i don’t watch much television, other than sports. so once the baseball season is over (and once my team is eliminated, the season is over), i tend to start reading books more often. so for my music fans, here are a few i read recently that i thought were worth sharing.
jeff tweedy – ‘world within a song’
this one just came out last week. i received it the first day it was out and finished it within about 36 hours. i really liked jeff’s first two books, but i really think this is his best. he is of course the founder of the band wilco, and before that uncle tupelo. this is somewhat similar to the book dylan put out just about a year ago (‘the philosophy of modern song’) in that he spends most of the book talking about ‘music that changed my life and life that changed my music’. the main difference is the latter part of that equation. jeff goes off on tangents both in song descriptions and sidebar chapters where he ties in small vignettes from his personal life. as in his previous two books, he is quite open about his passions and his weaknesses. there are about 50 songs that are commented upon and, unlike dylan’s book, he can be both effusive in his praise for some and downright damning of others (he eviscerates bon jovi’s ‘wanted dead or alive’). he is considered one of the more original and prolific songwriters out there, but what he shows here is that he is also a very good prose writer. he is very capable of describing what inspiration he derives from a song, and usually sprinkles in his true knack for dry humor. similar to dylan’s book, i only knew about half the songs he writes about, and i immediately started reading it again – the second time by my computer where i could pull up the songs on youtube and learn them for myself. of course i love to listen to music, but i also love to learn about the artists and the music making process itself, and so i really enjoyed this one.
holly gleason – ‘prine on prine’
this one came out a little over a month or so ago. my dad is a big fan of his, and he turned me on to this one. holly gleason is music journalist, amongst other titles, and she also served as john’s manager for a number of years. this is essentially a series of interviews and articles that have been written with or about john prine over the course of his career, and holly weaves them together with editorial notes. i have been a fan of john’s for decades, and so i was looking forward to learning more about him. he really did have an amazing and blessed life, and holly is able to use this source material to flesh the details out for the reader. the main problem i started to have is that many of the stories that were told about him started repeating many of the details of his life, especially the early years. for most of his career he was a bit of a cult figure, and so when these writers were trying to help introduce him to a larger audience, they felt the need to tell how he was discovered in a small bar in chicago by kris kristofferson, who introduced him to jerry wexler who flew him to new york the next week and signed him to a record contract right then. i am not exaggerating when i say that this story is repeated at least a dozen times in the book. and this is just one example. after a while i just skipped over that part of the story and moved on to see if the writer had something else to offer (which they usually did).
the other aspect that turned me off a bit was trying to make john out to be some highly politically motivated individual. he was not shy about his opinions, but when pressed he usually tried to make the songs speak for themselves. you could argue that ‘sam stone’ was an anti war song, and maybe it is a little bit. but most of his characters are people on the outside of society looking in, and that is where his true songwriting talents lie. he could get inside of their mind and let us know what they were thinking, and let the listener interpret that on their own.
but the true prine fans will be able to get past both of those issues (if you indeed think they are issues at all) and get to know a man who was really one of a kind. he has been gone nearly four years now, and the world could still use a man like him around now.
alan paul – ‘brothers and sisters’
‘brothers and sisters’ was the most commercially successful album the allman brothers ever put out, and this book attempts to chronicle the history of the recording of said album, but also the dynamics of the band before, during, and after the sessions. it also looks to describe some of the things that were happening in the music world at the time, and the effect the album had on both. whether it be the hedonistic lifestyles, the history of capricorn records, jimmy carter’s presidential campaign, or the bizarre relationship between gregg allman and cher, the author has the goods and delivers. it is extremely well researched and written. for grateful dead fans, he spends a lot of time on the unique relationship with the two bands – from their legendary shows at the fillmore east promoted by bill graham, to the largest concert ever at watkins glen in 1973. (as a side note i might mention that mrs. redeyegin and i were at watkins glen last week, total population around 2,000. as we drove into town we both began to understand how a half million people descending into the valley would have caused the chaos that it did.)
alan paul is undisputedly the gold standard on this band’s history, and he timed the book to come out on the 50th anniversary of the album this past august. fans of the band will likely enjoy it, as well as his more comprehensive history of them, ‘one way out’.
lucinda williams – ‘don’t tell anybody the secrets i told you’
this one i actually read back in may during my trip to jazzfest in new orleans. lucinda has had an amazing career, and i have been a big fan of hers for a long time. like many, i discovered her when her breakthrough album ‘car wheels on a gravel road’ came out, and i have been dedicated to her career ever since. as with most musician memoir/autobiographies, she starts early in her youth and takes us up all the way through her present career. it is a pretty thorough and honest presentation, and she gives credit where credit is due. but she also pulls no punches, especially when she speaks of her early days as a solo female artist trying to break through into the music industry. she never compromised, and paid the price for a long time. she had a rough family life, and troubled boyfriends and marriages along the way. but her strong spirit and amazing talent eventually prevailed, and now she has the universal respect amongst the singer songwriter generations that have followed her, much like the aforementioned john prine does today. her dad was an author and a poet, and lucinda seems to channel that and does a great job delivering what she wants the world to know about herself.
