Recommend Me Some Great Books on Music

[MylesBAstor Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close MylesBAstor]

Here's four that I highly recommend!

The House that Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records, Ashley Kahn

Norman Granz: The Man Who Used Jazz for Justice, Hershorn

John Hammond: On Record

Keeping Time: The Photographs of Don Hunstein

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Rolling Stoned, Andrew Loog Oldham
Miles: The Autobiography, with Quincy Troupe
Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn, David Hadju
Pops: A Life Of Louis Armstrong, Terry Teachout
I Walked With Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath
A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album, Ashley Kahn
Vinyl Junkies: Adventures in Record Collecting, Brett Milano

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The Last Sultan - a comprehensive and highly readable biography of Ahmet Ertegun. The son of a diplomat who lived an easy life, used to sneak up to NY to hang at the Cotton Club and smoke reefer with Duke Ellington, his father passed, and suddenly, he had to have a 'job.' What job involves music, hanging out with musicians and partying? Record mogul. So, he started Atlantic, his brother had a monster jazz collection and they figured it out as they went along. Some of the stories- like their first encounter with Tom Dowd-- were pretty cool. His career spanned the early R & B to Led Zep and beyond: a man of taste and discernment who played the elegant bohemian, but a guy with ears and a nose for talent. Sweeping, fascinating slice of history.
Cowboys and Indies- dumb title, some mistakes, but starts with the earliest inventions of recorded sound-- in France in the 1850's, and takes you through the decades of technological innovation, from Edison and acoustic recording to electrical recording to radio to the advent of the LP to the 'youth movement and the independents. Lot's of good stuff on what was happening in the UK in the '60s and early '70s. Giant in scope, the mistakes here and there are forgivable, as are some of the omissions.
White Bicycles - Joe Boyd ran tours of R & B artists to Europe, was the guy who literally plugged Dylan in at Newport, set up a club called the UFO in London whose house band was Pink Floyd (before they had a recording contract). He later produced Nick Drake and Fairport Convention, among others. A Boston kid who has lived most of his life in London, he figured prominently into the history of Island Records. He's still around, and circulates a newsletter periodically which you can receive by email.

Light and Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page- a series of candid interviews about Page's early career as a session guy, his vision for Led Zep, the recording of the first album, his take on what he was trying to do with the blues and rock at a period in time when everybody in the UK was part of an electric blues revival. The book is surprisingly revealing of some of his production techniques, and doesn't read like an ego-trip. Pretty interesting read if you are a Jimmy Page fan.

Hellfire, Nick Tosches- a bio of Jerry Lee Lewis. Before Elvis, before the Beatles, and a hundred other artists who claimed the pinnacle of rock and roll stardom, there was Jerry Lee Lewis. He was raised in a strict Pentecostal upbringing (his cousin is Jimmy Swaggart). Tosches writes the book in a sort of schizophrenic style, alternating between the crazy, hell-raising rock and roll persona of Lewis, and his deep religious, fire and brimstone guilt. Along the way, the anecdotes-dissing Chuck Berry, firing a gun at the gates of Graceland, drunk out of his mind- make you realize that the path of excess we often associate with later hard rock musicians was already travelled by this gifted, and slightly mad, musical genius. The writing quality alone is worth the price of admission.

True Adventures of the Rolling Stones, Stanley Booth Booth is one of those writers who is literary, not just hip- he was published in Esquire and Playboy back in the day, but his most famous book chronicles his tour with the Stones that culminated in Altamont. It took a while for Booth to publish, and the book never gained real traction in the States, although it was very well received in England. It is totally unexpurgated- no burnishing of images, no lawyering rewriting to avoid controversy- it is straight up the story of what it was like to be on tour with these guys. Hendrix stops in and visits; a young Terry Reid is an opening act; the band was struggling- they needed money from the tour and and did a deal with the Maysles brothers to document the tour- resulting in the film Gimme Shelter. Reading Stanley's work today is refreshing- he's a great writer, a wonderful story teller, and has lived through a lot of musical history- he was with Otis Redding while he and Steve Cropper worked out the parts to 'Dock of the Bay' the weekend before Redding died. He was close to Gram Parsons, and a number of other interesting figures in the music business in the days before it became corporatized. I would probably start with the Rolling Stones' book and go from there.

[MylesBAstor Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close MylesBAstor]

Rolling Stoned, Andrew Loog Oldham
Miles: The Autobiography, with Quincy Troupe
Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn, David Hadju
Pops: A Life Of Louis Armstrong, Terry Teachout
I Walked With Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath
A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album, Ashley Kahn
Vinyl Junkies: Adventures in Record Collecting, Brett Milano

A client gave me a copy of the Jimmy Heath book. Excellent! These old timers all have great stories to tell!

[1morerecord2clean Premier Club Member Find all posts View Profile Close 1morerecord2clean]

Myles, I recommend Ann Rice's novel, "Cry to Heaven." It was recommended to me about 5 years ago. It's a departure for her from the vampire thing and is an historical novel about opera in late 17th century Italy and the castrati who sang. Very entertaining read and very accurately portrayed. She really did her homework.

On the non fiction side, you might find "The Harvard Dictionary of Music" by Willi Apel a good book to have at arm's length for great factual answers to your musical questions.

[MylesBAstor Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close MylesBAstor]

Myles, I recommend Ann Rice's novel, "Cry to Heaven." It was recommended to me about 5 years ago. It's a departure for her from the vampire thing and is an historical novel about opera in late 17th century Italy and the castrati who sang. Very entertaining read and very accurately portrayed. She really did her homework.

On the non fiction side, you might find "The Harvard Dictionary of Music" by Willi Apel a good book to have at arm's length for great factual answers to your musical questions.

Thanks, have the Harvard Dictionary and agree.