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NonfictionMusicBiography

A music star’s rough path from the pinnacle

Review by Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

Twenty years after he recorded “The Letter” at the age of 16—a song that became a mega-hit for the Memphis-based Box Tops—Alex Chilton mused: “I guess my life has been a series of flukes in the record business. The first thing I ever did was the biggest record I’ll ever have.”

Chilton went on to record more hits with the Box Tops, though none as famous or memorable or covered by other artists as “The Letter.” He put together and fronted one of the most influential power pop bands of the ’70s, Big Star, and re-emerged as a significant solo artist in the ’80s. His song “In the Street” became familiar to millions as the theme song of the television comedy “That ‘70s Show.”

Chilton’s powerful musical legacy shaped bands as diverse as R.E.M. and the dB’s, yet his remarkable life story has never been the subject of a biography—until now. In A Man Called Destruction, music critic Holly George-Warren (The Road to Woodstock)—whose band, Clambake, Chilton produced in 1985—vividly narrates Chilton’s rise to early fame, his genius in developing new musical directions and his precipitous decline from the musical pinnacle to an untimely death at the age of 59.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews with his family, friends and bandmates, she traces Chilton’s life from his childhood and youth in Mississippi and Memphis, including the tragic death of his older brother, Reid, and its effect on the entire family. His early musical tastes were eclectic—Jimmy Smith, Mose Allison, Jackie Wilson, Elvis—and he was recruited to join his first band, the Devilles, while still in high school. George-Warren recounts his early recording sessions with famed songwriters and producers Chips Moman and Dan Penn and the meeting with singer-songwriter Chris Bell that eventually resulted in the formation of Big Star. Throughout his long career, which included a stint as a solo artist and a hiatus from the music business, Chilton showed an appetite for self-destruction that seemed to grow as much from his creative genius as from his thirst for alcohol and drugs.

As George-Warren points out, “music was Alex’s life—but what he loved more than making music was doing it on his own terms.”

“As in life,” she observes, “Alex liked traveling the byways, even if it meant getting lost sometimes. It wasn’t an easy road—but it took him where he wanted to go.” In this colorful and compulsively readable biography, she takes readers along for the ride.

Twenty years after he recorded “The Letter” at the age of 16—a song that became a mega-hit for the Memphis-based Box Tops—Alex Chilton mused: “I guess my life has been a series of flukes in the record business. The first thing I ever did was the biggest record I’ll ever have." Alex Chilton’s powerful musical legacy shaped bands as diverse as R.E.M. and the dB’s, yet his remarkable life story has never been the subject of a biography—until now. In A Man Called Destruction, music critic Holly George-Warren (The Road to Woodstock) vividly narrates Chilton’s rise to early fame.
Pop CultureMusicMemoir

A memoir with a heart of gold

Review by Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

My, my, hey, hey, Neil Young is here to stay in this rambunctious, affectionate, humorous and celebratory memoir of his wild ride through life from the windswept prairies of Winnipeg, Manitoba, in “Mortimer Hearseburg,” his 1948 Buick hearse, to the windblown walls of Topanga Canyon.

With characteristic grace, he invites us to sit in the passenger seat as he drives down the many roads he's veered onto during his remarkable career, stopping along the way to introduce us to his beloved family, the musicians and friends with whom he has created memorable songs for generations, as well as his cars, guitars and ingenious inventions. One is the PureTone player that allows listeners to hear music the way musicians hear it when they're recording; another is the Lincvolt, a repowered 1959 Lincoln Continental convertible that runs on alternative energy sources.

From his first band in Canada, The Squires, to his days with country-rock pioneers Buffalo Springfield, and his short-lived and sometimes contentious association with super group Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, to his solo career and ongoing involvement with Crazy Horse, Young has blown through the musical landscape like a hurricane with the force of his creative genius and innovative spirit. Throughout his career, he has embraced various musical styles, tinkering with new sounds and creating enduring songs such as "Cinnamon Girl," "Down by the River," "Helpless," "Heart of Gold," "The Needle and the Damage Done," and "Harvest Moon," among many, many others. Reflecting on the death of his dear friend Ben Keith, the pedal steel guitar player who played with Young from his album Harvest (1972) to late 2009, Young offers his thoughts on the central role of music in his life: "When music is your life, there is a key that gets you to the core. . . . Crazy Horse is my way of getting there. That is the place where music lives in my soul."

