hope all of you are still out there. i had taken a leave of absence from writing posts for my blog. i have no other reason other than ‘life gets in the way’. i have been listening to plenty of good new music lately, seen a few great shows, but also read a number of good books, and so i thought i would start with the latter, especially since the last one really got to me.

as most of my loyal readers know, i am a huge fan of john prine. i think one of the best pieces i ever wrote was around the time he succumbed to covid in the summer of 2020. that hit hard. i still remember putting on a playlist of his and made a few ‘handsome johnnys’ – his favorite cocktail, vodka and ginger ale – and sat on my back porch for quite awhile and tried to figure it out. never did. which brings me to my first book review. the rest are in no particular order.

‘living in the present with john prine’ – tom piazza

this book essentially chronicles the last few years of his life. after a chance meeting with the author, they seemed to hit off real well. sometimes you meet people like that where you know right away that this is a person i really connect well with, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. john started to reach out to him to spend some time together, including an early chapter that details one of their early bonding sessions where they take john’s newly acquired cherry red 1977 coupe de ville and hit the road to florida. there follow a number of more travel sessions and eventually, with wife fiona’s authorization, discussions start turning to writing a memoir. tom is also a musician (along with being a writer) from new orleans. interview sessions usually involved talking about john’s past while also playing various songs they both liked late into the night.

when people think of john prine they almost always are thinking about his musical legacy, and that is important and should be remembered. this book goes into that a bit, but more importantly it reveals the man behind the music. so if you are a prine fan, that is why you should read this. in the final chapter, after he has died, tom states that he could not listen to john for a whole year, and then once he did he states that it helped bring him back into the present. i don’t often quote the books i review, but let me just share his last paragraph:

‘listening to john, singing along with him or with each other, we can share time, see and hear the same thing, walk the same road for those minutes. we generate a current then, make a moment that transcends the moment, even if only briefly. so the words ‘the end’ don’t really seem to fit here. john’s spirit – everything that is just beyond the reach of words – remains. we are so lucky that, by hearing his voice or singing his songs, we can summon that spirit. living, while we can, in the present.’

i will drink a handsome johnny to that.

‘the name of this band is r.e.m.’ – peter james carlin

this is not an ‘authorized’ biography of the band, as none of the members participated in its writing, but it is well researched and treats them honestly and fairly. as usual it starts looking at their individual childhood experiences and follows them through until the band finally calls it quits in 2011.

i was a fairly early adopter of the band. ‘murmur’ was their first full length album, out in 1983, and even though it took awhile to get national airplay, i can tell you that it was very popular at the campus parties i went to at that time. i know i got hooked, and also sought out the earlier ep, ‘chronic town’. i had been absorbing all kinds of new music since leaving my small midwestern town and heading to college. but this band was different. not punk, and not pop, but a curious mixture of authentic passion and energy. that fact that you couldn’t understand the lyrics, especially in the early years, just added to the alure.

as is my wont, when i get into something i tend to go down rabbit holes, and this was no exception. as i was going through the part of the book where they were recording and touring on the aforementioned albums, i found myself dusting them off and listening all the way through. obviously there were a few cuts that made their way to greatest hits albums and my playlists, but to actually sit down and attentively listen cover to cover was something i likely had not done in nearly forty years. it all came back to me very quickly.

i then started listening to their next 5-6 albums all the way though as i would drive to and fro from work, until i got through ‘automatic for the people’, which is the last album of theirs i really dug my teeth into.

there is a chapter nearer to the end of the book that the author breaks down the overall fanbase to three categories. the first is what he refers to as the ‘murmerers’, people who got on board early and then dropped out not too far after when they got a little more popular and thought they sold out. the next group picked up slightly after that and rode their initial rise to some national recognition, and then the next group that grabbed on when they started having number one hits and albums and also generated an international following.

i might be a hybrid of the first two groups, as i was there at the beginning, kept up with them for a few years, and then slowly moved on at some point, for no good reason i can remember.

so if you are an r.e.m. fan, this might be a good read for you. but at the very least pull out ‘murmur’ and sit down so you can listen all they way through, maybe with a little volume.

‘dylan goes electric’ elijah wald

supposedly the book the recent movie ‘a complete unknown’ was based on. a very thorough accounting of the people and events that lead up to one of the defining moments in rock history – the evening at the 1965 newport folk festival when bob dylan brought out his band with electrical instruments and stunned the audience. even though i have read a number of accountings of the affair over the years in various books, nothing compares to this. in fact, i think you have to be a pretty big fan of both bob and the folk scene of the early sixties to really appreciate this book. i say that because it gets pretty granular as it builds for over 300 pages before it gets to the final scene. i learned a lot, but i found myself speed reading a few times to keep going. maybe go see the movie first (if you haven’t already).

‘heartbreaker’ – mike campbell

an autobiography by tom petty’s lead guitarist. mike was there from the beginning to the end, and was really petty’s most reliable friend for nearly all of his life. this is a remarkable story and if i would recommend one book off this list to start with, this would be it. a hardscrabble beginning to his life, and then a long period of time of playing in various bands around the florida and georgia area before they finally started to make it big after they moved everything out west to california. mike was a big part of the songwriting over the years. so if you are a fan of petty (and really, who isn’t), like guitars, and tales from life on the rock and roll road, this is a great read. his relationship with dylan and harrison was pretty profound.

he is a good writer and is honest with himself. accordingly, he spends a good deal of time on his personal life, including his marriage to his wife of fifty years. he seems like a pretty good dude.

i am not doing it justice. add it to your library.

