Music Related Books

Got two tasty treats from Amazon 3rd party sellers this week;

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"Moanin' at Midnight" the life and times of Howlin' Wolf by Segrest and Hoffman. This was recommended by KrisM our resident Blues Guru.

"The World of Count Basie" by Stanley Dance. This was recommeded by Gannon, as we were discussing my love for Sweets Edison and Gannon told me Sweets was discussed in this book.

Both have the bonus photos in center that I love;

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Diving into these this weekend.
I've had that Wolf book in my cart for many months but it's still there.
Please let us know how it is.
 
I've had that Wolf book in my cart for many months but it's still there.
Please let us know how it is.

Will do. The Basie book is excellent. I'll be finished with it by tonight. Tomorrow or Tuesday I'll start on Wolf. I'll let you know, but from what I have heard from other AKers that read it, they said it was very good.
 
I've had that Wolf book in my cart for many months but it's still there.
Please let us know how it is.

OK, just finished the Howlin' Wolf. IMO, a truly STELLAR read. I'd give it a look if I were you. Lots of surprises for me in that book, starting with his size. I had no idea the man was 6'3", 300 lbs with size 16 shoes. The writing is elegant, precise, and keeps you reading. An amazing account of his music and his life.
 
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"The Age of Bowie" by Paul Morley is a biography written from the author's perspective. Morley, being a huge fan, both illuminates and infuriates with his exuberance.
The beginning of the book comes off as cathartic for the writer and maybe does or doesn't equate to how the reader might come to grips with the death of their Bowie.

However, the first half of the book does cover the first 20 years of Bowie's life which I found very informative. I really only knew Bowie after Hunky Dory, his third album. His early influences and recordings were an unknown to me.

Morley has a unique writing style that tends to run on. Once you get into the pace of his writing style it's easier to follow where he's going. It reminded me of how Burroughs can confound the reader but I'm in no way comparing the two writers just the difficult pace of the writing.

After getting a good understanding of where Bowie or Davie Jones came from and who influenced him in his formative years, it seems like the writer is setting up for a big payoff later in the book but the payoff never comes. His equations of how these early influences manifest in his later work seems a little weak to me.

The thing I liked most about this book is at the end of each chapter, one for each year throughout Bowie's 70's period, the author listed important or seminal recordings made by other artists of that year. These must have been favorites of the author because not all the artists listed were at the top of the charts or even popular at the time. I must say I agree with about 98% of his choices and maybe I need to go back and reevaluate some of the others.
I can see how this might put some readers off, but for me it legitimized much of my record collection.

For a novice of Bowie, one might gleem a lot of great truth in this book but for someone who has followed Bowie over his career, you may feel as I did that much of the holes in my understanding of his mindset is not sated.
Or perhaps, what was important for the writer to convey is not what I hoped I would gather from this book.

Either way, I was disappointed in the arc of the timeline. Morley trys to justify this by explaining how one can't talk about Bowie's work in a chronological order; Bowie's life has too many jump cuts between artistic periods, hence, the early influences on later artistic expressions.
I found this opinion a vail attempt to get this book written in a short period of time.
A couple of years from the late 70's were even glossed over as if nothing worth writing about, happened. This really chapped my hide as his "Berlin Period" is my favorite of all his work.

But you have to draw a line somewhere and I guess that was his. Otherwise you could make this 496 pages into a 2000 page microscopic dissection.

The last 30 years of Bowie's career/life are covered in less than the last 100 pages.
His acting career and one offs like the Queen and Jagger songs are quickly covered and given about as much attention as each of his last dozen albums. Yeah, much of his later records don't hold a candle to his 70's period but I really liked a couple of those later releases and would have liked to know more about them.

Morley's association with the "David Bowie Is" exhibition is touted and is used as the closer of the book. Most of his experiences with the exhibit are anecdotal at best and are really an unnecessary inclusion.

All in all, I liked the book ok but it only makes me want to find a more comprehensive bio from a more disassociated author.
Perhaps, an artist like Bowie very well may not be able to be contained all in one book, or even, at all.
 
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Picked up this great coffee table book at one of the discount home goods stores.

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I had to read this, Chicks. So it's ordered from my library. Should be here in a few days. Don't think I want to buy it unless I can find it used on the cheap. But I am really looking forward to reading it.
 
