Diary of a POLL Star: what are your most/least favorite books by musos?

Forgot to mention Really The Blues, by Mezz Mezzrow, mediocre clarinet player and phenomenal weed dealer to almost every star of the 30’s/40’s jazz scene. Fun as hell, written entirely in 40’s hipster slang, plagiarized in Dylan’s Chronicles.

Yeah, I thought about listing that, though never read any of it. What did Dyl lift??

Over on the recently revived Sly Stone thread, I posted a press release about the remarkable Dennis Coffey live set coming out June 1, and James Blecch responded with news of Coffey's own Motor City report:

Thanks, don. Speaking of Dennis Coffey, his book wasn’t bad either. Recommended reading about the rise and fall and return of a studio ace running the maze of interrelated Motor City music worlds.

― The Great Atomic Cat Power (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, May 15, 2018 5:17 AM (fifteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Remembered the first two words but had to look up the full title: Guitars, Bars and Motown Superstars.

― The Great Atomic Cat Power (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, May 15, 2018

I thought Tarantula was pretty impenetrable reading, I never finished it.

The Mingus book is a bit loose, but there are some amazing sections in there. He's pretty crazy and I would not wanted to cross him.

Miles book is great, there is all sorts of good lines in that one. It is one that I would re-read.

I'd like to check out that Tom T. Hall book and would like to find the Ian Hunter book at a good price to read it.

Bill Graham's book is worth a read.

Tarantula is closest to "Spaniard in the works" I'd say, just it's inpenetrable because there's so much of it.

I see Ian Hunters book is getting republished at the end of August this year

how has Charlie Louvin's "Satan is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers" not been mentioned yet, that book is insane

John Taylor (with Tom Sykes) In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death & Duran Duran (2012)

Rod Stewart's autobiography will blow a thoughtful reader's mind, too, for prose quality and sheer joie de vivre

Most impressive book I've ever read (besides Miles Davis's autobiography and Julian Cope's Krautrocksampler) by a "relevant" musician ~ Bob Stanley Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop (2013)

Pete Townshend: Horse's Neck

This is hit-or-miss, mostly miss. If you want the short stories that some of his early '80s songs grew out of, it's kind of interesting, but that's a big "if."

His autobio Who I Am is great, though: engaging, unpretentious, lots of weird and funny stories.

voted for Albertine

haven't read Richard Hell's book but I believe it's meant to be good

Xpost "Who i am" I got as an audio book, Pete reads it himself

Krautrocksampler isn't impressive, its plain wrong in places, but if definitely started something and is good to reference. As it says, its a sampler.

His two autobiogs are excellent

Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music - Derek Bailey
A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music - George Lewis
Cornelius Cardew: A Life Unfinished - John Tilbury

His two autobiogs are excellent
― Mark G,

agreed.
I love how in my paperback edition which has both books in one volume, the first book is printed one way up, and the other book is the other way.

krautrocksampler is impressive. his autobiographies are great, too. i haven't been able to make much headway in his novel, 131, though

Brownstein seconded.

Elvis Costello's memoir was partly interesting for the amount of non-musical stuff. Lots of deep Victorian family history.

And Wesley Stace has written books (I remember reading a novel that was kinda like Orlando)

I love how in my paperback edition which has both books in one volume, the first book is printed one way up, and the other book is the other way.

Repossessed was never published separately.

ahh fair enough, was not aware of that.

Torn between voting for Viv Albertine and Nile Rodgers, both absolutely first-rate.

Head On was only self-published previously and OOP at the time - basically you're getting it as a bonus disc with his major label debut, except books

agree that they're in the top 5 musician's autobios ever

Voted Cave, but write-in vote for The Free by Willy Vlautin out of Richmond Fontaine – an unsparingly haunting and unsettling read.

I just saw on Books About Music that the recent All Gates Open: The Story of Can is by Rob Young *and* Irmin Schmidt, so qualifies for this thread too, wanna read it.
Should have thought of Willy Vlautin! I've yet to hear Richmond Fontaine or read his books, but was really stuck by The Delines' Colfax, which he wrote for the solo voice of RF's other singer, Amy Boone, and sounds like related short stories/scenes from a life over the decades or maybe a few days, working class urban, going toward or past something romantic, disillusioning, hopeful etc. Here's xgau on the novels---struck by mention of the waitress who mentally checks in w Paul Newman for time to time: not only does it seem like a continuation of Colfax, the latter already had me daydreaming about The Hustler's Newman and Laurie Piper, "pretty as lucky pennies," as I said on the blog, sitting in a bright gray diner, stirring the coffee and relaxing for a moment, as the city traffic rumbles by. And then---
Anyway here's xgau on the print(he likes RF and The Delines too):
https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bn/2014-04.php

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

but was really stuck by The Delines' Colfax, which he wrote for the solo voice of RF's other singer, Amy Boone

Amy Boone was a touring replacement for Vlautin's first choice female vocalist, her sister Deborah, who was pregnant and couldn't travel the dives that extensively (RF was touring behind an album about a woman and a man, kind of a story-cycle, so they needed to recruit a woman), and later "The Delines was formed by Vlautin around Amy Boone. He wrote their 2014 album Colfax with Boone’s voice in his head." Saga here, w some vids:
http://nodepression.com/article/richmond-fontaine-their-own-words-reminder-what-were-missing
Also:
http://nodepression.com/interview/amy-boone-delines-damnations-and-what-exactly-social-message
These were the same Boones who ran the Damnations, cowpunk y'all Gotta dig up my ancient CDs---o hell yeah, here they are as The Damnations TX, on Half Mad Moon, 1999, Sire Records! That's a good 'un. Thanks James, had totally forgotten about them 'til you inspired me to finally do a little homework. The Delines and Richmond Fontaine and Vlautin as novelist just seemed so on their own roadmap that I never thought to check for the usual muso grid.

Oh and it's Piper Laurie, not Laurie Piper, duh

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.