Young's life has not always been easy. He recovered after painful treatments from a childhood bout with polio, weathered major epileptic seizures and learned to live with his condition, and raised two sons, Zeke and Ben, with severe physical impairments. Out of this experience with his sons, he and his wife Pegi built The Bridge School that assists children with severe physical conditions and complex communication needs. In the face of such challenges, Young shares his deep gratitude for life: "I accept the extreme nature of my blessings and burdens, my gifts and messages, my children with their uniqueness, my wife with her endless beauty and renewal."

Along this journey, Young offers insights about former band mates, like David Crosby, Graham Nash, Richie Furay and close friend Stephen Stills. "Stephen and I have this great honesty about our relationship and get joy from telling each other observations from our past," he writes.

Young feels like he's massaging his soul when he makes music, and he makes some of his finest music in this lyrical memoir, massaging our souls by hitting just the right chords with his words.

My, my, hey, hey, Neil Young is here to stay in this rambunctious, affectionate, humorous and celebratory memoir of his wild ride through life from the windswept prairies of Winnipeg, Manitoba, in “Mortimer Hearseburg,” his 1948 Buick hearse, to the windblown walls of Topanga Canyon.

With…

NonfictionMusic

The legacy of an American troubador

Review by Martin Brady

Woody Guthrie’s place in American culture is well established. Despite a peripatetic, disjointed life lived under sometimes very painful circumstances, Guthrie nevertheless emerged as our quintessential folk balladeer and outspoken traveling troubadour.

In celebration of Guthrie’s 100th birthday in 2012, Robert Santelli, executive director of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, has written This Land Is Your Land: Woody Guthrie and the Journey of an American Folk Song, which gathers the basics about the Guthrie legend, with special focus on the origins and legacy of the fitful folksinger’s enduring and well-beloved collection of American folksongs and anthems.

In no way a full-on biography, Santelli’s work nevertheless offers a useful, general chronological overview of Guthrie (1912-1967) and his infernally maverick ways, through which he somehow carved out a career as musician, poet/lyricist, radio personality, recording artist, synthesizer of folk songs and children’s ditties, and as the author of the fictionalized autobiography Bound for Glory.

Guthrie was born in Oklahoma, later moved to Texas, then eventually found some success in California as a wandering minstrel who sang songs that chronicled the plight of the Depression-era poor, Dust Bowl migrants, union workers and the otherwise marginalized. Guthrie gained both notoriety and necessary public exposure on the coast, then proceeded to criss-cross the country in pursuit of haphazard work, finally finding some semblance of a professional and personal life in New York. Alas, Santelli’s coverage also includes Guthrie’s miserable track record as a husband and father—a man with a penchant for dragging wives and children around the country in pursuit of sketchy projects.

Guthrie’s rootlessness was a huge part of his mythology. It made him famous and a beloved spokesperson for the underdog, while also underpinning the insecure lifestyle that made living with him so difficult. Worse, Guthrie developed Huntington’s disease, and the final decade of his life was spent in hospitals fighting an affliction that robbed him of his ability to communicate as before.

Of necessity, much of Santelli’s factual narrative comes off as fairly bleak, though throughout there is a hagiographic tone in his treatment of Guthrie, the man’s single-minded dedication to his purpose and his ultimate place in American history. To that end, the author expends an almost equal amount of words on the Guthrie song catalog, with deep focus on “This Land Is Your Land,” taking the reader through the song’s many versions and the public performances that eventually helped solidify its place in the patriotic repertoire. This includes extensive discussion of Irving Berlin and his “God Bless America,” which Santelli sees as the candy-coated thematic forerunner to Guthrie’s more realistic classic. Other personalities that emerge in this story include folk pioneer and Guthrie colleague Pete Seeger, singer Kate Smith, producer Moses Asch, Bob Dylan—who copped the Guthrie modus operandi by way of exploiting it to his own artistic ends—and even Bruce Springsteen, who never knew Guthrie but acknowledges his debt to the original.

