Four Way Street: The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Reader Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Four Way Street: The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Reader? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Four Way Street: The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Reader. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Four Way Street: The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Reader ReviewThirty years ago my dad "accidentally" flooded the garage, destroying my carefully harvested collection of UK and US publications containing interviews with, articles about and occasional references to CSNY, who for me were "the" band of the early to late 1970's. This latest manifestation of Dave Zimmer's love for the music of, and fascination about the individuals in, the USA's first "supergroup" means I now have access again to many of those writings.
Ranging from 1970 to 2002 in terms of first publication, the articles and interviews cover the development of CSNY from a self confident, but untested, aggregation of individuals through to being elder statesmen of rock capable of selling out tours of major venues in the early 21st century. Although the primary ingredient is pieces that focus specifically on the band as a whole, Zimmer leavens the mix with items that focus on the individuals, using them to cast a more oblique and often revealing light on the activities and behaviour of the "main" band. Not surprisingly, the majority of the articles come from US publications; that said, these include both the usual suspects - primarily "Rolling Stone" and writers such as Cameron Crowe - and also less well known (at least in the UK) publications such as "Crawdaddy" and "Creem". There are, however, some significant pieces from UK publications such as "Melody Maker" and UK writers such as Roy Carr and Vicki Wickham.
Music is the central interest of Zimmer's selection of pieces. CSNY were, however, notable for the nature of their personal, as well as professional, lives and the issues are not shied away from. Some of it requires reading "between the lines", but such articles as Roy Carr's interview with David Geffen, Zimmer's own major interview with Graham Nash and the pieces on David Crosby's drug addiction deal with the issues head on.
Inevitably, there are some personal favourites that didn't survive what must have been a rigorous editing process. Dave Zimmer is, however, to be massively congratulated for delivering a consistent and coherent narrative thread and fitting together the jigsaw like pieces of 30 years of writing to present a clear and illuminating picture of one of the major popular musical outfits of the late 20th century. A worthy companion to his and Henry Ditz's "Crosby, Stills and Nash: The Biography".Four Way Street: The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Reader Overview

Want to learn more information about Four Way Street: The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Reader?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

U2: At the End of the World Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy U2: At the End of the World? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on U2: At the End of the World. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

U2: At the End of the World ReviewAlthough this is a book about U2, it's such a strange and fascinating tale that it should stand as a classic of rock-n-roll writing as well as the single essential volume for any U2 fan.
The first thing that sets this book apart from the usual rock bio is that it doesn't focus on serving up facts about the band members. There's no "born here, went to school here" at the beginning; instead, we open with Bono, startled into crouching with a hand over his nakedness when a German family comes to reclaim the East Berlin house he's staying in just after the Wall falls. The rest of this tome continues in the same vein, conveying what the band members are like and how they live their rockstar lives by vividly recounting moment-to-moment experiences that the author lived through along with them.
Bill Flanagan was granted unprecedented access to the band member's lives, and throughout the two years he spends touring with him, they treat him as a friend. He makes no pretense of impartiality but rather tells everything from his own point of view, which is much more genuine than any false distance would be and allows you to feel you're there with the band. The length of time and volume of material that result are made more manageable by the fact that Flanagan gives each chapter its own brief coherency, so they can easily be read separately as well as together (and indeed a couple of them were originally published as magazine articles in Musician).
The real reward comes from following the band through to the end of their Zoo TV/Zooropa tour. There's a detachment from reality that Flanagan, the band members, and all the tour crew come to experience as they dedicate themselves to a roaming life, and it's gradually revealed as the band's experiences become more and more strange. Eventually, when you reach the near-insanity of Bono walking and talking and refusing to go to sleep in Japan, it makes a kind of strange sense. Along the way, Adam bottoms out, Edge does 'shrooms and falls in love, and Larry injects himself with bull's blood. It's all good stuff.
If you're really into U2, it would be a crying shame for you to miss out on this book because you'll never understand the band so well any other way. If you've somehow stumbled upon this out of a general interest in rock-n-roll life, it's worth your time to use this book for an insider's view. And if you're looking for some fun nonfiction, it doesn't get any crazier than this.U2: At the End of the World Overview

