Rocking Reads

Lesley-Ann Jones: Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury (2012)

Matt Richards & Mark Langthorne: Somebody to Love: The Life, Death, and Legacy of Freddie Mercury (2018)

As most of you know, June is Pride Month, so consider this blog (and a few more that will follow in coming weeks) my modest show of support for all my friends in the LGBTQIA+ community ...

I've read lots of books about Queen, but none dedicated to Freddie Mercury himself, so I decided to make amends for that this year by doubling down with two biographies that come at one of the greatest rock singers of all time from totally different directions.

As a veteran Fleet Street journalist who interacted with Queen during their peak, Lesley-Ann Jones built her Intimate Biography around her own, first-hand observations and over a hundred interviews with Mercury's inner circle, including partners like Mary Austin and Jim Hutton.

That proximity allowed Jones to focus her efforts upon the extreme, deep-seated conflicts that distinguished the shy, Parsi boy born Farrokh Bulsara, on the island of Zanzibar, from the flamboyant, indomitable, world-renowned frontman reinvented as Freddie Mercury.

It also led Jones to consider the immense isolation that came with Freddie's fame and his necessarily undercover attempts to indulge in the gay club scenes of New York and Munich as a perpetual search for connection and companionship.

And while Jones' up-close, "in the room" narrative style draws the reader closer to her subject (as much as that's possible), it occasionally veers into tabloid-like drama, gossip and sensationalism, which tends to overshadow Mercury's and Queen's music.

Meanwhile, Somebody to Love co-authors, Matt Richards and Mark Langthorne took a unique angle by structuring their book into a panoramic review of Freddie's career in and out of Queen, split with a clinical timeline of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, traced all the way back to the virus' early 20th Century origins in the Congo.

Their approach is simultaneously jarring to the story's flow and very educational; exposing how rampant societal homophobia fueled institutional neglect and devastated an entire generation of victims, from anonymous club-goers to high-profile figures like Rock Hudson.

I can still remember my mother's shocked reaction to the revelation of Hudson's secret and tragic death in 1985, as he had been such a hunk and heart-throb for teenage girls of her post-WWII generation.

Anyway, Richards and Langthorne's efforts result in a literary hybrid that's almost as much sociological document as rock biography, even though they rely on sourcing existing memoirs, public records, and medical histories, instead of direct access to Mercury.

Although, I will say that they still provide a surprisingly detailed and unsentimental look at Freddie and Queen's early career and each band member's combustible struggles for creative control, if not the same level of insight into their later works as other books.

Indeed, neither one of these biographies can compare with (and both obviously rely on material from) 1994's As it Began for a broad and comprehensive overview, but both expanded my understanding of Freddie's life and experience, his tragedy and triumph.

Mind you, both also have their flaws, and the fact of the matter is Mercury was such an intensely private person offstage, forced to hide his true self from a world that wasn't ready to accept or comprehend (still isn't, obviously), that we'll never truly get inside his mind, now that he's gone.

Featured Records:

Freddie Mercury: Mr. Bad Guy (1985)

Queen: The Miracle (1989)

Queen: Made in Heaven (1995)

Pete Way (w/ Paul Rees): A Fast Ride Out of Here: Confessions of Rock's Most Dangerous Man (2018)

Pete Way's "fast ride" ended in 2020, when the 70-year-old former UFO bassist died after taking a fall in his home, but it probably should have ended much faster, given an appetite for wanton destruction that, like the title says, made him one of rock's most dangerous men.

And if you think that's just marketing hyperbole meant to sell a few more books (and it is), know that none other than Ozzy Osbourne supplied the quote that inspired that title: "They call me a madman but compared to Pete Way, I'm out of my league."

Lucky for fans, if not the countless victims of Way's careless, reckless disregard for himself and anyone who came into UFO's orbit (no pun intended), he left this 2018 catalogue of debauchery and devastation, co-written by longtime Kerrang! editor Paul Rees.

It traces Way's journey from model-train enthusiast in suburban London to iconic, spread-legged, striped-trousers-wearing bassist of space rockers-turned-hard rockers UFO, Fastway, Waysted, and, briefly, even Ozzy's band.

Or at least it attempts to, amidst the tales of Pete's parallel passion for chemical consumption, which he chronicles with riotous tales of alcohol-soaked tours, multi-million-dollar drug binges, and a decade-long heroin addiction.

The fact that Way acknowledges the wreckage caused by his selfish behavior and catastrophic personal choices can't make up for so many betrayed bandmates, six marriages, four divorces, two dead ex-wives, and long-term estrangement from his daughters.

And though he shares a few tasty nuggets about his interactions with control freak Phil Mogg and eternal enigma Michael Schenker, don't expect a lot of insight into UFO's musical milestones, which are often given just a paragraph to make room for another anecdote about blowing cash or scoring drugs.

By the time Pete hits his personal "Rock Bottom" during a brutal battle with prostate cancer and finally confronts his legacy and mortality, it's frankly too late for redemption, and the reader is faced with a character who is neither sympathetic nor inspiring, let alone worthy of idolatry.

But, yes, super fan Nikki Sixx, ripped off Pete's wardrobe.

Featured Records:

UFO: Obsession (1978)

UFO: UFO 1 (1970)

UFO: No Place to Run (1980)

Steve Turner (w/ Adem Tepedelen): Mud Ride: A Messy Trip Through the Grunge Explosion (2023)

Not as messy as you might expect ...

Steve Turner always cut an unusual, incongruous figure as the nerdy, fuzz-pedal-stomping guitarist for grunge icons Mudhoney (and their germinal band Green River, before that) who rejected celebrity and most forms of rock star posturing.

As such, he and his longtime partner-in-crime Mark Arm in many ways epitomized the Seattle scene's apparent disregard, even discomfort, with fame -- certainly more so than platinum-selling peers like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains.

But, as Turner's 2023 memoir, Mud Ride (co-written with Decibel magazine regular Adem Tepedelen) reveals -- or reminds us -- some of that attitude reflected the equally paradoxical reality that grunge was anything but a blue-collar movement.