Santelli’s engaging opus is studded with interesting photos, and appended material includes the various texts of “This Land Is Your Land” and a wide-ranging bibliography. The book’s foreword is written by Guthrie’s daughter Nora.

Woody Guthrie’s place in American culture is well established. Despite a peripatetic, disjointed life lived under sometimes very painful circumstances, Guthrie nevertheless emerged as our quintessential folk balladeer and outspoken traveling troubadour.

In celebration of Guthrie’s 100th birthday in 2012, Robert Santelli, executive director of the…

Pop CultureMusicArts & Culture

Songs that say America

Review by Edward Morris

It wasn’t obvious as it was happening, but, as David Browne shows in Fire and Rain, 1970 turned out to be a watershed year in popular music. By this time, the Beatles were not only fractured but fractious toward each other. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were spinning in different directions, too, with the former contemplating a solo career and the latter immersed in movie acting. The members of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were demonstrating in every way that their harmony was musical, not fraternal. While these superstars were getting the lion’s share of public attention, a mellow voice with a wry wit out of North Carolina was casually moving into the spotlight. Folkish though James Taylor’s sound and songs were, they carried virtually none of the political content or self-righteousness that characterized folkies of the 1960s. His songs were more like easy-listening landscapes of the soul.

Even though the three bands Browne chronicles were twisting apart, the albums they released in 1970—the Beatles’ Let It Be, Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water and CSN&Y’s Déjà vu—became instant classics. The same was true for Taylor’s Sweet Baby James, also delivered in 1970, which featured the song that gives this book its title. During the course of this year, the Ohio National Guard killed four students at Kent State University, Charles Manson went on trial for the “Helter Skelter” murders and the Vietnam War continued to rage.

Proceeding chronologically, Browne alternates between close-ups of studio sessions and personal relationships and wide shots of how these situations affected or were affected by the overall culture. He sprinkles his narrative with fascinating vignettes: Simon teaching a songwriting course at New York University, Nash and Stills sparring over the affections of Rita Coolidge, Ringo Starr recording his first album in Nashville. Wonder of wonders, he makes all these voluminous details, which might have led to factual overload in lesser hands, eminently readable.

Now a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, Browne gleaned much of his information by interviewing primary sources, among them Crosby, Stills, Nash, Taylor, Coolidge, record executive Clive Davis, singers Bonnie Bramlett and Peter Yarrow and such omnipresent sidemen as Russ Kunkel and Leland Sklar. Browne’s engrossing account of this fertile but volatile period sets the standard by which comprehensive musical histories should be judged.

It wasn’t obvious as it was happening, but, as David Browne shows in Fire and Rain, 1970 turned out to be a watershed year in popular music. By this time, the Beatles were not only fractured but fractious toward each other. Paul Simon and Art…

MusicArts & Culture

Stories from the heart of Music City

Review by Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

In her admiring and humorous foreword to Marshall Chapman’s unforgettable memoir, Goodbye, Little Rock and Roller, novelist Lee Smith praised the way that Chapman excels at images that perfectly capture a time, place or way of life. Ingeniously, in that memoir, Chapman told the story of her life, and of the changing scene of the country music business from the 1970s into the late 1990s, by telling the stories behind 12 of her songs. Now, in They Came to Nashville, Chapman invites 15 of her friends—such as Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Miranda Lambert, Bobby Bare and Willie Nelson—to tell their own tales about how they first heard about Nashville, how they ended up in Nashville and why they stayed.

Reading these wide-ranging interviews is like sitting in on intimate conversations between old friends reminiscing about good times and bad in a city where the promise of a music career inspires musicians to persevere doggedly in pursuit of their dreams. Bobby Bare recalls, for example, the electricity he felt in the air when he arrived in Nashville from L.A.: “You couldn’t help but get caught up in it. You’d get very creative and want to do something. It was magic.” Miranda Lambert remembers how lonely and scared she felt during her first year in Nashville, even as her stomach fluttered with excitement every time she realized she was in Music City.

