Albert Goldman - Classic or Dud?

Previous posters re Goldman's antipathy towards blacks, southerners, pop-culture etc. is spot on. It was hard to stomach his absurdly lurid descriptions of Elvis sleeping in bed, Elvis eating, Elvis crying at his mothers funeral, Elvis joking with his buddies. It all smacks of some silly pre-existing bias Goldman had against the subject that he chose to write about.

Biographers are not journalists, in that there is no canon that holds them to truthfulness or a documenting of their work. Goldman's book struck some nerve at the time it was published, and got a lot of attention. Not sure why. He was a writer who decided to become a hack, got lucky and capitalized on it.

Didn't read the Lennon book or any others of his after the first one.

"On a night like theeeeeees"...for some reason it originally came out on Island here. Maybe he liked Bryan Ferry.

Oh, yeah I have that "Island" LP. It's very strange seeing Bob Dylan's name on that label.

If you read the collected pieces in Freakshow it becomes clear that Goldman didn't much care for rock or the counterculture and took delight in both baiting the hippies and appropriating some of their "gonzo" writing style (though in truth I think Goldman's shtick was derived from Lenny Bruce's confrontational style). This has as much to do with the invective hurled at him from Marcus and Christgau as Goldman's sins again Elvis and St. John. He was a Coulmbia professor writing in mainstream publications like LIfe about the new music and culture with total irrereverance -- not to mention disrespect and occ. contempt-- and compared to that the nascent rock crits were cheerleaders.

The race thing is trickier, in this case I'd say that Goldman opened himself up to charges of racism by refusing to write about black musicians in hushed pious tones. As far as the Sam Phillips anecdote that Matos mentions upthread, it's worth noting that many southerners of that period pronounced/slurred the word "Negro" so it sounded like n****r. I'll never forget being 10 years old and hearing George Wallace talk like that on TV, truly shocking.

Goldman's writing style is undoubtedly over-the-top though I can easily think of far more egregious examples of gonzo prose overkill from the 70s. whatevs, one man's meat is another's poison.

My gaydar is non-existent but Michael D is right on in speculating about Goldman's conflicted sexuality, there are passages in Disco that feel unconsciously ah enthusiastic about some of the goings-on in the backrooms and sidelines.

Last time I flipped through Freak Show I got absorbed by a 1984 piece Goldman did on Michael Jackson -- prescient, eerie.

Not sure if I understand you correctly: didn't Freakshow predate the Elvis bio by about a decade?

See maybe I'd be more sympathetic to Goldman if I cared any for Lenny Bruce or gonzo, that shit to me is like the granddaddy of 21C attention-whoredomry, emphasis on "grandaddies" not to mention "whore." Plus the way he found the counterculture beneath him while trying really desperately trying to absorb some of its aristocratic hip makes him seem less like a gadfly than a more venal version of other sixties archetypes like the hip priest or the love-beads-wearing-professor. Or, hell, the swinger.

Also, you'd kinda figure someone who'd been in the South for X amount of time researching a book on Elvis would eventually understand the distinctions between how "Negro" and "n*gg*r" sounds coming out of a Southern mouth.

I reckon its pretty accurate. It's based mostly on Fred Seaman's notes.

Fred Seaman's book is my favourite Lennon biog, and I think the best, although it only covers a period of less than 2 years.

Always fascinating how a person's temperament colours their perception of the world around them.

Fred's aunt Helen was Sean's nanny.

So, is the forthcoming Philip Norman book the "lives of John Lennon it's ok to discuss now"?

I got the AlbGol book for a pound recently, so far am actually impressed by the scale of the book, and some of the things that have been stated as "Goldman says in his book" turn out to be not so.

He does not say John beat up Stu and caused his death (he actually says the opposite), but he does say John felt guilty about it.

just said this on the shapiro thread: re goldman's disco book, is it worth reading? i've seen it for around £70 which is crazy but so does anyone here have it and fancy scanning it in?

ps. the vitriol on this thread is quite something!

I remember Phil Spector writing a pretty scathing letter to some magazine when they printed Goldman's obituary. Something along the lines of "Albert Goldman's dead? I want someone to check and make sure, because I don't trust him." It ended with "Time wounds all heels."

^^^this thread brings the lolz

ps. the vitriol on this thread is quite something!

Here is a nicely written, even-handed, clear-headed takedown of his Elvis bio: http://www.ulmus.net/ace/aceworks/presley.html.

Meant to use italics, not bold, aargh.

so excited to tear into the lennon book tmrw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY4aPAehQ4A

watching videos like that last night, and the one where he's with Hunter Davies, really repulsed me though, and yeah, his bigotry and self-loathing makes everything he writes reek, but damn this lennon book is jUICY

Goldman's origin story explains a lot:

http://vk.com/video175391573_163319014

lmfao