Instead, many of its participants, including Turner, Arm, and Stone Gossard (who wrote the foreword), didn't really need to make it big because they were privileged, private school-educated suburban white kids with generally supportive parents.

Turner exemplified this with his skateboarding obsession and naive negotiations with his doting parents ("give me two years and then I'll go back to college"), all of which afforded him the "luxury" of becoming one of the architects of the "Seattle Sound" instead of working a nine-to-five.

Must be nice ...

On the upside, this advantage gave Turner entry into the community, subculture, and influences that paved the way to Grunge in the pre-hype 1980s, which he documents here via underground hubs like the all-ages Metropolis club and the nascent, cash-strapped Sub-Pop Records.

He obviously also takes us through Mudhoney's 35-plus-year career as bemused grunge pioneers, dragged along by the unexpected tsunami, but what made them so refreshingly unimpressed by it all, also makes for a rather dull story, at least in Turner's and Tepedelen's telling.

If anything, Mud Ride succeeds as an "anti-rock star biography"; one that proves you don't have to be a desperate, damaged, degenerate willing to sell your soul for fame and fortune, to make a living through music -- with an emphasis on music, instead of the, uh, other stuff.

That being said, these soberly, prosaically delivered contradictions may seem a little uninspiring, coming from someone whose most famous song begged listeners to "Touch Me, I'm Sick."

Featured Records:

Mudhoney: Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge (1991)

Green River: Come On Down EP (1985)

Peter Doggett: You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup (2010)

Just when we thought everything that could be written about The Beatles HAD been written, along came Peter Doggett (a veteran rock critic for Record Collector, Mojo, Q, and Beatles Monthly) with the novel idea of chronicling the Fab Four's exploits AFTER their break-up.

This book's first chapter alone, in which Doggett substantiates his expertise with uncannily acute descriptions of John, Paul, George, and Ringo's distinct talents, personalities, strengths, and weaknesses, is some of the greatest Beatles literature I've ever read.

Here's a taste:

Lennon was innately brilliant, acerbic, erratic, impulsive, inexplicably conflicted about his musical genius, and easily influenced by drugs, radical politics, and Yoko Ono, but fiercely protective of his autonomy.

McCartney could be as overbearing as he was amiable; rather desperate to revise his unfair fate as eternal second banana to Lennon, but undoubtedly possessed of the strongest creative drive and sharpest business instincts within the group.

Harrison was inevitably overshadowed by the incomparable Lennon/McCartney partnership and caught in a perpetual internal crisis between his spiritual enlightenment and massive material wealth.

And Ringo was the group's comparatively egoless, steady emotional anchor, whose post-break-up demons nevertheless led to a near-fatal battle with alcoholism and endless search for identity in the years that followed.

When Doggett dives into his narrative, beginning with Brian Epstein's death in 1967 and the rudderless confusion that followed the launch of Apple Corps, he sets the stage for the band's disintegration with forensic, objective, and often heartbreaking clarity.

In fact, Doggett's greatest strength is his egalitarian treatment of all four members, avoiding the common biographical trap of picking "heroes and villains" -- except for the truly villainous Allen Klein, whose sinister tactics forced McCartney to sue the other three in order to legally dissolve their partnership and rescue his earnings from Klein.

By the time John, George, and Ringo grudgingly admitted that Paul's distrust had been well founded, the damage was done, and, as Doggett shows, the former Fabs spent most of the '70s rebuilding their brotherhood in fits and starts, amid the odd collaboration and frequently traded barbs through lyrics in their solo works.

Doggett also addresses the immense, constant pressure to reunite The Beatles, and, after Lennon's murder in 1980 made that impossible, how the surviving members' (plus Yoko) found common ground fighting for their just-deserved earnings and protecting their legacy with, among other things, the Beatles Anthology project.

Ultimately, You Never Give Me Your Money will likely be a sobering, even depressing read for most Beatles fans, but it also elicits empathy and forgiveness by peeling back their music's technicolor myths to reveal the harsh economic machinery that tormented their lives but could never diminish their unified artistry.

And, since rock 'n' roll never produced anything quite like The Beatles, Doggett's book in some small way also helps us fans cope with our grief over what was lost and can never be had again.

Featured Records:

John Lennon: Imagine (1971)

Paul McCartney & Wings: Band On the Run (1973)

George Harrison: Somewhere in England (1981)

Ringo Starr: Ringo (1973)

Jon Savage: England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond (1991)

John Lydon (w/ Keith & Kent Zimmerman): Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (1994)

"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

Well, you won't get that feeling from these two excellent books: arguably the definitive chronicles of the U.K. punk rock apocalypse and their unwilling standard-bearers for bedlam, nihilism, and anarchy, the Sex Pistols.

Just as Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain's Please Kill Me is the first (and maybe last) book you need to read about the New York punk scene, Jon Savage's England's Dreaming should be your first (and almost last) stop for the complete, raging, puking, gobbing, mohawked, safety-pinned British story.

Unless, that is, you want to follow it with John Lydon's autobiography, Rotten, wherein the onetime Johnny Rotten -- arguably punk's single most iconic figurehead -- shares his personal viewpoint with typically biting sarcasm and, less expectedly, a touching sensitivity.

However, for a couple of books covering basically the same subject, they approach it from totally opposite ends of the telescope, with the first providing a panoramic musical and social autopsy, while the other takes us inside the eye of the storm itself.

Let's start with Savage's treatise (often praised as the 'Punk Rock Bible'), which frames the music' within England's depressing socio-political climate of the time, characterized by widespread social unrest, economic stagnation, a rekindling of extreme right politics, and plain artistic boredom.

Going even deeper, Savage also establishes an intersection between the avant-garde revolutionary group, Situationist International, the fashion world of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, and the latter's publicity-seeking opportunism in exploiting the raw energy and anarchic danger of the Sex Pistols.

By contrast, Lydon's memoirs provide a sharp, caustic rebuttal, largely intended to discredit McLaren's Svengali role, to demystify the notion that punk was a coordinated intellectual movement, to and disrupt all further attempts to manipulate he and his fellow Pistols for history's benefit.