When Chapman asks her friends to describe their first 24 hours in Nashville, Willie Nelson hilariously responds: “I got drunk—layed [sic.] down in the middle of Broadway.” Emmylou Harris, who had lived in New York City and Boston, recalls her early reluctance to put down roots in Nashville. She compares the city to “some guy you’ve known all your life and he’s a friend, but you never really thought romantically about him. Then all of a sudden, you wake up one morning and you realize this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.”

They Came to Nashville is a fitting tribute to Music City, and it’s enough to convince anyone that Marshall Chapman is a musician, singer-songwriter and writer that you’ll want to spend the rest of your life with.

  

In her admiring and humorous foreword to Marshall Chapman’s unforgettable memoir, Goodbye, Little Rock and Roller, novelist Lee Smith praised the way that Chapman excels at images that perfectly capture a time, place or way of life. Ingeniously, in that memoir, Chapman told the story…

MusicArts & Culture

Highbrow fidelity

Review by bookpagedev

This is the ultimate book for classical music record geeks. Imagine John Cusack and Jack Black in High Fidelity obsessing about Wagner’s Ring instead of the Velvet Underground, and you’ll have an idea of the passion with which British music critic Norman Lebrecht details the century-long decline and fall of the classical recording industry. The Life and Death of Classical Music is a sad and sordid tale in other words, a real page-turner. Lebrecht does not hold back from expressing his Old-Testament-prophet horror over the unholy marriage between art and commerce. His lament is all the more lyrical because of his comprehensive grasp of the social and political context in which the quality of classical music recordings waxed (vinyled?) and waned. It’s bad enough to know that von Karajan’s recording career flourished under the Nazis; to learn, however, that the label Deutsche Grammophon employed slave labor during the war (including inmates from Auschwitz) to press those von Karajan recordings is enough to make you want to pull those old DG LP’s off your dusty shelf and smash them.

There’s something gleefully perverse about a book that hopes to sell by kvetching about how its subject won’t sell anymore. Lebrecht loves the recordings he loves, but he loves hating the recordings he hates even more. That’s one sublime geek.

Michael Alec Rose is an associate professor of composition at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.

This is the ultimate book for classical music record geeks. Imagine John Cusack and Jack Black in High Fidelity obsessing about Wagner's Ring instead of the Velvet Underground, and you'll have an idea of the passion with which British music critic Norman Lebrecht details the…
MusicArts & Culture

More from Music City

Review by bookpagedev

In the beautifully illustrated and elaborate Will The Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America, co-published by The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, editors Paul Kingsbury and Alanna Nash aim for both scope and specificity. Though they devote considerable space to the commercial aspects of the genre, the book’s expert contributors (including BookPage reviewer Ed Morris) also evaluate and ponder artistic issues and controversies. They contrast country’s broad idiomatic frontiers with the often more rigid tastes, interests and opinions of its core constituency (the white working class) and provide details about country’s recording practices, hit records and most popular artists. With stunning photographs and reflections by country superstars, this is a work that won’t alienate scholars or intimidate novices or general fans.

In the beautifully illustrated and elaborate Will The Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America, co-published by The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, editors Paul Kingsbury and Alanna Nash aim for both scope and specificity. Though they devote considerable space to the…
MusicArts & Culture

Backstage pass

Review by bookpagedev

Colin Escott’s The Grand Ole Opry: The Making of an American Icon will find particular favor among those who already know something of the Opry’s history but who want some inside glimpses into the venerable radio show, now in its 81st year. Escott, who is best known for his writings on Hank Williams, divides his book by decades, opening each chapter with a list of the performers who joined the Opry during that 10-year period.

Instead of providing a detailed narrative of how the Opry evolved and what the internal politics were, Escott assembles quotations from people who observed or participated in that evolution. He draws primarily on the Opry’s own massive archives for material and liberally seeds the printed word with publicity photos and newspaper clippings. The effect is to draw the reader into the warm and occasionally cantankerous backstage milieu. Here’s how comedienne Minnie Pearl, who joined the Opry in 1940, described the show’s rampant informality: At first, I was horrified by the seeming disorganization. I had come from directing plays. On the Opry, it wasn’t unusual for an announcer to say, And now we’re proud to present so-and-so,’ and someone would whisper, He ain’t here, he’s gone to get a sandwich,’ which didn’t fluster the emcee, who’d say, Oh well, he’ll be back in a minute. Meanwhile, let’s hear from the Fruit Jar Drinkers.’ Edward Morris is the former country music editor of Billboard and currently a contributor to CMT.com.

