia are fascinating (a few sermonettes on the value of music, but as usual it's mostly his very, very attentive, detailed but non-reductive observation of his patients). Have heard good things about Eye Mind, which is about Roky Erickson and the other 13th Floor Elevators, an overview of that scene (tripping in *early 60s Texas*, no wonder they freaked out--)

When does that New Sublette New Orleans book come out?

Does the Eye Mind book talk at all about Red Crayola?

Dunno, but you can link to Lenny Kaye's review (of the book and of recently compiled rare tracks)and other info from here:
http://www.processmediainc.com/titles Also they've got the book on Father Yod and on Moonndog (both with CDs)Otherwise, good Mayo interviews posted here and there.

The side of the Replacements book that Matos rightly criticizes I'm trying to put a positive spin on by interpreting it is a cautionary tale about being buttonholed by a ya-should-a-been-there scenester blowhard.

Also to be noted: hilariously excessive overuse of the term sic, many times in headscratching situations where no error is visible, alongside mistakes apparently not found (or perhaps even introduced?) by the copy editors and proofreaders, such as the record label Tamala and the musician Ron Eastley.

This also probably could have used an explanatory footnote, if not a "sic":
The Warner staff was working Van Halen records. There were no alternative stations, so a band like the Replacements didn't really get a lot of attention or priority. There were no alternative stations, so when Reprise started, it was a boutique label to work all these bands.

I'm started to picture that SNL skit with Phil Hartman as Sinatra giving a lecture to Dana Carvey as George Michael- "When Lady Luck taps you on the shoulder..."

I guess they could have done it with Jim Belushi as Bob.

"Bobby Boy, it doesn't matter if you're standing there dressed in a black tuxedo on opening night of a sold-out week-long stand at the Sands or in a pink tutu on a Sunday night at some half-empty firetrap armpit in Asbury Park- you've got to make that guitar sing to each and every one of those fans that's have shelled out their hard ducats because they wanted to hear your song."

Amazon.com is listing Ned Sublette's "The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square," as being available now. Although I bet if Iclicked on it now to order it, I might be told it's not in stock yet.

Man I've gotta get that one. B-b-but I still haven't sat down and read the other one properly yet.

No doubt the Congo Square part stops around the time Buddy Bolden first forsook his barber's chair to play his horn and we'll have to wait another few years for Volume Two to bring us a little closer to present times.

I know. Would it be unintellectual or something for me to admit I'd like to read Sublette on more recent Cuban or New Orleans history than he is covering in these books. We gotta get him a genius grant so he can get volume twos out for both books within our lifetimes.

I think maybe he doesn't want to have to officially deal with more contemporary times. Same way Peter Guralnick can't answer simple questions that anybody could have seen coming a mile away without getting defensive at a Q&A- some people are happier in the library, with the ghosts of yesterday.

If one were to dramatize the opening of the Cuba book one would have a deathbed Robert Palmer whispering: "I have discovered a remarkable secret, but have grown too feeble, and have too few hours left on this earth, so I entrust this secret to you and say, go among men and spread the word, Ned!"

or something like that.

I liked Palmer's writing. He died too young.

Yup. I remember hearing a sad story from somebody about him showing about at some show and going up to the box office being really nervous about whether they were going to know who he was and let him in and comp him like they were supposed to.

Which has just made me think about Paul Nelson working in the now-defunct video store, but I don't want to get maudlin or anything, especially before the holidays.

from the new Listen Again, which Duke just published (and, conflict alert, I'm in): "[Ned Sublette's] contribution to this volume was written while he was a John Simon Guggenheim fellow."

Sublette's chapter is on "Louie Louie"'s roots in the cha-cha-cha

TS: Guggenheim vs. MacArthur

Peter Guralnick can't answer simple questions that anybody could have seen coming a mile away without getting defensive at a Q&A

details plz

Sorry, Mark, I went to see him read at the Barnes and Noble at Lincoln Center and somebody asked him something about Elvis's influence on the Beatles or something like that and he said "Well, I not going to comment on THAT!" and somebody else asked him something about one of the movies and he said "Well, I had to watch all these movies, but I'm not going to DEFEND any of them!" and so on. It was kind of annoying to the point where I was thinking: "You're an expert on the subject, just say something, make something up, they will take your word for it!" I guess the need to collect and verify information that makes him a good researcher makes him a bad off-the-cuff speaker.

Sublette's chapter is on "Louie Louie"'s roots in the cha-cha-cha
Ha, there is a story in 'Mats book of some dude going up to Alex Chilton and saying "Alex, I love that one song of yours, especially the rhythm" and Chilton responded "Ah, the old cha-cha-cha."

Anyone read "The Rest is Noise" by Alex Ross?

I read a review in the NYT I think around a month ago and it sounded interesting. Sounds like an accessible guide to classical (and some other) music of the last 100 years.

xpost
huh that's weird, I would've been disappointed too. maybe he secretly likes the movies and can't admit it?

I'm looking forward to reading The Rest Is Noise when my library gets it. skimmed it yesterday at B&N but balked at spending $30, bought a paperback of The United States of Arugla by David Kamp instead.

waiting to borrow Ben Ratliff's Coltrane bio as well.