Lydon's reminisces of his impoverished childhood and surprising musical tastes (he loved everything from glam to prog and Krautrock, plus the jigs favored by his Irish immigrant parents), and the Pistols' short, destructive, and controversial existence are delivered with defensive defiance in a jagged, non-linear narrative style.

The tone fits him like a glove, and whether it's totally honest or to some degree performative in its own way, I dare say that it helped Lydon to reclaim "his truth" (as the kids would say today) from McLaren, Savage, and countless others who, for good or bad, commoditized the Sex Pistols' legacy.

But, since it takes multiple perspectives to paint a complete picture -- especially for a musical movement as important, enduring, and complicated as punk rock -- I think both of these books remain pretty much essential reading.

Indeed, along with the aforementioned Please Kill Me and possibly George Gimarc's Punk Diary, we're talking about the "Big Bang" of punk literature right here, although I'd love to hear it you have other classic works to recommend.

Fire away, I'll read them!

Featured Records:

Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols (1977)

Public Image Ltd: Public Image: First Issue (1978)

Dave Marsh: Louie Louie: The History and Mythology of the World's Most Famous Rock 'n' Roll Song (1993)

What do The Kingsmen, The Sonics, Otis Redding, Iggy & The Stooges, Motörhead, Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, Toots and The Maytals, Heavy Cruiser, Barry White, Black Flag, The Fat Boys, and even comic legend John Belushi, have in common?

They all recorded their own versions of Richard Berry's "Louie Louie": the most famous, or, maybe more fittingly, the most INFAMOUS, rock 'n' roll song of all time.

That's the thesis constructed by Dave Marsh: a founding editor of Creem magazine known for "harshing the buzz" for Lester Bangs and other Gonzo rock critics, before joining the 'Cult of Springsteen' and spending the past several decades suckling at Jon Landau's teat.

Now, I've got nothing against The Boss, but my primary beef with Marsh arose when I learned that he apparently didn't "get" the Ramones but felt that a similarly simple, dare I say lovably "moronic," song deserved its own book!

But that doesn't mean I wasn't impressed by Marsh's chutzpah and intrigued by his mission to propose that a single, misunderstood song could serve as a lens for him to examine the complex intersection of American culture, law, government, and music history.

And Marsh is nothing if not rigorous in his efforts, devoting almost too much time to the 31-month FBI investigation that cost taxpayers thousands of dollars in an attempt to decipher and censor the song's allegedly obscene, slurred lyrics, which were of course harmless.

Harmless but hardly irrelevant, since the same mystery and confusion fueled the mythology that turned The Kingsmen's raucous, 1963 cover of "Louie Louie" into a viral phenomenon that spread like Chlamydia across college campuses and suburban garages.

Marsh also sheds light on the song's nebulous origins as a modest, calypso-influenced R&B tune composed by the equally unheralded Richard Berry in 1956, as well as his lengthy battle to reclaim ownership to a number that experienced an almost incomparable, certainly unimaginable afterlife.

Here, again, we see Marsh's meticulous nature, as he documents every known version of "Louie Louie" released through to the book's 1993 publication to support his theory that it transcended those humble origins to become a bona fide folk artifact, inextricably intertwined in the public consciousness.

And while I'm not sure this status has carried over to Gen Z and Alpha, I know the song's legacy extended and grew at least as far as my generation, because I too worship every perfectly imperfect second of The Kingsmen's ramshackle "Louie Louie."

Finally, whatever my personal issues with Marsh, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and support much of its thesis, which is obviously illustrated by the eclectic assortment of records I was able to pluck from my own collection to illustrate "Louie Louie's" wide-ranging influence.

Featured Records:

The Kingsmen: "Louie Louie" / "Haunted Castle" (1963)

Motörhead: "Louie Louie" / "Tear You Down" (1978)

The Mothers of Invention: Uncle Meat (1969)

Various Artists: Animal House Soundtrack (1978)

Heavy Cruiser: Heavy Cruiser (1972)

Dunstan Prial: The Producer: John Hammond and the Soul of American Music (2006)

What do Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Robert Johnson, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, and Stevie Ray Vaughan have in common?

They were all discovered, mentored, championed, or produced by John Hammond.

In fact, although Dunstan Prial's 2006 biography is called The Producer, it could have just as easily been titled 'The Talent Scout,' 'The Jazz Critic,' 'The A&R Man,' 'The Band Wrangler,' and any number of other roles lived by this modern-day renaissance man.

Born into privilege in 1910, John Hammond was a scion of the aristocratic Vanderbilt family (shipping and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt was his great-grandfather), who fell in love with the jazz and blues records played by the black household staff working in his family's Manhattan mansion.

As a teenager, Hammond began sneaking out to Harlem speakeasies to hear music that high society looked down upon, and his obsession led to a paradoxical life in which a man with immeasurable wealth chose to spend his nights in smoke-filled jazz clubs and gritty recording studios.

More importantly, Hammond viewed music as a powerful tool in the battle for civil rights, which he crusaded for through his writing, talent-scouting, concert promotion (he was among the first to push for integrated jazz groups), and direct activism.

Yes, Hammond used his wealth to support his "hobby" and Prial doesn't ignore his flaws, at one point describing him as a "haute WASP" who could be arrogant, opinionated, a shameless promoter of his own projects (without disclosing his involvement), and more emotionally committed to his artists than his own family.

But Hammond's knowledge and passion for black music and star-studded associations were undeniable -- as were landmark achievements like opening the integrated Café Society club, staging the legendary From Spirituals to Swing concerts at Carniegie Hall, and spending over 30 years on the NAACP board.

What's more, all this was just his first act; his second as a Columbia Records executive confirmed he had A&R man "ears" and unparalleled taste via the signings of Dylan, Aretha, Springsteen, and Stevie Ray, before his passing in 1987.

I believe it was Springsteen who is quoted here as saying that Hammond was a "protective figure in a business known for predators," and that's another personal quality that supports his iconic status in the annals of 20th Century music.

Ironically, although hardly unexpectedly, Hammond was buried in the Vanderbilt Family Cemetery on Staten Island and now rests among the same "blue blood" relatives from whose lifestyle he rebelled throughout his time on Earth.