‘richard manuel: his life in music, from the hawks and bob dylan to the band’- stephen t. lewis

richard was a seminal member of the band, one of the most important bands in rock and roll history. this is a very deep, loving, and honest portrayal of the man. his keyboard playing was obviously very important, but he is mainly known for some of the most soulful singing ever. the band had a unique vocal blend, of which you could argue he was the foundation. this book takes us through his childhood in canada and his early high school bands, to joining ronnie hawkins and the hawks, then being asked to join dylan’s early electric band with the rest of the hawks. after dylan invited the hawks to join him in woodstock after that tour, they eventually got around to forming their own band (‘the band’), and the rest was rock and roll history.

the latter third of the book covers the highs and lows of the band’s career, and the divisive forces that eventually drove them apart. i already knew most of this story, but the author did a lot of research on all of his life and i did learn quite a bit. i am a sponge for anything i can learn about this band, and this is a welcome addition to my catalogue.

a truly talented and remarkable individual, who unfortunately did struggle with insecurities and doubt that eventually did him in. he left us too early.

‘drums and demons – the tragic journey of jim gordon’ – joel selvin

if you are in a group of fairly knowledgeable music fans and ask the question ‘who are the best ten rock and roll drummers ever?’, i can be pretty certain that no one will say ‘ jim gordon’. but i would, and so would eric clapton. jim gordon became a staple studio drummer as a part of the ‘wrecking crew’ in southern california studios in the sixties, and would be on so many songs that you would know. among them being songs by the beach boys, the monkees, sonny and cher, the ronettes, the byrds, george harrison, john lennon, frank zappa, steely dan, merle haggard, and so many more that it defies belief when you read the partial summary of songs he has played on at the end of the book. he was eventually asked to join a few bands you may have heard of, like derek and the dominoes (he wrote the coda at the end of the title track ‘layla’). he was on joe cocker’s ‘mad dogs and englishmen’ tour. he basically was on nearly everything clapton did in the mid seventies.

he was not a flashy drummer, just one so technically competent and rock steady that he developed a reputation for being exactly where he was supposed to be on the down beat, all the time. as clapton has said of him (and ginger baker), he ‘had time’.

he had the rock and roll world in his hand – until he didn’t. the excesses of the industry and fame, along with his eventual descent into madness due to his progressive mental issues, caused him to spin out of control and eventually be shunned by nearly everyone. he went completely insane in the end and violently murdered his own mom. he spent the rest of his life in prison.

obviously a depressing end, but if you like you some rock and roll history, especially clapton at his low period and the crazy aforementioned mad dogs and englishmen tour, then you might want to pick this one up.

‘doc watson: a life in music’ – eddie huffman

if you are not familiar with doc watson, one of the greatest folk and bluegrass guitarists that ever lived, then first of all you should at least acquaint yourself with him (and his son merle) and his story. but this book is probably more intended for folks who are at least somewhat familiar and would like to do a deep dive into both his personal and artistic life – because both are remarkable. an incredibly well researched book, it takes you from beginning to end on his journey, which was both hard fought and also profound. there are many artists who are considered legendary in the world of folk and bluegrass, but no one was more influential than doc, in my opinion (and the author’s).

it gets pretty granular, so be prepared for that. but i am sometimes asked ‘if you could go back in time, who would you want to see live?’. i have a few doc issues in my library, including some with son merle. but after reading this and watching videos i found online, i am pretty sure i am adding him, in his prime, to that list.

‘my effin life’ – geddy lee

an autobiography from the bass player for the band rush. you are probably saying right about now ‘ wait, mr. redeyegin is a rush fan?’.

yes i am, or at least i was big time when i was in high school. it helped that i was a drummer, and neal peart, their drummer, was one of my heroes.

i stopped listening to them after i went to college, and so the middle part of the book describing making their later albums and world tours was probably the least interesting to me. but i found the rest really enjoyable, or at least very educational. geddy is a great storyteller and tells his tale in a self effacing manner. his descendants were survivors of the holocaust and emigrated to canada where they were able to provide him with a decent suburban life. but being jewish caused him to be rejected by many in his high school, and he sought refuge in music. obviously the next part detailed him meeting the other members of the band and then grinding their way to stardom.

the latter part of the book spends a fair amount of time on neal’s tragedy of losing his daughter in a car crash, and then his eventual struggle with brain cancer. but i found the whole thing to be an enjoyable read and i got through it pretty quickly.

‘loud and clear: the grateful dead’s wall of sound and the quest for audio perfection’ – brian anderson

a very thorough accounting of the history of the grateful dead’s dedication to the quality of the sound that was emanating from their pa system. the band does not get enough credit for the constantly innovative approach that they took – from the early reengineering of existing speakers and amps in the sixties to the eventual monstrous masterpiece, the ‘wall of sound’ in 1974. the band plowed much of their profits back into the development of these systems – and the stage crews and technicians that would be needed to put it all together – for all of their 30 year career. as the author makes clear, there may be no other band that did more to develop the technologies and concepts that revolutionized the live music industry and are still used to this day. it also added a stress level to individual shows when the shit didn’t work. he also chronicles – to an extent i have never seen before – as to how the magnificent ‘wall of sound’ was the cause of their downfall in late 1974, and led to the hiatus the band took till the summer of 1976. as a warning, this gets really technical at times, and i think you need to be a pretty hard core head to really appreciate it.

thanks for staying with me, and i promise there will be more soon.