Want to learn more information about U2: At the End of the World?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited ReviewClinton Heylin's revised edition of Behind the Shades is, at this point, the definitive Dylan biography, and is not likely to be surpassed anytime soon. In spite of it's comparative neglect in relation to Sounes' Down the Highway (published almost simultaneously, to coincide with Dylan's 60th birthday), Heylin's book is a more informative and rewarding book.
In tone, Heylin's writing is not as journalistic as Sounes', and more judgmental of Dylan as artist and musician. It draws heavily on interview material with associates and friends of Dylan's, and is significant in giving detailed attention to Dylan's career in the 80's and 90's, which is necessary for anyone seeking to understand Dylan's recent critical resurgence.
Based on his knowledge as the world's pre-eminent Dylan scholar, Heylin gives extensive commentary on Dylan's albums and their recording, a process he has given even greater attention to in his companion book Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions (1994). This is one of the major differences between Heylin's book and Sounes'. Sounes does not focus so much on Dylan as a musician or even Dylan as a lyricist. Sounes' biography is more, well, biographical, providing tons of anecdotal accounts of Dylan's life and travels, while missing the point - Dylan matters because of his music and his lyrics above all else. His life, so cloaked in mystery and seclusion, is a mystery, and will remain so. A recording artist is ultimately most communicative through their recordings - through what they are, what they're not, and how they are presented to the artist's audience. Sounes attempts to fill in the mystery of Dylan's life, which is ultimately an impossible task, at the expense of communicating any real understanding of his music.
Heylin's biography is also superior in that it draws on an extensive knowledge of Dylan's unreleased recordings. When dealing with a subject whose own officially released canon is so often poorly representative of his recording career, Heylin's knowledge is wide-ranging and intensely critical. An informed and considered discussion of Dylan's unreleased recordings, which are in many cases superior to those he has chosen to issue, is especially important when examining Dylan's 1980's output, a series of albums sometimes marred primarily by the choices of which songs and takes of songs to include on the released albums. Sounes barely acknowledges the existence of important unreleased recordings, and that diminishes the importance of his biography considerably.
Sounes' one trump over Heylin's biography is the much-publicized revelation of Dylan's second marriage. How important this biographical detail is to understanding or appreciating Dylan's music, however, is very debatable. If you are looking for an easily-readable, readily-digestable account of Dylan's life with little detailed discussion of his music, go for the Sounes bio. Otherwise, Heylin's Behind the Shades, especially in its new revised edition, is the real deal and is the preeminant Dylan bio. Highly recommended.Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited Overview