Featured Records:

Billie Holiday: Strange Fruit (1972)

Bob Dylan: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)

Bruce Springsteen: Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ (1973)

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble: Couldn’t Stand the Weather (1984)

Geddy Lee (w/ Daniel Richler): My Effin' Life: From Holocaust Roots to Rock and Roll Stardom (2023)

It was everything I hoped for ... and more!

That's something Rush fans grew accustomed to saying throughout the Canadian hard rock icons' long, historic, one-of-a-kind career, and it's not surprisingly something I said after closing bassist and vocalist Geddy Lee's magnificent autobiography for the last time.

Just like one of the band's gloriously bloated prog rock epics (say, "Xanadu"), My Effin' Life (co-written with veteran broadcaster Daniel Richler) documents Geddy's personal and musical experiences, both in and out of Rush, in fastidious, extensive, almost exhaustive detail.

But while 500-plus pages might have felt like T.M.I. in the hands of most (ab)normal rock stars, Lee's sober candor, self-effacing humor, and priceless archive of never-before-seen photos was embraced by diehard Rush fans as eagerly as the 18-minute "Cygnus X-1 Book II" suite.

And that includes an entire chapter dedicated to Geddy's Holocaust-surviving parents' and their incredible odyssey from Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen to the Toronto suburbs, where their experiences and culture shaped the boy born Gary Lee (Gershon Eliezer) Weinrib.

Lee follows that up with an unprecedented insider's deep-dive into Rush's modest beginnings and eventual rise to fame, all couched in insights into his lifelong bond with guitarist Alex Lifeson and creative partnership with Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart.

Some might find the painstakingly catalogued album/tour cycles that follow over ensuing decades a tad much, but Geddy contrasts these with frank descriptions of his family life, marital troubles, and other challenges of balancing home life with rock stardom.

About which: while the book sees Geddy confessing to his fair share of immature behavior, partying, and drug use, he also emphasizes Rush's obsessive work ethic and their hobbies outside of music, including baseball, birdwatching, wine collecting, and reading -- lots of reading.

You know ... NERDS!

Finally, Geddy writes movingly about Peart's personal tragedies, personal rebound, and untimely demise, while welcoming fans into Rush's unique inner circle, with lots of glimpses into the irreverent sense of humor that gradually emerged from behind the band's serious musical facade.

Now I just hope that Lifeson -- Rush's resident comedian -- will gift us an autobiography of his own someday, to sit alongside Geddy's My Effin' Life and Neil's various motorcycle travelogues, like 2002's Ghost Rider.

Featured Records:

Rush: Fly by Night (1975)

Rush: Exit … Stage Left (1981)

Rush: Hold Your Fire (1987)

Michael D. Smith & Rahul Telang: Streaming, Sharing, Stealing: Big Data and the Future of Entertainment (2018)

Liz Pelly: Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist (2025)

I had to borrow some of my daughters' records for this blog ...

Not to get ahead of ourselves, but the streaming music era as we know it is bound to come to an end, even if we don't yet know how Gen Alpha will choose to replace Gen Z's dominant music consumption format, because change is simply inevitable.

And when a music format/user experience has been around long enough for well-informed books to be written about it, well, you can bet your old iPods or Walkmans that we're closer to the end than to the start, but enough with my prognostications.

Here are two excellent books that will educate, elucidate, and, to some degree, enrage anyone who's curious about the WHYs behind the WHAT in music history.

In Streaming, Sharing, Stealing, Carnegie Mellon professors Michael D. Smith and Rahul Telang examine how the digital revolution stripped traditional media gatekeepers -- major labels and studios, superstar managers and agents, radio and MTV programmers, etc. -- of their power.

Enabled by much larger budgets and game-changing technologies for media consumption, digital giants like Amazon, Apple, and Netflix, bypassed those gatekeepers by gaining unprecedented access to, and control of, consumer data.

As a result, they also transformed the decision-making process long responsible for defining the value of "art" from hunches to analytics, replacing a system where executives and creatives made decisions based on intuition with cold hard behavioral data.

Finally, the book also considers the recurring piracy problem (positing that it fluctuates based on availability, reasonable prices, and convenience) and new phenomenons like the long tail and niche content, which now generate slow but significant revenues over time.

By contrast, Liz Pelly's Mood Machine characterizes the rise of streaming, not as a new age of efficiency and opportunity, but as a "muzak-ification" of art and erosion musicians' livelihood, while casting Spotify in the leading role as the modern music industry's biggest savior and antichrist.

Based on her diligent research into Spotify's investment in "wallpaper music," designed to be ignored rather than enjoyed, Pelly argues that the streaming giant converted art into utility by prioritizing "mood" over music genres or musicians.

She also claims the algorithms that have steadily replaced human curation don't serve the listener so much as gate-keep and limit their exposure to new sounds and artists, while pressuring the latter to game the system with generic production, shorter songs, hooks within the first 30 seconds to avoid skips.

Most damning of all, Pelly exposes Spotify's covert investment in stock music and fake artist farms to churn out low-cost material; then turning around and forcing human performers to accept lower royalties via algorithmic "payola" products like Discovery Mode.

Sound depressing?

Well, it is, but it's nothing new, and so the eternal battle between art and commerce, passion and convenience, humans vs. machines rages on ...

Who knows what the next chapter will bring, but I'm putting my money on a deeper integration of music with both gaming and AI, as the first streaming-native generation, Gen Z, matures into adulthood, and Gen Alpha defines and adopts the next model for music consumption.

Featured Records:

Sabrina Carpenter: Short n' Sweet (2024)

Ashe: Willson (2024)

Miranda Lambert: Wildcard (2019)

Nick Kent:

The Dark Stuff: Selected Writings on Rock Music 1972-1993 (1994)

Apathy for the Devil: A 1970s Memoir (2010)

If you weren't around before the Internet, you just don't understand ...

There once was a day when magazines provided the ultimate lifeline between fans and the music they loved, and rock critics like Nick Kent could become almost as famous as the rock stars they covered, and, in Nick's case, almost emulated unto his ultimate destruction.

