You could do a great deal worse than this.

By Simon Reynolds is a fantastic post-punk read. And Julian Cope's Head On and Repossesed are as good a rock autobiographies will ever get.

Pretty much everything - especially his two Elvis books and Sweet Soul Music.

Also Charlie Murray's 'Shots From the Hip' and of course 'Revolution in the Head' by Ian McDonald - the best book ever written about the Fabs.

Barney Hoskyns, Clinton Heylin, Johnny Rogan.

especially if you like:
Southern Soul - Say it One Time for the Broken Hearted
The Band - Across The Great Divide
West Coast Rock - Hotel California

Greil Marcus is always interesting if somewhat idiosyncratic. Mystery Train is brilliant though.

just clicking away my earnings on Amazon. So far I've ordered Charles Shaar Murray's Shots from the Hip, P Guralnick's book on Elvis, Griel Marcus's Mystery Train and the Lester Bangs one.

will investigate B Hoskyns later.

keep those recommendations coming. Anyone read Mick Wall's Led Zeppelin book? And what are the best books on the Stones (Apart from Keef's just out?

by Motley Crue. I have never knowingly heard a note of their music but the book is riotously entertaining.

Joe Boyd's White Bicycles is a great book taking you through the 60s and beyond by someone who was there as a mover and shaker with his inside knowledge of Fairport, Nick Drake, the ISB and The Move among many.
Peter Doggett's Are Your Ready For The Country is a very readable account of the roots of country rock, going back to Elvis and taking it on from there through to The Band and Gram Parsons and on to the 90s. It may have been revised and updated since I read it about 10 years ago.
Dave Marsh's The Heart Of Rock And Soul - The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made is enjoyable for its contentiousness. It was published in 1989 so it wasn't that far adrift from the end of the vinyl era.
Some of it is a bit over the top. Reading his account of his greatest single ever, (Marvin Gaye's Grapevine) I ask myself does he really hear what he claims? "… now hoarse, now soaring, sometimes spitting out imprecations with frightening clarity, sometimes pleading at the edge of incoherence, twisting, shortening and elongating syllables to capture emotions words can't define." I've listened and tried to identify these nuances, but find it hard to catch them. But it's an interesting read, and one that brings me to think "utter bollocks". Who, apart from Marsh, thinks that the Coasters' Yakety Yak deserves a place in the top 1,001 never mind coming in at 88? Probably lots of people, but not me.

Peter Guralnick's Robert Johnson book is fabulous - slim but exquisitely written. And Richard Williams' collection of essays (title of which I momentarily forget) is equally luxuriant.

Dark Entries - Bauhaus and Beyond by Ian Shirley, I didn't know much about the band beyond their astonishing music, this book clued me in.

curious band

pop music writing.

'Pop from the Beginning'?

Lucid, funny, opinionated, downright wrong at times but vibrant, intelligent and it actually reads like a sparky pop song. I reckon this is still the finest book ever written about pop music. He loves the medium and yet, at the same time- refreshingly- he realizes what a silly and, ultimately, utterly disposable thing it is.

by Jon Savage is the best, most compelling of the many, many books about punk. I think I read it more or less straight through when it came out, despite work, studies and so on.

Although he's not a rock journalist, Andy Summers' "One Train Later" is excellent on life as a jobbing musician, so much so that this aspect overshadows his enormous success with The Police. It's also very good on the under-documented world of those early 70s "Virgin" bands - the ones featured in Virgin's two-page mail order ads of the time - people like Slapp Happy, Henry Cow, Gong and so on.

And for life as a music journalist, Stuart Maconie's "Cider With Roadies" is very good.

A brilliantly researched read about the rise and fall of Britpop (the personal anecdotes detailing Elastica's heroin addiction are particuarly jaw-dropping)

David Cavanagh's story of Creation Records My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize is a corking read too

go for the Faber Book Of Pop edited by Hanif Kureshi and Jon Savage.

For punk: England's Dreaming - Jon Savage

For something out of the ordinary and life affirming Nik Cohn - Triksta

You will be sorely disappointed by Apathy For the Devil by the way. It is shockingly poor. Fortunately I read The Dark Stuff second and found the sublime Nick Kent.