Here's The Best (And Only) Music Book I Read This Year

Joe Boyd's book sounds great but after hearing him talk about it on NPR I felt like reading wd be redundant.

oh and there was an interesting anthology of music writing I read in, blanking out on the name. Macaroon? anyway some guy named Todd or Ned or something had a nice piece on an obscure 90s British rock band.

yea i'd like to take a look at Ross's book. i've always enjoyed his writing in the new yorker, and i don't even really listen to that much classical. i bet reading his book would be a decent way to start learning about it.

(xposts)

Oh I think you still should read the Joe Boyd book, Mark. On the radio, did he mention Dick Clark or Coleman Hawkins?

haha, yeah, the coleman hawkins stories in Boyd's book were some of the best parts! Awesome descriptions of how the Hawk was the slowest walker in the world and would constantly get lost (perhaps on purpose) in airports.

and I'm also interested in that Alex Ross book ... sounds great, though i'm not sure how he's going to cover such a wide range of stuff without resorting to generalizing ... we'll see!

I took that Laurie Lindeen book out of the library yesterday and leafed through it: looks like a potentially an interesting story of Person With MS Who Rocks but the writing seemed pretty flyweight. See the negative review in the LA Times.

Just got the Veal book from the library, will check it out over break. So far it's kinda heavy on the "I remember the first time I heard the dub music" though.

just got the Warren Zevon bio from the library ... looks to be pretty in depth. Funny pics of Waddy Wachtel.

yea that's mostly limited to the introduction. xpost

The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross

^^ Bought it but haven't read it.

Saw the Ben Ratliff Coltrane book at The Strand last night and picked it up. So far so good.

The Clapton one was unfulfilling I thought. If you're a musician of any rank yourself (as I imagine most people who would pick this book up would be) you'll find yourself disappointed by the lack of discussion about what made the guy famous in the first place -- his music!

the rest is noise -- OMG the best book on music -- any kind of music -- I've read in years. it's probably works best for people like me who aren't familiar w/the classical tradition but wow! ross describes highly technical music in terms a layperson can fully grasp w/o patronizing and seamlessly connects music to then current events, explicating things I've always half-understood like the connection between Wagner and fascism. right now I'm slowly working my way through the recommended listening at the end, and so far enjoying what I'm hearing and understanding it too -- the highest recommendation for a book like this.

right now I can't think of a pop music book that ever affected me like this. and I'm not one for hyperbole.

Another book now on my list: Lonely avenue : the unlikely life and times of Doc Pomus,by Alex Halberstadt. I'm going to hold off on that Alex Ross book for another few weeks.

The common thread being that both are about composers who wrote songs for Elvis Presley.

Oh wait, maybe not.

By some paradox, the slightly rough treatment Bacharach got in the Brill Building book has allowed me to be more interested in his work, as opposed to, say, the sycophancy of his number one demon seed, Elvis Costello.

Not Christgau though- he loved this book and said of Emerson "He's blunt about the pretensions of late Leiber-Stoller and the vapidity of most Bacharach." The Bacharach box remains a B- in the CG.

I don't know what my favorite moment in that book was. Was it?

1) Non-musician producer Don Kirshner in the control booth saying "Something's not working but I don't know what it is!" Songwriter Jack Keller thinking fast and saying "It's the guitar player- he's holding it too tight! He's gotta let it ring!" and then running out and back to tell that guy.

2) Non-singer non-musician songwriter Gerry Goffin shaking Bob Dylan's hand and saying "You've get every right to be proud of yourself" shortly before sliding into a drug-fueled Dylan obssessed freakout of tragi-comic dimension.

3)Mort Shuman: Francophile.

Or maybe one of dozens of others I can't remember right now

I vote for 2. That whole section is really haunting.

I got a hold of a copy of the recent Tearing Down The Wall Of Sound: The Rise And Fall Of Phil Spector by Mick Brown- there are 99 other copies in the NYPL not being read- and there is some interesting info now and then but on the whole it is pretty badly written, lots of eye-glazing background stuff "Rock and roll blah blah.. Elvis Presley burst blah blah.. the Beatles blah blah" and dimestore or armchair pyschoanalysis "that thing he could not name was without a doubt blah blah". Maybe the Ribowsky book is better, or maybe they're all a bummer?

I guess that last sentence sounds idiotic- how could such a book not be a bummer?

I read the Ribowsky a couple years after it came out. Believe it or not, it's actually best when he sticks to music, e.g. the recording of "I Love How You Love Me." But on the whole, I found it a bit empty. Towards the end of the book, the accrued horrors become more preposterous than harrowing, never achieving a necessary distance from the American obsession with psychos.

Working my way through the Emerson Brill Building book now. But already there's no way it matches Doo-Dah!, one of the finest biographies I've ever read. Make that meta-biographies since much of it is about the process of writing one. Given the relative lack of primary materials (I hate that term but...) on Foster, Emerson turns to profiling many of Foster's contemporaries. And from that setback, he wound up with a much more compelling book than he probably would have written with an archive of letters fortifying his arguments. A very American (that word again!) achievement.

