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Music Books

Book and CDs. Fascinating.

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Stephen
 
Mark Radcliffe - "Crossroads - In search of the moments that changed music"

Starting with the literal, the crossroads meeting where Robert Johnson supposedly met, and sold his soul, to the devil, it examines the points where musical styles and cultures met, and then generated different styles. Chapter 2 has Geezer Butler observing the queues for the latest Karloff/Hammer horror movie, and seeing Earth's route to success as Black Sabbath.... and so on. Good read.
 
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A book I've always loved is Peter Guralnick's " Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom ", fantastic for early stuff about Otis Redding and Al Green. Very poignant when he talks to Redding, who shares his love of the Beatles and his ambitions for future material.

A more esoteric choice of another enduring read is " The soundscape of modernity " by Emily Thompson - she writes how the often unintentional architecture of venues has shaped how we hear live sound. A fascinating read. She writes about how the lower balcony seats were always cheap until people realised the sound was best there, and would prefer to book tickets ahead of the stalls or up top in the gods
 
Back in about 1976 I bought a small cheap and cheerful book about space rock. I remember it had chapters about Bowie, Jefferson Airplane and Tangerine Dream.But I can't remember what the book was, or who it was by. Any suggestions as to what it was?
 
I have just finished, and really enjoyed, "Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer" by Philip Watson. It's very readable, breaking up a linear approach with discussions of, for example, BF's guitars, or "What is jazz? Is BF jazz?" and follows the development of some of his music (like the Motian / BF / Lovano band) in one chunk rather than splitting it across several chapters. There are also sections called "Counterpoint" in which Watson discusses BF's music with others. Some of these are worthwhile (Rhiannon Giddens on the racial politics of music) others not so much. Watson makes a good job of trying to get inside BF's character (shy? doesn't give much away?) and relate it to his open, generous and inclusive music.
The bad part is that I now want to re-read the book, note all the music that is mentioned and try to hear it, not just BF's music but his influences too. For example I know very little of Jim Hall. This could take a long time!

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Serendipity! I just bought the Frisell book yesterday after opening it to browse, but not expecting to do so because I rarely am keen on music biographies. I am glad that you say that it's a good read. I've been a fan for a long time, have many of his albums and seen him live with Motian & Lovano at the Vanguard during their heyday. It'll be interesting to listen to the associated music along the way when reading the book.

The other book I got at the same time is "The Perfect Sound" by Garrett Hongo, a semi-biographic meditation around hifi, music and much else. Not convinced about this one, though, we'll have to see.
 
New bio of George Harrison (The Reluctant Beatle) announced; is there anything new to tell? surely every anecdote of every Beatle (worthy of telling) has been told by now.
 
This should have been subtitled "We were all bastards'. I'm enjoying the descriptions of a musical 'movement' that I was briefly a part of, but it also reminded me why I would never have survived a career in the music industry.

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Stephen
 
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