For me, Barney Hoskyns tells some great stories very averagely. His writing has never made an impact on me but has written about some of my favourite subjects (Tom Waits, The Band, L.A. music scene)

is, of course, Ian Hunter's 'Diary Of A Rock And Roll Star' although Bruce Thomas' book, 'The Big Wheel' runs it a close second.

I find most rock journalists' books overlong, pretentious and pompous. What a shame a Steven Wells collection hasn't appeared in print.

He was passionate, argumentative, contrary, relentless, hilarious - and he wasn't afraid to challenge the untouchables. He was the journalist who gave a cogent and believeable argument about racist overtones in Morrissey's work that has dogged the singer ever since. He challenged the Happy Mondays at the height of their popularity about their homophobia.

Here's Wells on why he thought Morrissey should be England football manager (Guardian, 2007):

"There will be those who object to this choice, claiming that the Lord Voldemort of pop knows nothing of this most English of sports. But it is they who are ignorant. Morrissey is steeped in English football lore. He reeks of Woodbines, meat pies, wintergreen, Watneys Red Barrel and Brut.

"Morrissey's best qualification for becoming England manager is that he lives in a fusty fantasy world concocted out of Ealing comedies, Keith Waterhouse columns, Alan Bennett monologues, black and white kitchen sink dramas and the films of George Formby.

"He is thus at the exact same stage of emotional and cultural development as the hardcore of "real" England fans, who complain bitterly about how it were all real working-class English blokes around here once - before they ruined it by letting in women and other non real working-class English bloke types.

"Being England" will take on a new, deeper, Englisher meaning. All of Wembley - the buildings, the grass and the staff - will be spray-painted various shades of grey. Comically too small demob suits will be compulsory. As will round NHS spectacles held together in the middle with a sticky plaster.

"There will be complimentary Brilliantine dispensers in the gents toilets (there will be no ladies toilets). Non-smoking will be discouraged. All policing will be done by a single laughing bobby on a white horse. And catering vans will dole out spotted dick with custard for one shilling and sixpence to crowds kept entertained at half-time by the massed ranks of a brilliantly choreographed ukulele-strumming and morris-dancing marching band."

Online collection of some of his articles here.

http://www.thestevenwells.com/Main.html

There's a very good compendium of old rock writing called Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy that I read about ten years ago; worth it just for the excellent pieces on Ike Turner (Rolling Stone), the Elton v The Sun libel case (Q, I think) and an exhaustive piece investigating just exactly what happened to one of Jerry Lee Lewis' wives (Rolling Stone again, if memory serves). Also some more dated stuff on The Stooges, Oasis etc, and I think a few Word regulars pop up in there. You can get it for a penny on Amazon at the moment...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Meaty-Beaty-Big-Bouncy-Classic/dp/0340674342/ref...

by Ian Clayton. A Christmas present - and sort of music journalism and sort of not. Uses music as a recurring presence that illuminates a (Northern) life in general. Has had extraordinarily good testimonials from impeccable sources including Nick Hornby and Richard Hawley. Haven't read it fully yet but early impressions (50 pages or so) are good

Cold Weather, Xmas holidays etc meant I was able to make a start on my journey thru some rock journalism. I attach here some reviews of Xmas reads, on a well known networking site, for my friends. I am currently reading Lester Bangs "Psychotic Reactions...." and will probably proceed to Guralnick's book on Elvis after that. Update again soon.

THE HAMMER OF THE GODS, LED ZEPPELIN - STEPHEN DAVIS

This is widely regarded as the best book about Led Zeppelin although there have been comparatively few others and the band themselves have never gone into print to set the record straight. When it was published Page and Plant were reportedly annoyed because of some inaccuracies and Davis's accounts of the band's wilder exploits which were largely based on conversations with Richard Cole, their roughneck tour manager (who went on to write an even more lurid account entitled "Stairway to Heaven"). As a fan of the band I think Davis is quite good on their music and the sheer impact of their brand of heavy blues rock, especially in the US. The book is well structured, each chapter devoted to Zep's albums and successive tours. Whether or not Cole embellished some of his tales about Zep's behaviour on tour (which he seemed to instigate most of the time) we can be assured that Peter Grant, their quasi gangster manager, presided over a fearsome operation that involved every rock in roll cliche - groupie gang bangs, business through violence, hard drugs and flirtation with Satanism. For Plant and Page to claim in later years that they were misrepresented and that John Bonham had been unfavourably portrayed (almost as if they all drank tea and went to bed early every night after the show was over) is partly what makes the book such an entertaining and plausible read.