And insights? Please! He brings the music of the 19th century alive so vividly that you'd think you were tracing Soulja Boy viral videos on youtube with each page turn.

John Mowitt

guy is way ahead of the competition
eg http://www.amazon.com/Percussion-Drumming-Striking-John-Mowitt/dp/0822329190/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201909422&sr=8-1

Started the Doc Pomus book. Pretty good so far- Doc left a lot of journals to be drawn from and a lot of friends to be interviewed and the author is pretty sympathetic. What with Ken Emerson blurbing his blessing on the back and passing along his sources and leads, it's kind of a follow-up to his Brill Building book.

The one story that is told in all of these books is the one about Phil Spector and Doc Pomus at the Spindletop restaurant.

Ben Ratliff Coltrane book was annoying, I guess I should read the Lewis Porter book get the bad taste out.

Ned Sublette New Orleans book is reviewed in Times Book Review, apparently has been out since January. Love to read it, but probably should finish the other one.

I haven't finished the other Sublette one either. I took forever finally reading the excellent Elijah Wald Robert Johnson book. He goes beyond just discussing Johnson to examine why (white) blues collectors celebrated certain artists and not others (kind of a rockism v popism thing).

I was just reading a Washington City Paper blog thing that took Ratliff to task for his kinda snobby and ocassionally wronghead critique of the Grammy album of the year award to Herbie Hancock. Why was Ratliff's Coltrane book annoying?

Because it degenerated into the whole Wynton Marsalis vs. Free Jazz thing, which is someplace I didn't need to go. And, according to Ratliff, the blame for that whole mess rests squarely on the shoulders of John William Coltrane.

I came across some musicians message board called organissimo or something where people recommended the Porter book on Coltrane as being a lot more about the actual music, with actual musical examples, rather than the sociology of the music. I think some people around here have read the Porter book as well.

took Ratliff to task for his kinda snobby and ocassionally wronghead critique of the Grammy album of the year award to Herbie Hancock

where can a dude read this critique

I'll bet it's this right here

Ha, BR brings up Getz/Gilberto as another example of a lightweight, easy-on-the-untrained-ears not-really-jazz album that won.

Note: I never had any beef with him until I read that book. In fact, once at Jazzfest I shared a crawfish beignet with somebody having exactly the same name.

Thanks James Redd. Ratliff seems to be giving the Grammys a lot more consideration as a marker of a particular sort of taste than they deserve? To whom do they really matter, these days?

I don't really want to go to this place either, but there is a certain type of New York Times reader who wants to, if not exactly keep a finger on the pulse of the, um, cultural Zeitgeist, at least throw it a passing glance in the Arts and Leisure now and then.

of course

To whom do they really matter, these days?

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, February 17, 2008 4:27 AM

vs.

River: The Joni Letters performed by Herbie Hancock

Did this win this year? That's awesome.

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, February 17, 2008 4:02 AM

All the HOOS that's fit to print.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/blackplasticbag/

In a February 14th posting Michael J. West says in part : “Inasmuch as it is a jazz album, it is precisely the kind of jazz album that would win this award,” Ratliff says. “It is soft-edged and literate and respectable. It seems, at least, intended as an audience bridger.”

In other words, it’s not really jazz enough to count.

The authenticity debate never dies (Thanks, Wynton), but come on. The musicians who’ve made this “soft-edged,” crossover-friendly album include Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, and Vinnie Colaiuta (not a big name, but a musician’s musician–cited by Modern Drummer as “the most important drummer of our time”). You couldn’t get a higher pedigree if you resurrected John Coltrane.

Resurrecting Coltrane would apparently have been a problem too.

He would have been viewed as a "free jazz casualty" who had been forced to dumb it down after all the damage sustained by all the overblowing.

(Sorry I confused Oregon with Washington State with D.C.)

Will Hodgkinson's Song Man recently made it over here to the states. I bought it, and would heartily recommend it. Aside from having a couple of fascinating chapters dealing w/Lawrence from Felt, he interviews Hal David, Arthur Lee, Andy Partridge, Chan Marshall, Lamont Dozier, Chip Taylor, Bridget St John...

I have no complaints with the book whatsoever.

Sacks' Musicophilia book totally not holding my interest. It seems scattered, almost like a series of essays.

OTOH I want that Moondog bio really bad, think I'm gonna order it next paycheck.

Sacks' Musicophilia book totally not holding my interest. It seems scattered, almost like a series of essays.

I haven't read Musicophilia, but aren't all of his books arranged in that format? Regardless, I am still haunted by the chapter in the one book of his which deals with the Grateful Dead fan who became a Hare Krishna, and ended up having a brain tumor...does anyone else remember that one?

All of his fellow Krishna devotees celebrated his meditative powers, but his apparent ability to exist blissfully in the present or whatever was due to the fact of some massive tumor growing in his brain. At one point, he goes to a Dead concert, and despite being completely blind, he says, "oh yeah, there's Jerry over there! Look at him! He's amazing!"

Clapton and Patti books are out in paperback but still steering clear of them. Yesterday bought the Moondog bio and the Lee Konitz interview book from last year.

Would love to see this thread resuscitated for the o-12!

Good books about music