Colin Escott's The Grand Ole Opry: The Making of an American Icon will find particular favor among those who already know something of the Opry's history but who want some inside glimpses into the venerable radio show, now in its 81st year. Escott, who is…
MusicArts & Culture

Country Music: The People, Places, and Moments that Shaped the Country Sound

Review by bookpagedev

Thumbing through Richard Carlin’s  Country Music: The People, Places, and Moments that Shaped the Country Sound  is a lot like strolling through the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. The 500 or so photos arrayed on the book’s pages are big and bold and cover every aspect of the music: instruments; album, songbook and sheet music covers; candid and promotional shots; and movie and video stills. Carlin is a respected scholar. His text and annotations cover country music from its Civil War prehistory to such current stars as Rascal Flatts, Sugarland and Dierks Bentley (who also happens to be the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry). Spotted throughout the text are delightful thumbnail commentaries and not always kind ones on Country Classics, ranging from Home on the Range to Skin (Sarabeth). Photographer Raeanne Rubenstein provided many of the more recent photos.

Edward Morris is the former country music editor of Billboard and currently a contributor to CMT.com.

 

Thumbing through Richard Carlin's  Country Music: The People, Places, and Moments that Shaped the Country Sound  is a lot like strolling through the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. The 500 or so photos arrayed on the book's pages are big…

MusicArts & Culture

Face the music

Review by Martin Brady

At the top of the holiday wish list for many music lovers is With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars by Jonathan Kellerman. Yes, it’s that Jonathan Kellerman, the best – selling suspense novelist, who also happens to be a foremost guitar collector. Gorgeous multi – view color photos of each of the 120 – plus guitars in Kellerman’s personal collection are the big draw here, but the author also provides marvelous rundowns of how he came to acquire each instrument and what is so special about its design and musical properties. There are acoustics and electrics of various shapes and sizes, brand names like Gibson, Martin, Fender and Rickenbacker, plus particularly rare instruments crafted by independent artisans, including a double – necked 17 – stringer. A foreword by former Police guitarist Andy Summers testifies to the jaw – dropping experience of viewing the Kellerman collection in person.

Roots music

Country star and longtime Grand Ole Opry member Marty Stuart has been hanging with legends since he was a teenager. During that time, Stuart has amassed a considerable collection of music – biz memorabilia, including his own on – the – road photographs and informal portraits, all of which are gathered in Country Music: The Masters. Stuart’s coverage of the greats and near – greats is comprehensive and often very candid, and even his blurred, snapped – on – the run photos have historic value. There are also pictures of elaborate costumes, tour buses, concert posters, song lyrics, instruments, album covers, etc. Perhaps best of all is Stuart’s gallery of gifted but generally little – known country music sidemen, whose talents have infused thousands of important recordings. The book’s cover shot of

Richard Carlin’s Worlds of Sound: The Story of Smithsonian Folkways tells of Folkways Records, which from 1948 to 1986 was the foremost source of seminal U.S. jazz, blues and folk recordings. Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly and children’s entertainer Ella Jenkins were the label’s leading artists, but founder Moses Asch and his team of traveling producers also searched the world over to record African, Asian and island music; animals; the sounds of cities and rural areas; poetry and political events. Asch ran things on a shoestring from his Manhattan office, but he provided opportunity and freedom to writers, singers and instrumentalists and developed a treasured catalog, all of which was purchased by the Smithsonian in 1987. This remarkable volume features noteworthy black – and – white and color photos of the artists plus fascinating album – cover reproductions and catalog lists. It also includes a CD sampler of representative Folkways cuts.