Want to learn more information about Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Pickin' Up the Pieces: The Heart and Soul of Country Rock Pioneer Richie Furay Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Pickin' Up the Pieces: The Heart and Soul of Country Rock Pioneer Richie Furay? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Pickin' Up the Pieces: The Heart and Soul of Country Rock Pioneer Richie Furay. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Pickin' Up the Pieces: The Heart and Soul of Country Rock Pioneer Richie Furay ReviewRichie Furay, a great musician and songwriter who arguably has one of the best tenor voices to ever grace the sounds of rock or country, has written an exceptional memoir. Fans of the post-folk era California sound, country-rock, 60's/70's rock n' roll and those faithful to Christian beliefs will all enjoy Furay's unique perspective of how music became his life, and also led him to his true vocation, the calling as a pastor with Calvary Chapel in Colorado.
For those readers who may fear too much Christian influence for whatever reason, rest easy. While Furay has woven an intimate tale of his life, illustrating how his music career contributed greatly to his ultimate religious vocation, he is honest and factual, and resists the temptation to be preachy or overbearing in his recollection of one of the greatest eras of American music. The chronology of the times, his view of former bandmates, the music industry in general and reflective behind-the-scenes insight of the groups Buffalo Springfield, Poco, Souther-Hillman-Furay, and the other bands/duos he has performed with since leaving strictly secular music behind, run the gamut, from the elation of being in the R n' R Hall of Fame, to the disappointment of being considered washed up and out of style when he embraced Christianity in his mid-30's, just as he was trying to keep his profile high as a solo artist. Richie Furay shows the same courage and conviction in writing this book that he has shown throughout his musical career, staying true to his beliefs in his talent, his wife and family and those who work closely with him. His upbeat, outgoing attitude, which was his trademark as a musician and in his songwriting, shines through in the retelling of his life, from his youth in Ohio, to stardom and frustration in southern California, to the epiphany he experienced shortly after moving to Colorado and literally struggling to salvage his musical career and his marriage simultaneously. Furay does not "sugar coat" the difficult experiences---including several major personal, familial and professional trials--- which makes the book even more appealing.
Naturally, the discography of his musical life is noted, as are interviews and other secondary resource material, giving Furay's biographical narrative a validity that other recent similar works lack. Throughout the narrative, he does not apologize for his beliefs and thematically inserts his Christian perspective in each chapter. This is a book written by a genuinely happy man who truly understands how blessed he really is, despite the fact that Poco has never received the superstar status he, Jim Messina and Rusty Young dreamed of when they formed that band in 1968, and that monetarily speaking, his musical career has not made him independently wealthy. It did, however, give him an avenue to find his true calling, and Furay makes it clear that the rewards he has found in his Christian congregation in Colorado have been the richest of his life.
For baby-boomer music enthusiasts, this book is a must. Reading it takes you back in time, and lets you enjoy the past with a positive vibe---just like the music of Richie Furay.Pickin' Up the Pieces: The Heart and Soul of Country Rock Pioneer Richie Furay OverviewWhen a young Richie Furay moved to New York hoping to make it big in folk music, God wasn't one of his concerns. But destiny was. Later, when he started Buffalo Springfield with Neil Young and Stephen Stills, it seemedFuray's destiny had finally arrived. Although the band recorded only three albums, it remains a touchstone of sixties rock music–with all five band members now enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Furay remained a musical pioneer, forming Poco and recording some of the first–and best–country rock music of the sixties and seventies. His work was a major influence on the Eagles and innumerable other bands. But he still had not found his destiny. It wasn't until his marriage almost disintegrated that Furay confronted his need for God. After co-founding two legendary bands and recording with a rock super-group, Richie Furay finally found his destiny. The long journey took him from sold-out arena concerts to the pulpit of a Colorado church, from rock royalty to the Rock of Ages.Destiny is often found in the places where we're not looking. As you follow the twists and turns in Richie Furay's inspiring journey, you'll gain fresh insight into your own.

Want to learn more information about Pickin' Up the Pieces: The Heart and Soul of Country Rock Pioneer Richie Furay?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

The Pat Hobby Stories Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy The Pat Hobby Stories? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on The Pat Hobby Stories. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

The Pat Hobby Stories ReviewPat Hobby, once a successful Hollywood screenwriter, is nothing more than a pathetic has been. Broke, tired, and scrambling to find work, Pat takes on some unconventional methods to fill his pockets and put his name back on the big screen. But things don't turn out as smooth as Pat hopes. After all, as Pat himself repeatedly states, "I'm just a writer," and, "it's a dog's life." Pat's antics backfire and in almost every story he is left with nothing but humiliation.
The Pat Hobby stories were written between 1939 and 1940, when Fitzgerald himself was struggling to keep afloat in Hollywood. Fitzgerald paints the Hollywood scene as cold, calculating, and manipulative. A place where kissing up is more important than the quality of your talents, a place where the writer gets no respect, and a place that most likely today harbors the same attitude that Fitzgerald so deftly described in his final days.
In reading the Pat Hobby Stories, one can feel Fitzgerald's own sense of poor self-worth, despair, and hopelessness. Yet ironically, a twist of dark humor is thrown into the stories, evoking in the reader an ambiguous response of laughing at Pat Hobby while pitying him at the same time. This collection is not only entertaining and easy to read, but is one that will give you broader insight into the late great F. Scott Fitzgerald.The Pat Hobby Stories OverviewA fascinating study in self-satire that brings to life the Hollywood years of F. Scott Fitzgerald The setting: Hollywood: the character: Pat Hobby, a down-and-out screenwriter trying to break back into show business, but having better luck getting into bars. Written between 1939 and 1940, when F. Scott Fitzgerald was working for Universal Studios, the seventeen Pat Hobby stories were first published in Esquire magazine and present a bitterly humorous portrait of a once-successful writer who becomes a forgotten hack on a Hollywood lot. "This was not art" Pat Hobby often said, "this was an industry" where whom "you sat with at lunch was more important than what you dictated in your office." The Pat Hobby sequence, as Arnold Gingrich writes in his introduction, is Fitzgerald's "last word from his last home, for much of what he felt about Hollywood and about himself permeated these stories."