THE STONES THE BIOGRAPHY - PHILIP NORMAN

Of all the books about the Stones this one is particularly well written and researched, crucially with their co-operation. The author covers the main episodes in their career from the mid 60s until the early 80s, the early days of gigging and fan mania, the celebrated drugs busts and general hedonistic self indulgence. There are particularly good chapters on the demise of Brian Jones in 1969 and the free Hyde Park concert two days later, the tragic Altamont concert later that year which signalled the death of the 60s hippy dreams, and the Stones' relocation to France because of tax reasons and the recording of Exile on Main St. The author focusses a lot on Jagger himself, the iconic stage performances, control of the band's affairs, contractual disputes with managers and promoters as well as his jet set lifestyle and complicated personal relationships with the likes of Marianne Faithfull and Bianca. The other Stones are mainly bit players in the soap opera. Charlie and Bill are portrayed as happy go lucky characters along for the ride and the references to Keith Richards mainly relate to his rivalry with Jones over the band's music and Anita Pallenberg as well as his descent into heroin addiction by the early 70s. All in all this is a gripping read about a first class rock'n'roll band.

OPEN UP AND BLEED IGGY POP - PAUL TRYNKA

This seems to be the definitive Iggy bio. Its certainly an engrossing chronicle of the life of Jim Osterberg, the precocious, bright young scholar growing up in comfortable middle class Michigan, who became one of the most hedonistic, drug oriented and exhibitionist rock stars of the late 20th century. The book reveals a lot about the ego driven and narcissistic Iggy Pop, the band politics of The Stooges and their seminal early 70s records, the endless business deals, personal feuds, obscene consumption of drugs, crash'n'burn groupie/girlfriend relationships, Iggy's appetite for self abuse on stage, and the twists and turns of his solo recording career, including collaborations with David Bowie. Throughout the narrative the reader is encouraged to distinguish the demonic, and at times downright nasty, Iggy Pop who exploits his bandmates and friends, from the real Jim Osterberg, a highly intelligent, almost poetic charmer of the ladies, rock industry acolytes and the music press. Any fan of the great man's thrilling brand of in-your-face, visceral, pre punk rock'n'roll will enjoy the book.

THE DARK STUFF - NICK KENT

One of the best rock music books I have ever read. Kent's turn of phrase is simply superb. This excellent collection of magazine articles and commentary races along packed full of colourful, acid observations and dry wit. His subjects are some of the most excessive, complex and self indulgent characters in the history of popular music, ranging from Jerry Lee Lewis, Brian Jones, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed to the Happy Mondays and Shane Magowan. Some pieces are based on interviews he conducted in the 70s and 80s while others read almost like obituaries (he is particularly scathing about Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious and Phil Spector). The book shows Kent's keen eye for the dark side of the rock business, the drug dependency, excess, paranoia and insecurity which in many cases led to sickness, bankruptcy death and, in Spector's case, murder at point blank range. A rivetting and wholly satisfying read for the rock voyeur

a few more I've read in the past couple of weeks

MYSTERY TRAIN - GREIL MARCUS

This is definitely a book for those interested in the wider social and cultural significance of rock'n' roll music and fans of expert rock journalism. It's a rather unusual collection of long essays about a few select artists starting with Harmonica Frank an obscure musician and one time associate of Sun Records' Sam Phillips, blues godfather Robert Johnson, The Band, Sly Stone, Randy Newman and the great Elvis Presley. In each chapter Marcus offers his uniquely personal perspective on what motivated these artists, their place in the musical pantheon of the 20th century and the stories and messages behind their lyrics and albums. The book also has astonishingly detailed footnotes, of which the section on Elvis is a goldmine of information on the man's recording career and legacy. Here is Marcus on the importance of Elvis "It is vital to remember that Elvis was the first young southern white to sing rock'n'roll, something he copied from no one but made up on the spot; and to know that even though other singers would have come up with a white version of the new black music acceptable to America, of all who did emerge in Elvis's wake, none sang so powerfully, or with more than a touch of magic."