A lifetime playlist

With a virtually impossible task before him, music writer Tom Moon set out to select 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die: A Listener’s Life List. This all – styles wander through the greatest recorded music of all time finds Moon doing an honest job of trying to isolate the important artists and their work. His alphabetically arranged text is by artist, by composer (in the case of classical recordings), or by individual album title or song. In order to extend the coverage, Moon offers references to related important artists who don’t get a main entry. Hence, Burl Ives and Charles Ives sit side by side having made the grade, yet Moon can’t muster even a passing reference to the pop group The Four Seasons, whose incredible string of classic ’60s recordings certainly might earn a mention above the work of the Beau Brummels or sultry jazz/pop songstress Julie London. Meanwhile, the Smashing Pumpkins are only a footnote, which just seems wrong given the other contemporary groups who earned main entries. There’s probably too much Bart

Icons remembered

Already the author of a biography of Kurt Cobain – Heavier Than Heaven (2001) – Charles R. Cross now offers the late grunge rocker’s many fans Cobain Unseen, described as “a secret visual history of the things [Cobain] created and collected.” Cross’ text tends mostly to explore the youthful pain, obsessions, emotional difficulties and addictions that plagued Cobain but were also key motivators in the emergence of his powerful rebellious image and musical anthems. The book features many previously unseen Cobain family photographs plus reproductions of personal memorabilia including Cobain’s offbeat artwork, his informal writings and letters, song lyrics, early concert posters and samplings of the eccentric things he deemed collectible. The book includes an audio CD on which Cobain recites spoken-word material along with an interview with Cross about his research experience.

The Elvis Encyclopedia, by Adam Victor, is a valuable one – stop source of all things informational about The King. The A-to-Z reference covers seemingly every person, place and thing that touched Elvis’ eventful life, and it’s nothing if not exhaustive. There’s also a bevy of photos, many printed full-page, of Elvis onstage, in front of the movie camera or hobnobbing with family, friends and fans. Occasional typos creep into the text, yet Victor has certainly cast his net widely in search of rarely seen pictures, and on that nostalgic note alone his is a regal book – fit for a king.

The Complete Quincy Jones: My Journey & Passions is yet another paean of praise to a huge musical figure. This colorful, well – illustrated hagiography is generally chronological, from Jones’ early life in Chicago and Seattle, through his growing career as a horn player for ensembles led by Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie, to his stint as producer of pop hits like Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party” plus award-winning albums by Sinatra, Streisand and, of course, Michael Jackson (Thriller). The text also covers Jones’ work as a composer of TV and movie scores, plus his role as the mastermind behind “We Are the World.” Jones’ private life – three marriages, two notable affairs, seven children – is rarely discussed, but there is frank coverage of his life – threatening 1974 brain aneurysm and discussion of his humanitarian work. Big names provide the prefatory essays – Maya Angelou, Clint Eastwood and Bono – and Sidney Poitier’s afterword closes the book.

Hear my words

Paul Simon is one of America’s great popular songwriters of the past half century, and Lyrics 1964 – 2008 pays tribute by comprehensively collecting his songs, from the early days of Simon & Garfunkel (“The Sound of Silence”) through his solo period (“Kodachrome”) and on to his later ethnic experimentations (“Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes”). It’s a treasure trove for Simon’s legion of fans.

Grander still is The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II, a stoutly elegant compilation of 850 of the theatrical master’s song lyrics, arranged chronologically from early efforts and revue contributions through his incredible collaborative output with composers such as Jerome Kern (Show Boat, etc.) and Richard Rodgers (Oklahoma!, etc.). The text offers cast lists for Hammerstein’s many Broadway musicals, along with revealing tidbits about show history, song origins and lyrics that were cut from opening night or went unused altogether. Of equal note are the wonderfully printed production stills from stage and movie versions of the Hammerstein oeuvre, sheet music covers and photos of Hammerstein himself, hanging with family members and his composer buddies.