He wasn't called the 'Dark Prince of the British Music Press' for nothing.

Along with his peers and rivals, Charles Shaar Murray and Ian MacDonald, Kent formed the NME's 'Holy Trinity' of '70s writers; they transformed music journalism into a blood sport, replacing PR puff-pieces with a high-energy blend of gonzo prose, intellectual rigor, and sheer hyperbole.

No one does HYPE like the U.K. music press, and you can expect all this and more from both of these books (I believe he's since written more), although they are structured in very different ways ...

As its title suggests, The Dark Stuff curates a series of essays and character studies from Kent's '70s glory days, with a focus on doomed, complex, or controversial rock figures like Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson, Lou Reed, Captain Beefheart, Neil Young, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Elvis Costello, and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Fusing sophisticated prose and investigative depth with caustic cynicism, Kent approached rock journalism with the gravity of high literature and the lawless energy of gonzo reporting, simultaneously admiring and eviscerating his subjects for their preternatural talents and the subsequent use -- or abuse -- thereof.

I can relate, and to me this was proof of Kent's genuine fandom, because when you put your idols on a pedestal and then discover they're not only human (often shitty humans at that), you temper your worship with equally high, if unrealistic expectations.

Written many years later, Apathy for the Devil shifts the lens onto Kent himself, chronicling his coming-of-age as an erudite music nut, his rise to NME prominence, and his subsequent descent into the London underground highlighted by a volatile relationship with the Sex Pistols, and drug-tainted proximity to The Rolling Stones.

It was here that the fine line between journalist and hanger-on began to blur for Kent, who even fancied himself a budding artist for a brief, heroin-distorted period, before exiting the "game" and relocating to Paris in order to detox and save himself.

Essentially, Kent's tone on Apathy ... is far more personal, reflective, and self-deprecating than on The Dark Stuff, as Kent strips away the romanticism of the perceived rock critic's existence while de-mythologizing both the artists he covered and the dishonestly exalted '70s rock scene they inhabited.

Both books are highly recommended,

p.s. -- Kent had a hand in helping to release the first pressing of Iggy and the Stooges' Metallic K.O., so I had to include it among these LPs reflecting some of his other favorite artists.

Featured Records:

Iggy and The Stooges: Metallic K.O. (1976)

David Bowie: Young Americans (1975)

Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band: Safe as Milk (1967)

Elvis Costello and The Attractions: Imperial Bedroom (1982)

Jerry Lee Lewis: "Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On" (1957)

Michael Hahn: Denim and Leather: The Rise and Fall of the New Waver of British Heavy Metal (2021)

Unless mankind suddenly develops better taste in music (or, even more unlikely, A.I. somehow comes to the rescue), it's hard to imagine that any book will ever best Malc MacMillan's N.W.O.B.H.M. Encyclopedia for granular and compendious thoroughness.

But Michael Hahn, a former editor with The Guardian, deserves recognition for authoring the second most valuable tome about one of my all-time-favorite musical "scenes," the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, with his aptly named Denim and Leather.

You know the words: "Denim and leather ... brought us all together."

Named after the Saxon's zeitgeist-capturing fourth LP (seen above alongside other genre classics), as well as my aspirational daily wardrobe, this is an oral history in the grand tradition of Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain's Please Kill Me and Mark Yarm's Everybody Loves Our Town.

And that means Hahn leans on his editorial experience to largely hover in the background and let the musicians, fans, journalists, DJs, and other assorted participants who lived through the intoxicating period between 1979 and '83 tell the story in their own words.

Core topics include the D.I.Y. mentality borrowed from punk that inspired bands to release their own singles and spawned regional independents like Neat Records, until major labels and mainstream pressures chipped away at the movement's original, working-class grit.

The book also delves into the now-seemingly archaic media channels -- radio's The Friday Rock Show, Kerrang! magazine (and, before it, Sounds), as well as London's legendary Soundhouse club -- that supported the N.W.O.B.H.M. and gave fans something to rally around.

And Hahn's hundreds of interviews provide a forum, not just for the smaller, oft-forgotten groups, but for the less commendable, sordid forces of the time, such as the rampant misogyny experienced by pioneering all-female bands like Girlschool and Rock Goddess.

Speaking of the bands, it's wonderful to see the voices of so many secondary players (Samson, Raven, Demon, Blitzkrieg, Vardis, Tank, Fist, Sledgehammer, Holocaust, Praying Mantis, Persian Risk, Tokyo Blade, White Spirit, Angel Witch, Witchfynde, Witchfinder General, the Tygers of Pan Tang, I could go on and on) represented here.

Of course, like all oral histories, Denim and Leather's roll call of contributors is as conspicuous for its absentees (none more so than the N.W.O.B.H.M.'s signature band, Iron Maiden) as for those present (Def Leppard, who previously went out of their way to disassociate themselves).

But until someone else takes up the challenge, Hahn's interviews provide the most complete and satisfying deep-dive into the careers of Diamond Head (who at one point looked like the next Led Zeppelin) and black metal's outrageous, blasphemous godfathers, Venom.

In sum: Denim and Leather will never please everyone (myself included) who still loves, worships, and, to some degree, owes their life (or at their life's choices, including the aforementioned wardrobe choices) to the N.W.O.B.H.M., but it will surely renew the faith of everyone who took these lyrics to heart and set the spirit free:

"Where were you in '79 when the dam began to burst? Did you check us out down at the local show? Were you wearing denim, wearing leather? Did you run down to the front? Did you queue for your ticket through the ice and snow? Did you read the music paper from the back and to the front? Did you find out where to see your favorite band? Did you listen to the radio every Friday night? Did you hang around your local record store? Do you dream of playing guitar or smashing up the drums? Maybe you can learn to play the bass ... You can always be a singer like me and front the band. Well, on the stage we wait at your command!

Denim and Leather ... Brought us all together; It was you that set the spirit free."

