As both a lifelong popular music fan as well as music journalist for most all of my professional life, I read a lot of musical artist bios, autobiographies and memoirs. Many – maybe even too many – follow the standard form and don’t have much to distinguish themselves. But then there are the standouts.
No book in the field has stunned me more in many years as “Blood” by Allison Moorer, a country music singer and songwriter I happened to meet in the late 1990s through mutual friends on a visit to Nashville a while before the release of her debut album, for which I was asked to write her PR bio. Somewhere in there I learned that her father killed her mother and himself – also the parents to her older sister and fellow musical artist Shelby Lynne – when Allison was 14 years old.
Such a tragic and shocking family legacy is almost incomprehensible as to how someone might deal with it. But Moorer does so with formidable courage, sensitivity, love and insight in a masterfully written work of memory and self-reflection. Both her awesome gift as a prose stylist and creative structural approach to the subject mark this book as at least a minor literary landmark that’s a compelling, affecting and impressive read.
Another music star whose literary star shines brightly is punk rock pioneer and icon Patti Smith, whose memoir about her loving friendship with later-legendary-photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, “Just Kids,” won her (quite justly) a National Book Award. Her latest, “Year of the Monkey,” is a mesmeric and mystical work of reflection, memory, human encounters and life landmarks. She writes beautifully like a friend with a warn arm over the shoulders of your soul. Although there’s little here about her musical career, there’s an inherent melodicism to her prose that makes reading this book an utter delight.
Few musical talents have a unique way with words as songwriter Jimmy Webb, whose works like “By The Time I Get to Phoenix,” “MacArthur Park,” “Wichita Lineman.” “Up, Up and Away” and others form a bridge between the classic lyrical eloquence of the likes of Cole Porter, the Gershwins and Irving Berlin and the pop music of the 1960s onward. His writing skill is further demonstrated in Webb’s memoir “The Cake and the Rain,” which follows two timelines to trace his route from his rural Oklahoma dirt farm roots to becoming a songwriting sensation and recall with wry charm his 1960s wild young years.
Webb writes with a compelling likability and self-effacing modesty that makes his tale utterly charming. And I finally learned the origin of his line in “MacArthur Park” about that cake out in the rain that in 1968 somehow felt strange and bothersome to me. Its source is W.H. Auden, and knowing that seems to have transformed it to now a lovely mantra.
There’s nothing very literary about pop star Tommy James’s straightforward autobiography tracing his rise from a Midwestern local cover band singer to pop stardom and his years of fame. But its title, “Me, the Mob, and The Music” announces its significance: James made it to the top of the pops on Roulette Records, the label owned by the notorious Morris Levy, a thoroughly mobbed-up music business mogul who never paid James more than a red cent of his considerable record sales and song royalties.
What’s interesting about James’s relationship with Levy – model for the “Uncle Heshie” character on “The Sopranos“ – is his genuine affection for Levy and wise acceptance of how he was ripped off. Yet still enjoyed a rather fun and rewarding life. Sometimes the deal made with a devil still pays off.
Book: “Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes – A Memoir” by Steve Gorman – One more music book, this one required reading for any young rock musician that should learn how the dream of rock’n’roll success can go septic due to dysfunctional bandmates, written by the band’s drummer.
TV Movie: “Ricky Nelson: Original Teen Idol” – This VH1 biopic has its issues, but nonetheless reminds how Nelson, star with his family on the TV series “Ozzie & Harriet,” became a credible 1950s rocker with great songs, a fine voice and twang guitar genius James Burton behind him and then later was a true pioneer of country-rock, now called Americana.
Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.
From The Progressive Populist, July 1-15, 2020
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