Followed Chick's Lead and got a copy of "Vinyl - The Art of Making Records"

Great coffee table book indeed. Lots of rich full color bleed photos and insets. Interesting background stories on the industry and the music. The book is separated into "Decades", so you can go chronologically or just concentrate on a particular decade. There are also record brand secions, like the "Verve" section in the photo below.
This is a Library copy just to get my feet wet, but after reading it for a few hours, I am definitely going to buy a copy for the permanent library.

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Not sure this book has been mentioned here... Crosstown Traffic: Jim Hendrix and Postwar Pop by Charles Shaar Murray
Not a biography, rather a whole history of pop music (and jazz too) post WWII with the unifying theory that Jimi Hendrix was the culmination and bisecting point of all of it.
I read it in high school and it kind of blew my mind.
It's been reissued and it's hard to find a picture of it with this original cover but man, the combination of that Flying V, the green jacket, the pink of the title box... so rock and roll... I loved it!
 
All music books are just awesome, A History of Western Music" by Donald Jay Grout is my favourite bokok
 
Dancing With Myself / Billy Idol
Great read penned by Mr. Broad (his real name) which chronicles his life and where his mis adventures took him. Follows him from Generation X to his solo career and the few movie roles he acquired. Filled with the excesses of Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll, Idol makes no excuses and owns up to them as learning experiences which brought him to where he is now, at peace and hopeful about his future. The end of the book is very reflective as he looks back on his life and the people who helped shape his meteoric rise in the 80's as he fused punk and rock n roll into a viable commodity.
If I take one thing from this book its if you are trying to succeed be sociable, rub elbows with everyone in that circle of that field of work because you might find those people who can lead to your ultimate goal. He still performs today.
 
One Way Out - The Inside History of The Allman Brothers Band
by Alan Paul

Majority of the book is based on interviews with members, crew, managers, and fellow musicians. A fascinating look at the band for over 40+ years of success and tragedy.

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I picked-up this Jazz haul (and a few more not pictured) at a recent estate sale. The guy had hundreds of burned CD's, which I didn't have the patience to look through, but apparently no proper CD releases or LP's. But he had all of these volumes, which I liberated for a small fee:

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GJ


Great score on these on books. I want to get a jazz coffee table book for my living room now. Hopefully I can find one in my area
 
After contributing to onwardjames' thread about an unlikely artist and five songs that best represented them, I posted about Art Pepper. A favorite artist of mine.
I got to thinking I really didn't know a lot about him except what I'd assumed from reading liner notes.
So, I bought his autobiography "Straight Life" The Story of Art Pepper.

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I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned before now in this thread but it's such a great book I wanted to give my impression of it. 505 pages, published by Schirmer Books. It's an engrossing read that's hard to put down.
The main thing I gained from reading this book is that Art Pepper wanted you to know that he is not a rat! He's not a stool pigeon. He never copped out on anybody. Never turned over on anyone. He even went to prison for someone and wouldn't fink.
No matter what else he did or who he was, he always had his reputation. That really meant a lot to him.
And the thing that meant even more to him was drugs, he was a helpless dope fiend and proud of it.
So there if is, he was an honorable junkie. Oh, and by the way...he could play the saxophone as well. Really the only thing that kept him alive, his talent was immeasurable.
Being always on the lookout for the next score, he often pawned his horns to get money for drugs. So, when he had to play he used old broken, worn out instruments with pads missing or broken mouth pieces. But listening to his records you would never know. He was able to play around those deficiencies. The times he had recording dates for records I'm familiar with, it's comical how he was either totally numb on heroin or so strung out, sick from withdrawal he was barely able to hold it together. But again, you would never know.
The detail and recall of his recollection even after all the drug use is impressive. He really tells an unbelievable story starting back when he was a small child. Much of this is due to Laurie Pepper's prodding during many of Art's story telling sessions captured onto tape. He loved to talk and tell stories. Combining this with interviews of those who were there and the record of his session dates, makes for a believeable and seemless timeline.
He had an insatiable sex drive despite his heroin use and tells of his many sexual exploits. He wasn't shy.
He describes the times he spent in prison and how it had profound effect on his view of the world and his feelings about racism. As a jazz player he was a white guy in a black man's world and he struggled with that all his career.
I had always assumed that he cleaned up after being released from prison and spending time in a drug rehab house. His playing got even sharper and more focused in his later years during the 70's. But that couldn't be further from the truth. He moved onto methadone and cocaine or whatever he could get his hands on.
A true visionary on the tenor sax and the perfect definition of a devilish angel, Art Pepper was a man of such internal pain but capable of such external beauty.
 
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