Featured Records:

Venom: Welcome to Hell (1981)

Praying mantis: Time Tells No Lies (1981)

Diamond Head: (Living On) Borrowed Time (1982)

Saxon: Denim and Leather (1981)

White Spirit: White Spirit (1980)

Def Leppard: On Through the Night (1980)

Dave Thompson: Bad Reputation: The Unauthorized Biography of Joan Jett (2011)

Cherie Currie (w/ Tony O'Neill): Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway – An Insider's Candid Autobiography of '70s Punk Rock, Addiction, and Fame (2011)

Lita Ford (w/ James Wood): Living Like a Runaway: A Memoir (2016)

The Runaways produced just one all-time-classic song ("Cherry Bomb"), not even a full album's worth of must-hear material, and fell apart before most of the world ever knew they existed, but their pioneering efforts in a painfully chauvinistic rock world speaks volumes.

Multiple volumes, as these three biographies obviously attest.

Joan Jett may be the most famous and successful Runaway of them all, but Bad Reputation is easily the weakest of these books, and I frankly wouldn't waste your time on Dave Thompson's adequate but distant unauthorized biography.

Though I absolutely loved Thompson's curmudgeonly Classic Rock Manifesto, here, he often writes on automatic pilot about a subject so reclusive and taciturn, she'll likely never put pen to paper herself, and if she does, I'm not sure Jett will have much to say.

Heck, Joan was more involved with Currie‘s book than her own -- contributing the foreword.

Aside from finally addressing Jett's homosexuality, Thompson can shed little light on her personal life and spends most of his time putting her career into historical context, which at least means recognizing the prejudice and misogyny she faced and overcame when she went solo.

But as Jett's career relevance and success declines after the 1980s, all Thompson can do is efficiently catalog her albums, tours, awards, and collaborations (including the seeds of the 2010 Runaways movie) to mask his lack of access to the artist herself.

Now, Lita Ford's autobiography is another matter: not only does she win the 'Best Title Award' with Living Like a Runaway, but she also provides the most lucid, to the point of callous, recollections of the Runaways' chaotic and meteoric run through the late '70s.

Refreshingly and unapologetically slutty, she casually lists the heavy metal idols she jammed and slept with (Ritchie Blackmore, Tony Iommi, Nikki Sixx, etc.), as was her right as "one of the boys": challenging gender prejudices with her unwavering belief that she was their equal.

Lita was also resilient enough to rise from the Runaways' ashes with her own string of best-selling albums, delivered in the midst of the ultra-misogynistic hair metal '80s, no less; but she really topped herself when it came to lousy marriages and divorces.

After narrowly escaping her temporary engagement to an abusive Iommi, she tied the knot with wild man W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes, then followed that with an even bigger cock rock laughing stock in erstwhile Tuff and Nitro frontman Jim Gillette!

Together, they quit L.A. and celebrity for a lonely existence with their two sons in Turks and Caicos, but this ended in a heartbreaking estrangement that casts a dark, disturbing, unresolved pall on the book's final chapters, even as Lita resurrected her musical career.

And then there's Runaways frontwoman Cherie Currie's 2011 autobiography, Neon Angel, which I only realized after purchasing, was actually different from, although based on, a previous edition published way back in 1989, swapping co-author Neil Schusterman with Tony O’Neill.

If you read just one of these books, this had better be it, because Currie's intimate, soul-baring account reveals all of the manipulation and exploitation endured by The Runaways at the hands of an abusive music industry, uncomprehending music fans, and especially their controversial Sven Gali manager Kim Fowley.

Like a white-knuckle roller-coaster ride, Currie takes readers from the highs of the mid '70s L.A. nightlife, touring Japan with The Runaways, and the set of the movie Foxes with costar Jodie Foster, to the depths of her broken home, destructive drug addiction, and a near-fatal rape (actually two of them!) that will leave you sick to your stomach.

By the time she hit rock bottom at age 24 (remember, she was just 15 when she joined The Runaways), Currie had seen it all, and her brave reinvention (alternately working as a drug counselor, personal trainer, and chainsaw sculptor!) should be a source of pride and inspiration.

As were all three of these women, who proved their incredible strength by succeeding and surviving in a period and patriarchy of almost unimaginable sexism and disrespect -- the likes of which will undoubtedly shock modern generations.

And that does it for Women's History Month 2026 ... thanks for reading and continuing to fight for gender equality ... we still have a long way to go, but these books prove that progress IS possible, if painfully slow.

Featured Records:

The Runaways: The Runaways (1976)

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts: I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll (1981)

Lita Ford: Out for Blood (1983)

Rita Lee (w/ Guilherme Samora): Rita Lee: Uma Autobiografia (2016)

Apologies to those I'm unfairly excluding by blogging about a book printed in Portuguese (and not yet translated to English, unless AI has something to "say" about it), but Women's History Month "happens" in more than one language, you know?

With the exception of Sepultura (*), Rita Lee was arguably Brazil's most globally-renowned rock star, male OR female, and she was our undisputed "Rainha do Rock" ("Queen of Rock"), starting out with '60s Tropicália trailblazers Os Mutantes before embarking on a five-decade solo career.

Born in my hometown of São Paulo, in 1947, Lee's ancestors were Confederate losers who migrated to Brazil after the Civil War, so she learned to speak English fluently from her father, and this, along with her quirky family life (**) evokes the eccentric whimsy of a Wes Anderson movie.

What's more, Lee's hilariously candid, personable, and irreverent writing style reflects the "porra-loca" hippie counter-culture she embraced with Os Mutantes, whose meteoric rise to fame and equally sudden demise amid dysfunctional immaturity she unravels in every gory detail.

That precocious brush with celebrity might well have been it for Lee, but her tenacity was revealed during the stop-start launch of her solo career in the '70s -- initially collaborating with rock band Tutti Frutti before meeting her lifelong musical and romantic partner in future husband Roberto de Carvalho.

Together, they wrote many of Rita's biggest pop hits of the '80s and '90s and started a family (***) that would have seemed almost normal if not for both parents' busy touring schedule and Lee's ongoing struggles to balance motherhood with stardom and recurring substance abuse.

The book also addresses Rita's conflicts with censorship and political persecution at the hands of Brazil's military dictatorship, but no matter how serious the subject, she maintains a sharp, witty, self-mocking tone throughout; simultaneously dismantling her own myth and proudly accepting her status as a pioneering woman in a male-dominated industry.