Want to learn more information about The Pat Hobby Stories?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

The Doors Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy The Doors? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on The Doors. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

The Doors ReviewBen Fong-Torres has demonstrated journalistic brilliance in the way this book is organized. Each section is laid out like a conversation; interspersed among comments and reflections by Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek, as well as members of the Morrison and Courson families, is just enough narrative for clarity. Fong-Torres smoothly inserts quotes from interviews with Jim Morrison, and the result is a unified presentation of The Doors as an entity. Inevitably, it is the Morrison persona that dominates, but this book does a credible job of portraying all of the Doors. The descriptions of the studio experience, particularly challenges of the technology of the late 60s, are fascinating. There is a great deal of insight into the creative process of the band. While Morrison's rampant alcohol and drug abuse is not the focus of the book, there is ample evidence of the ripple effect it had on his bandmates. The photos from the band's private collection justify the cost.The Doors Overview

Want to learn more information about The Doors?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend ReviewDon't be fooled by this book. These are all second- and third-hand accounts of events. This guy did zero-null-nada extra research to write a book about Jim Morrison. He took all of it from all the other books (Manzarek, Densmore, Sugarman/Hopkins, etc.) written about Morrison. On top of that the book could be organized better. Story after story are strung together with no connection to each other. Davis takes some literary license making it read like a polished novel: he seems to know every facial expression that was exchanged between people and exactly how many drinks Jim had wherever he went.
1. Didn't go into the full conversation that Ray and Jim had discussing the full meaning behind naming the band "The Doors".
2. Made a passing comment that Ray and his wife and Jim may have had a menage a trois.
3. Stated that The Doors were first on a list of bands at Columbia Records that were being dropped by the company. According to Ray or John's book the Doors were in the middle of the list.
4. He said that after Jim hosed down the studio after recording "The End" that Jim had jumped the studio fence and Paul Rothchild grabbed him as Jim tried to run away. Patricia Butler ("Angels Dance and Angels Die") states that Jim scaled the fence and returned to Pam waiting in her car by climbing back over the fence and getting his boot caught in the fence. The boot was then found the next day and later traced to Jim. (Mrs. Butler actually did some research in her book if you read her bibliography).
5. Davis states that the boyfriend of the girl that Jim was making out with backstage in New Haven had asked the Police to look for her which is how the Police stumbled upon Jim and maced him. According to Ray Manzarek, that's not why the Police were backstage before the show.
6. States that the Doors' Buick commercials ran in the South and Midwest. In Manzarek's or Densmore's book it states that Buick pulled the plug after making the deal and never ran the ad.
7. States that Robby took Spanish Caravan from Isaac Albeniz Partido No. 1. He took it from Albeniz Spanish Suite 1. (There is no such work in classical music called a "Partido"!)
8. He called "The End" Robby's "Andalusian goat song". Yeah, I always picture a goat in the Spanish Andalusian Mountains when I listen to that song.
9. He says in The Lost Paris Tape (Paris) that Jim "launched into an astounding version of Orange County Suite". Sadly, the most amateur, unprofessional poet or musician wouldn't be caught associating themselves with a recording (if you want to call it that) like this. There is no semblance of poetry or music on this embarrassing piece of short sleepy, childlike tape. The most interesting moment on this tape is when Morrison comments on the beautiful Cuban cigar he has and tells his buddy that he doesn't have to bite the tip off.
10. He says that Jim and Pam saw the movie "Pursued" on the night of July 2. Later in the book he writes that Pam said the movie they saw was "Death Valley". He makes no reference to the contradiction.