At the top of the holiday wish list for many music lovers is With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars by Jonathan Kellerman. Yes, it's that Jonathan Kellerman, the best - selling suspense novelist, who also happens to be a foremost guitar…
MusicArts & Culture

Music matters

Review by bookpagedev

Eugene Robinson, an editor and former reporter for the Washington Post, views Cuba’s history and post-Revolutionary politics through its many kinds of music in Last Dance In Havana. While this approach may not satisfy scholars, it does have a lot to recommend it. After all, the arts are a barometer of what a society values, subsidizes, permits and turns to in times of crisis. Thanks to the international success of 1997’s The Buena Vista Social Club CD, a project that resurrected a group of old and once-neglected native performers, Cuban music was suddenly all the rage. This fascination brought yet another tentacle of capitalism to the country and widened the general interest in other varieties of popular music. Robinson is at pains to trace them all: he visits nightclubs and musician’s homes, inspects Cuba’s world-class music academies and demonstrates how Castro’s seemingly capricious rules affect the ebb and flow of music. Robinson, who is black, also describes the racism that still afflicts this supposedly egalitarian society.

Still, he is not cynical about Castro’s motives. “He saw a Cuba of heroic sacrifice and complete selflessness, a state that came as close as possible to attaining the communist ideal, a land where bourgeois comforts’ were rightly scorned and private ownership’ was a concept consigned to history’s dustbin and constant struggle’ was the happiest condition of all. . . . I think that when Fidel looks at the glorious shambles that is Cuba, he sees success, not failure.”

Eugene Robinson, an editor and former reporter for the Washington Post, views Cuba's history and post-Revolutionary politics through its many kinds of music in Last Dance In Havana. While this approach may not satisfy scholars, it does have a lot to recommend it. After all,…
Pop CultureMusicMemoirBiographyArts & Culture

Behind the music

Review by Ron Wynn

There won't be many more honest and revealing works this year than Clapton: The Autobiography. The man often termed a guitar god and considered an icon by many music fans isn't interested in affirming that notion. Instead he repeatedly cites his flaws and failures, doing so in graphic detail and without offering excuses for his lapses in judgment and behavior. Clapton writes about his drug and alcohol problems, his adultery and depression in spare, unflinching prose. He's determined to let readers know that not only is he human, but that he's paid a heavy price to reach the top. There's also a full discussion of his interaction, romance and ultimate failed relationship with Pattie Boyd, who was married to Clapton's good friend George Harrison when he began pursuing her. Particularly painful is Clapton's account of the death of his four-year-old son Conor, who fell to his death in 1991 from a New York high-rise.

Yet the book also has plenty of rich musical detail, from his description of being awed by first hearing Jimi Hendrix to accounts of playing with the Rolling Stones and Beatles, teaming with longtime idol B.B. King, and reshaping the classic blues and soul he adored into a more personalized and individual sound.

DREAM WEAVERS

As a staff photographer for Rolling Stone, Robert Altman visually documented the changes that rocked the '60s with a scope and clarity no one has surpassed. His remarkable photographs comprise the bulk of the compelling new collection, The Sixties. Whether you were there or not doesn't really matter, Altman writes in an author's note, maintaining that these pictures do the talking in recapturing the excitement of Woodstock, be-ins and the Summer of Love. Whether in funny (and sometimes frightening) crowd shots of anonymous war protesters or intense individual portraits of such famous '60s figures as Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jane Fonda, Grace Slick and Joni Mitchell, Altman brings it all back in unforgettable style. Journalist Ben Fong-Torres adds perspective with a brief introduction and Q&A with Altman.

Runnin' Down a Dream: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is a companion work to the documentary film by Peter Bogdanovich, and it contains comprehensive and candid interviews with Petty and company on such subjects as life on the road, the music business, the failures of contemporary radio and Petty's devotion to the classic rock and soul that shaped his heartland sound. His determination not to let trends affect or influence his work is noteworthy, and there's also enough levity and humor to balance out some spots where his disillusionment at changes in the landscape becomes evident.

THE CHAIRMAN AND THE KING

Both Charles Pignone's Frank Sinatra: The Family Album and George Klein's Elvis Presley: The Family Album are loving insiders' collections rather than probing investigative surveys or detached evaluations. Pignone was a close Sinatra friend and is now the family archivist, while Klein was a high school classmate of Presley, and even had the King serve as his best man. Both books are full of warm remembrances, rare photographs and views of the family side of these performers. You won't get any outlandish tales of excessive behavior here, but there are interviews with family members and associates who've never talked about their relationships before, plus detailed accounts from Pignone and Klein that emphasize the character and generosity of both these superstars.