And while she didn't work with a ghostwriter in the traditional sense and insisted on writing her own story, Lee did lean on friend and journalist Guilherme Samora to confirm or correct her faulty memories in the guise of a snarky "phantom character."

Lee's memoir was a Brazilian best-seller when published in 2016, and the singer actually penned another, similarly honest and unfiltered autobiography (****) focusing on her ensuing battle with cancer and published almost in tandem with her death in 2023.

* No joke: for all the legendary composers, musicians, and performers Brazil has produced, the extreme metal icons from Belo Horizonte have sold by far the most records.

** Her mother's side, like mine and millions of Paulistanos, migrated from Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

*** Around 1988 or '89, one of her infant sons routinely pestered me to let him shoot hoops when I trained at the American School of São Paulo.

**** Amusingly titled Outra Autobiografia, or Another Autobiography.

Featured Records:

Os Mutantes: Mutantes (1969)

Os Mutantes: A Divina Comédia ou Ando Meio Desligado (1970)

Rita Lee & Tutti Frutti: Fruto Proibido (1975)

Tina Turner (w/ Kurt Loder): I, Tina: My Life Story (1986)

As we move through Women's History Month 2026, I thought we'd do well to remember the harrowing but inspiring story of the inimitable and indomitable Queen of Rock 'n' Roll …

Tina Turner passed away in 2023 at the age of 83, but she already had an epic tale to tell 40 years ago, when she co-authored I, Tina with then-Rolling Stone editor and future MTV news anchor Kurt 'The Week in Rock' Loder.

The artist and writer (who'd also contributed to Circus, Esquire, and Time, among other publications) actually make a great tag-team as they switch back-and-forth between her personal recollections and his fluid, well-rounded reportage.

It all begins with vivid recollections of Anna Mae Bullock‘s impoverished West Tennessee upbringing (where else but the Nutbush City Limits?), at times abandoned by both parents, and how her initial forays into performing in St. Louis introduced her to bandleader Ike Turner.

It proceeds with a grueling account of her virtual indentured servitude to her abusive husband of 16 years, as the Ike and Tina Turner Revue criss-crossed America's highways and byways, with Tina subjected to constant physical and psychological abuse.

It describes their occasional breakthroughs to white audiences, especially in the UK, and Tina's growing legion of admirers, from Phil Spector to The Rolling Stones, that, along with a spiritual grounding in Buddhism, gradually gave her the courage and strength to escape.

That escape from a Dallas hotel in 1976, with nothing but the clothes on her back, 36 cents, and a gas card, has of course gone down in musical lore, and so did Tina's subsequent, unlikely comeback, all the way to the top of the charts with Private Dancer at age 45.

And when I, Tina was published a couple of years later, it taught millions of new fans and readers that this was no mere professional comeback, but an inspirational survival story -- a true American epic later brought to the silver screen via 1993's What's Love Got to Do With It, starring Angela Bassett.

Finally, though I'm sure there are more recent and complete Tina Turner biographies I might have chosen, I don't need reminding of her ensuing triumphs, the laundry list of awards, etc., when I, Tina provides such a raw, emotional, in-the-moment glimpse of Tina's hard-won victory over so much adversity.

Featured Records:

Tina Turner: Private Dancer (1984)

Ike & Tina Turner: Workin’ Together (1970)

Nina Simone (w/ Stephen Cleary): I Put a Spell On You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone (1991)

Alan Light: What Happened, Miss Simone? A Biography (2016)

What better way to transition from Black History Month to Women's History Month than with an absolute icon for both of these yearly celebrations: the incomparable, uncompromising High Priestess of Soul: Nina Simone.

A classically-trained prodigy, she rose from poverty to Carnegie Hall, overcoming racial and artistic boundaries along the way with her sheer talent and fierce determination, ultimately producing a body of work as eclectic and complex as her mercurial spirit.

At a time when the music industry demanded "palatable" black performers, Nina publicly embraced the Civil Rights issues of the day head-on; and she was one of the first celebrities to embrace African-inspired fashion and to proudly sport an Afro, flatly rejecting white standards of beauty.

She paid a hefty price for her activism and stubborn defiance; pegged as "difficult" in music industry circles and far worse in the world beyond, Nina's unique and multi-dimensional story must be viewed through different lenses, which is why I felt the need to read both of these books.

Her autobiography provides an intimate look at her formative years and how her dogged determination to carve out a musical career evolved into an obsession with the Civil Rights dream, leaving her lost and embittered after the movement dissipated.

But while Simone acknowledges the toll her intransigence took on her relationships (rejecting her beloved father in the last days of his life arguably being the most cruel), like any autobiography, hers fails to clarify some of the key events and personal dynamics involved.

This is where Alan Light's What Happened, Miss Simone? comes in: building off the acclaimed documentary of the same name through valuable interviews with her daughter, Lisa Simone Kelly, and longtime bandmates like Al Schackman to shed light (no pun intended) on the great diva's, uh ... less admirable diva behavior.

Often volatile, arrogant, confrontational, and always unapologetic, Nina would just as soon antagonize her loved ones (e.g. her tempestuous relationship with husband and manager Andrew Stroud) as her audience, though her demand for total silence during performance stemmed from her classical training.

But Light also elaborates on Simone's rich interaction with Civil Rights leaders and intellectuals, sensitively addresses her bisexuality (never mentioned in the autobiography), sorts through the chaos of Nina's time living in Africa and Europe, and documents her later career and final days.

In the words of her daughter, who surely experienced Simone at her best and worst like no one else:blac "She never stopped speaking out against injustice. I think that Mom's anger is what sustained her, really what kept her going. It just became who she was."

At a time when millions of white Americans are learning what black and brown Americans have felt all lives -- that their own government is out to get them -- Nina Simone's unrequited indignation can be better understood, not as a some kind of personality, let alone a mental disorder, but as living with ful conscience and eyes-wide-open.

