The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine Review

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The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine ReviewLiving Blues magazine has always been the leading periodical in the field in the US; one reason for this is the superb interviews with bluesmen/women that have graced its pages since its founding in the 1970s. Allowing artists to tell their stories fully and freely, often prodded on by knowledgeable and probing question by the interviewers Jim O'Neal and Amy Van Singel, produced important first-hand documentation of the art form. This book compiles a dozen of those interviews, ranging from Georgia Tom Dorsey to Muddy Waters, Eddie Boyd to Little Esther. One of the most fascinating is the very long (the longest in the magazine's history) interview with Delta blues legend Houston Stackhouse who was able to relate first-hand information and reminiscences of just about all the great bluesmen who worked in Mississippi and Arkansas going all the way back to Tommy Johnson. But all of the interviews plumb deeply into each artist's background, career, opinions, and memories, and that's what makes them (and the book) so interesting and indispensable. Hopefully additional volumes of more Living Blues interviews will be issued.The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine Overview

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John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth (Bccb Blue Ribbon Nonfiction Book Award (Awards)) Review

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John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth (Bccb Blue Ribbon Nonfiction Book Award (Awards)) ReviewThe author has woven together the many threads of John Lennon's life into an emotional, compelling book. Unlike other Lennon biographies, "All I want is the Truth" took me through the triumphant highs and devastating blows of John's life, almost as if I were living it myself. Drawing on her background in photographic biography, Partridge infuses this book with a collection of images that poignantly support the text and give a great sense of the times.
The title fits well, as "All I Want is the Truth" successfully untangles the creative, playful, passionate genius of John Lennon from his self-destructive, often tortured mind. This book has given me a newfound understanding of John and his music, and I highly recommend it to any of his fans, young or old.John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth (Bccb Blue Ribbon Nonfiction Book Award (Awards)) Overview

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When I Grow up: A Memoir Review

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When I Grow up: A Memoir ReviewA disclaimer: I've been madly in love with Juliana Hatfield's music since I was in high school, in the "find an excuse to leave work at 10 in the morning and buy her new album the day it comes out when the stores open" sort of way. This makes it highly unlikely that I'm capable of delivering a fully unbiased view of this book.
Having gotten that out of the way, "When I Grow Up" is a refreshing snapshot of a musician whose career, by all commercial measures, has been on the decline for well over a decade. Hatfield does not present the sort of tawdry, polished trash that most memoirs by rock artists put out-- there's no ghost writer, there's no glamor. But there is something entirely different-- a lot of grit, a lot of hope and a lot of fragility.
Splitting the chapters largely between non-linear biographical reflections and a detailed account of her US tour promoting Gold Stars 1992-2002, it's largely a story of a shy and somewhat neurotic young woman thrust into a dirty, grimy world of touring rock clubs-- unclean hotels, poor sound systems and creepy fans. And as a fan of Hatfield's music, it's entirely what I'd hope it would be-- well written, engaging and brutally honest. Hatfield does not hide from herself, from her failings, weaknesses and problems, but rather presents them, not as some romanticized presentation of the perils of the rock and roll life, but rather as the everyday troubles of someone trying to live their life and get past their own frailties.
I've been trying to think, as I set out to write this review, if this is something for someone who isn't into Hatfield's music, and I think the answer is a distinct maybe. What she presents is something we don't get a lot of: the point of view of the person who's fallen out of favor. Juliana Hatfield is someone who has survived as a musician but she hasn't exactly thrived.
This book is being released to coincide with Hatfield's latest record, the polished How to Walk Away, a superb effort in its own right, but I'd suggest that a better soundtrack could be found with 1997's Please Do Not Disturb, written shortly after the non-release of "God's Foot", that record very much captures the feel of this text.
Bottom line-- this is a well written and interesting portrait of life as a musician. She doesn't pull any punches and it was everything that her music, painfully honest in a way I'd expect from Hatfield (this is someone who posited, "it's a miracle I'm even here, you're over me" on perhaps her rawest record, 2006's Made in China). Memoirs rarely live up to expectations, they seem too careful. This one is very much what I would have hoped for it.When I Grow up: A Memoir Overview

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The Pope's Maestro Review

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The Pope's Maestro ReviewReading this book I got the feeling that Maestro Gilbert Levine was just as much a surprise to Pope John Paul as Pope John Paul was to Maestro Levine. For all their differences, they connected in a real and deep way. For me now, Pope John Paul is no longer an icon, he is a human being who loved music, his native Poland, and all of humanity deeply. I can see how he grieved over the world's past and present injustices and how he desired to do what he could to heal and build. I was struck by how he did not try to convert Maestro Levine but instead encouraged him in his own faith. I was also glad get to know Cardinal Dziwisz and the important role he played in Pope John Paul's life's work. I found this book enlightening and was moved by it.
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Prince: Inside the Music and the Masks Review

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Prince: Inside the Music and the Masks ReviewThis is yet another largely non-exclusive look at Prince that doesn't stand out of the pack. Spending more time on the fat years of Prince and far too little time on the lean, this book reveals almost nothing that a fan of Prince - the most likely candidate to even pick up this book in this day and age - doesn't already know or have access to. There is virtually nothing distinguishing this book from the last five books about Prince that came out in the last ten years. Information is largely culled from the same sources as every other book, the anecdotes are largely old hat at this point, and there isn't the promised revelation of Prince's influence on much more than himself and his audience.
The biggest disappointment is that the opportunity to make a book that stood out is lost by committing the same crime that almost every other book about Prince makes: it acts like the last 15 years didn't happen. It spends 290 of its 356 pages of actual text on the albums leading up to 1996 (12 total, not counting soundtracks) and a practically scant 66 pages on the TEN albums that followed. It covers the early, more successful (and, not coincidental I am sure, thoroughly picked over) period of his career almost song by song, but then almost dismisses the last fifteen years of his career by comparison.
At this point I'd rather just read a book about all of the other acts Prince has launched, or a treatise that genuinely attempted to parse out his influence on culture and art during his tenure. if there's anything left to say about Prince, no one but Prince is likely to write the book compelling enough to warrant purchasing (and we all know how likely that is to happen). I'd say this is fine for people who are looking for an entry into Prince's world, but that's the same thing you can say about every other book about Prince.Prince: Inside the Music and the Masks Overview

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No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan (The Acclaimed Biography) Review

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No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan (The Acclaimed Biography) ReviewA master in the day, Bob Dylan's story of his early coffee shop day up untill about the mid-80's. Robert Shelton in 1961 wrote a article for Dylan that help his music take off.Dylan went from the Village folk scene to performing in front of large crowds of people. This book shows the transition from a coffee shop to the big stage. While telling you a blow for blow story of Dylan's life right up untill the mid-80's. The story starts out close to Dylan and over the span of the novel it come more of a distant observer. This book summerizes the whole time period and makes Dylan's personality better known. His songs have more impact now that you understand his motives. I recomend reading it.No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan (The Acclaimed Biography) Overview

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