For those interested in why we enjoy listening to music, there's Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by neurologist Oliver Sacks, best known for books that recount some of his highly unusual cases (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, etc.). In Musicophilia, Sacks investigates the medical effects positive and negative of listening to music. He does so in a manner somewhere between scholarly and weird, using amazing stories to validate his theories and illustrate how important music appreciation can be. Whether talking about a disabled man who has memorized 2,000 operas or children whose ability to learn Mandarin Chinese has given them perfect pitch, Sacks offers tales that will fascinate any music lover.

There won't be many more honest and revealing works this year than Clapton: The Autobiography. The man often termed a guitar god and considered an icon by many music fans isn't interested in affirming that notion. Instead he repeatedly cites his flaws and failures, doing…

PhotographyMusicArts & CultureArt

Artistic expression

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

The folks at Phaidon have come up with a subversive approach to art history: Rather than examining a particular country or era, they've decided to explore what was happening around the world at various points in time 30,000 years' worth of time, in fact. That explains why 30,000 Years of Art: The Story of Human Creativity Across Time and Space has more than 1,000 pages and weighs an arm-straining 13 pounds. The history begins in 28,000 B.C. with Germany's Lion Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel and concludes with an as-yet-unfinished American work, Roden Crater. In between, there are works from China, Italy, Syria, Greece and more; the artwork ranges from sculptures to paintings to masks to collages. The timeline and glossary at book's end add context, and its design encourages art-immersion: There is one piece of artwork per page, with explanatory text tucked away at the bottom or side. There, like the best museum guides, it quietly makes information available, but doesn't distract the viewer from the art.

POP ART
Tony Bennett recently turned 80, and he's been busy. Over the last 12 months, he toured in support of his latest album, won his 15th Grammy and was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, among other endeavors. But Tony Bennett in the Studio: A Life of Art & Music, written with Robert Sullivan, doesn't simply detail the beloved crooner's credentials. Instead, it offers a chronicle of his life as a creator of music and art. Even Bennett devotees may not realize the breadth and longevity of the singer's artistic explorations. His watercolors, oils and pencil drawings (signed Benedetto, his family name) appear on every page, along with select memorabilia from his music career and plenty of quotes and anecdotes. For the full-on Bennett experience, readers may want to listen to Pop ART Songs, a CD included with the book, as they turn the pages.

OLD MASTER
Thanks to the novels Girl in Hyacinth Blue and Girl with a Pearl Earring (which was made into an Oscar-nominated movie), Johannes Vermeer's renown has moved well beyond art historian and student circles. Vermeer, first published in the Netherlands in 1975, has been updated to offer a look at three art historians' perspective on the life and work of the 17th-century Dutch painter. Albert Blankert is a Vermeer scholar based in the Netherlands; the late John Michael Montias lectured and wrote books about 17th-century Amsterdam; and the late Gillies Aillaud was a French painter and playwright. The inclusion of various primary documents yields fascinating details; maps from an Atlas of Delft, for example, show the location of Vermeer's birthplace, not to mention vantage points for some of his paintings. There are color plates of the artist's 30-plus works, and a wealth of detail about Vermeer's influences, style and technique.

CREATURE FEATURE
In his epilogue to Creature, Andrew Zuckerman harks back to family museum visits during which his five-year-old self was fascinated by the animals he saw in dioramas taxidermy rendered them motionless and timeless. For this book, Zuckerman welcomed into his New York City photography studio a surprising array of animals, from a squirrel to an Asian elephant. A white background throws his images into sharp relief: A millipede glistens, a black leopard's eyes are beautifully blue and a wild boar gives a knowing sidelong glance. There is an extreme close-up of frothy pink feathers, and a long view of a lion. Devotees of photography, science, museums, animals and design will think this unusual book lovely, even meditative.

The folks at Phaidon have come up with a subversive approach to art history: Rather than examining a particular country or era, they've decided to explore what was happening around the world at various points in time 30,000 years' worth of time, in fact. That…

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