Featured Records:

Nina Simone: Nina at the Village Gate (1962)

Nina Simone: Nina Simone in Concert (1964)

Nina Simone: I Put a Spell On You (1965)

Robert Gordon: Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion (2013)

"Memphis is the town where nothing ever happens, but the impossible always does."

I'm pretty sure that when you put down this book, you'll agree with me that Memphis is THE most important music city in American history.

It's the birthplace of rock 'n' roll, of course, but it's also where the blues left the Delta for the city, and where innumerable other music genres (country, gospel, soul, R&B, and later hip-hop) were culturally mingled and cross-pollinated like nowhere else throughout the 20th Century.

Stax Records, like Sam Phillips’ Sun, changed the face of music by bringing Blacks and Whites together like never before, and doing so in spite of segregation's iron grip; Stax turned Memphis into the Civil Rights movement's greatest musical experiment.

Sorry, New York, L.A., and Detroit, but it's true!

If you've watched either one of two incredible Stax documentaries, 2007's Respect Yourself or 2024's Soulsville U.S.A., and, like me, simply couldn't get enough, then might I suggest Robert Gordon's Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion to further your education?

Here, Stax is revealed as a microcosm of the broader battles, injustices, and contradictions of America's Civil Rights struggles: a safe haven where racial barriers temporarily dissolved, even while the city of Memphis itself burned just outside of the studio walls.

Of course, such groundbreaking integration through music could only happen largely by accident, as white siblings Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton ('St' + 'Ax' -- get it?) found like-minded black business partners in Al Bell, David Porter, and other executives to build a music industry powerhouse.

Oh yeah, and an incomparable roster of multi-racial talent: Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, and their integrated M.G.'s, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Albert King, The Bar-Keys, Eddie Floyd, plus, through their joint venture with Atlantic Records, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, and more.

I won't spoil the joy of reading about their incredible achievements and gut-wrenching tragedies, but, thanks to their collective creative and professional efforts, by the early 1970s, Stax had become one of the largest Black-owned businesses in America.

It's sadly no coincidence that the moment Jim and Estelle severed their ties to Stax was precisely when a veritable cabal of racially-motivated white power brokers -- both in Memphis and on the Coasts, both from inside and outside the music industry -- suddenly converged and conspired to steal the label's priceless assets and put it out of business.

Again, the parallels between Stax's rise and fall and America's historical tradition of institutionalized racism are simply too obvious to ignore, so this fantastic book provides yet another lesson in Civics and a reminder that the fight for real and lasting change unfortunately continues.

Alright, that about wraps it up for Black History Month 2026, but tune in next week for a blog that should serve as a bridge to Women's History Month.

p.s. -- The legendary Steve Cropper sadly passed away at the age of 84 while I was reading Respect Yourself, may he rest in peace.

p.p.s. -- For serious music lovers and historians, the scene in Soulsville U.S.A. where Booker T. explains the musical origins of "Green Onions" is comparable to God and Adam's outstretched fingers in Michelangelo's The Creation of Man.

p.p.p.s. -- For a label with such an iconic brand, Stax sure loved assigning its artists to subsidiary imprints like Volt, Enterprise, and Gospel Truth, among others, as you can tell by the records photographed here.

Featured Records:

Booker T. & the M.G.s.: "Green Onions" / "Behave Yourself" (1962)

Isaac Hayes: Hot Buttered Soul (1969)

Otis Redding: Otis Blue/ Otis Redding Sings Soul (1965)

The Rance Allen Group: A Soulful Experience (1975)

John Edward Hasse: Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington (1993)

We've reached the halfway mark of Black History Month 2026, and it's time to celebrate one of America's greatest composers in any era and in any genre: the late, great Edward Kennedy 'Duke' Ellington.

Over the course of his unparalleled, 50-year career, Ellington consistently evolved and elevated jazz as a sophisticated art form against unimaginable ignorance and prejudice; effectively forcing White America to trade their condescension for reverence along the way.

His amazing story receives a comprehensive appraisal in John Edward Hasse's 1993 biography, Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington, which countered other, overly skeptical, even patronizing attempts with a more academic, evenly balanced portrait focused on the music as it is about the man.

As a curator at the Smithsonian Institution, Hasse had unique access to the Ellington archives with which to chronicle his entire journey, from a relatively privileged middle-class upbringing in Washington D.C. (doted on and encouraged by his loving mother, he once said that "my feet never touched the ground") to ubiquitous 20th Century icon.

Taking the long route but making the trip zoom by, Hasse takes us through Duke's breakthrough at New York's Cotton Club in the 1920s, his big band golden age of the '30s and '40s, the Newport Jazz Festival and other events that revived his career in the '50s, and his famous international tours, sacred works, and collaborations with younger acolytes in the '60s and '70s.

Through it all, the Duke never (well, very rarely) lost his cool or his innate regal bearing, no matter how much racism and disrespect America could throw at him; instead, to most outward appearances, he remained ever a paragon of class, dignity, and style.

And he doesn't shy from addressing controversy, either, be that Ellington's notorious womanizing or accusations that he leaned on a legion of talented musicians throughout his career to both distinguish his legendary big bands and to compose his colossal canon, numbering some 1,500 pieces.

But, as with Frank Zappa, decades later, it was Ellington's encyclopedic knowledge of music, keen nose for talent, and rare ability to shape and combine disparate sounds that brought out the best in many of those musicians (Billy Strayhorn, Johnny Hodges, etc.) and led to the countless stylistic innovations they achieved together.

In sum: maybe it sounds like I'm toeing the company line here a bit, but the fact is that I'm simply not enough of an Ellington or jazz authority to have a dog in this fight; I was just happy to learn why the Duke's stature and influence across American music is so broad and almost peerless.

Even better, what I dreaded might be a cumbersome read was anything but, and it seems like the current-day critical consensus is that Hasse's work remains the most accessible and authoritative biography about this music legend.

Like the title says, Ellington's oeuvre was so vast of volume and varied in style that it truly made him sui generis -- Beyond Category -- in the landscape of American life, music, and culture.

Featured Records:

Duke Ellington: Ellington Uptown (1952)

Duke Ellington: Far East Suite (1966)