I made these observations after a few days of reading this book. Too bad Mr. Davis didn't pay attention to these subtleties after devoting part of his life writing it. The more I read in this book the less credence I gave to it. I wonder if Stephen Davis even knows what song featured the words "I'm the lizard king. I can do anything!"? I highly doubt it. I think I remember his book "Hammer of the Gods" also came under heavy scrutiny when it was released. This is a good starter kit to get familiar with Morrison. When you're finished with this get the other books and start connecting the dots.
Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend OverviewAs the lead singer of the Doors, Jim Morrison's searing poetic vision and voracious appetite for sexual, spiritual, and psychedelic experience inflamed the spirit and psyche of a generation. Since his mysterious death in 1971, millions more fans from a new generation have embraced his legacy, as layers of myth have gathered to enshroud the life, career, and true character of the man who was James Douglas Morrison.In Jim Morrison, critically acclaimed journalist Stephen Davis, author of Hammer of the Gods, unmasks Morrison's constructed personas of the Lizard King and Mr. Mojo Risin' to reveal a man of fierce intelligence whose own destructive tendencies both fueled his creative ambitions and brought about his downfall. Gathered from dozens of original interviews and investigations of Morrison's personal journals, Davis has assembled a vivid portrait of a misunderstood genius, tracing the arc of Morrison's life from his troubled youth to his international stardom, when his drug and alcohol binges, tumultuous sexual affairs, and fractious personal relationships reached a frenzied peak. For the first time, Davis is able to reconstruct Morrison's last days in Paris to solve one of the greatest mysteries in music history in a shocking final chapter.Compelling and harrowing, intimate and revelatory, Jim Morrison is the definitive biography of the rock idol in snakeskin and leather who defined the 1960s.

Want to learn more information about Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Shakey: Neil Young's Biography Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Shakey: Neil Young's Biography? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Shakey: Neil Young's Biography. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Shakey: Neil Young's Biography ReviewI'm a huge Neil Young fan, with over two dozen of his albums in my collection. But I'm not a fanatic, and as a result I found his biography, "Shakey" to be as stimulating, but as frustratingly erratic as the artist himself. One thing Neil Young could never be accused of is self-censorship, and author Jimmy McDonough writes about him in the same vein, telling in nearly 800 pages a stoory that could have been more succinctly and powerfully conveyed in about half that number. McDonough spent over ten years working on the book, however, and I guess he felt that his huge investment of time justifies the book's length.
The book is a rambling narrative of Young's life, mainly as seen through the eyes of his closest associates, but is told in the Hunter S. Thompson "gonzo" style of journalism as McDonough frequently inserts himself into the story. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this approach, in may have in fact been necessary, but it ends up padding the length. The main story is interspersed with a hundred or so pages of text from McDonough's various interviews with Young in which the artist is quoted verbaitim. It is a fascinating and unprecedented look into Young's mind, but again it starts to become wearing after awhile. Lengthy passages about such relatively uninteresting subjects as Young's passion for model trains slow things down even further.
Ultimately, "Shakey" is likely to be endured only by Young's most ardent fans and will not win the artist any new converts. But I get the feeling that Young would prefer it that way. As McDonough recounts, the quickest way to get Young to drop a song from an album is to tell him its going to be a surefire hit. He is that rare rock star who actually eschews popularity. Young remains a startlingly original talent after nearly four decades in the recording busines and for all of its flaws, "Shakey" manages to capture his essence.Shakey: Neil Young's Biography Overview

Want to learn more information about Shakey: Neil Young's Biography?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...