MAXIMUM ROCK'N'ROLL: THE STORY OF AC/DC - MURRAY ENGLEHEART

A very thorough and engrossing chronicle of the career of one of the finest heavy rock'n' roll bands of all time. The authors extensively researched media and press interviews of the band and its management going right back to the early days when AC/DC made their way up through the club circuit in their native Sydney. There are excellent insights into how Malcolm and Angus Young crafted their no nonsense boogie and blues sound to deliver one thing and one thing only: stripped down, high volume rock'n'roll. Two thirds of the book is dedicated to the band's 1970s career with their first lead singer, the charismatic hell raiser Bon Scott (Scott's untimely death in 1980 is also treated reverentially and in a non sensationalist fashion). The authors also deal with the speculation surrounding the extent to which Scott was involved in conceiving the band's global smash album "Back in Black". From conversations with e.g the band's A&R guys they conclude that both the lyrics and melodies of the songs were largely the work of Brian Johnson, Scott's equally gravel throated successor, while Angus and Malcolm concerned themselves with the riffs and solos and the record's business aspects. Throughout the narrative we learn about the band's brawling in clubs in the early days, their punishing work ethic in the studio and on the road, especially in breaking the US around 1977/78, their total dedication to giving the kids a good show and their tendency to blow older more established acts off the stage (there are well documented anecdotes from such luminaries as Pete Townshend who was always uneasy about following them on). My favourite story is of the young English fan who had damaged one of his ears in a rugby accident and yet had his hearing fully restored when he stood too near AC/DC's pa system at Castle Donnington in 1991. Now that's "maximum rock'n'roll".

STONES TOURING PARTY: A JOURNEY THROUGH AMERICA - ROBERT GREENFIELD

This is probably the most critically acclaimed book about the legendary rock tours of the 1970s. Greenfield documents every aspect of the Stones' triumphant return to the US in 1972 after 3 years away to tour their classic album "Exile on Main St". Each chapter moves across the American landscape from city to city, with tales of logistical nightmares, business disputes, long drug fuelled days on coaches and aeroplanes, even longer nights in sleazy hotels, brushes with US law enforcement and bizarre excesses with groupies. Greenfield was forensic in his detailed recollections about how the roadies, tour managers and other hangers on (known collectively as the Stones Touring Party or STP) behaved towards everyone with whom they came into contact, including physical intimidation and financial exploitation. And throughout all this he keenly observed Jagger and the band's behaviour, how they coped with the fan worship and just how far they were at the top of their game live on stage. He also captured the sheer monotony associated with delivering a 2 hour rock show night after night and how, after two months of drugs, booze and 24 hour days both the STP and the band were almost at their wits end by the time they played their final sell-out shows in Madison Sq Garden NY. An excellent read for fans of the golden era of rock'n'roll.

PSYCOTIC REACTIONS AND CARBURETTOR DUNG: LESTER BANGS

This classic book is a compelling, though in places challenging, compilation of Bangs' articles for Creem magazine, The Village Voice and other publications throughout the 70s and early 80s. His style of writing was almost like the music he reviewed; at times he wrote in short and punchy riffs, in other articles he went off on extemporised sequences where he expressed himself using hippy jive slang straight from the streets. Halfway through one article he confesses to writing it for 12 straight hours and you can feel it in the language, like it was written on amphetamines so he could finish it to deadline. Although, like most rock writers he had a talent for iconoclastic hyperbole in his assessments of major artists and their records there is a lot of intelligent and astute observation about the rock business in this book. His love hate relationship with Lou Reed provides the most humorous passages. For example, Bangs interviews Reed in his hotel room with a transexual and observes " ...it was almost unmistakably a guy. Except that behind its see thru blouse, it seemed to have tits. Or something. It was beyond light and shade. It was grotesque. Not only grotesque, it was abject, like something that might have grovelingly scampered in when Lou opened the door to get the milk and papers in the morning". Bangs is also capable of more subtle wit e.g describing Barry White as "nineteen pounds of pure lumbering animal who makes Leslie West look like Steven Tyler". Indeed, the whole piece lampooning Barry White's schmoozy stage show is stone cold brilliant. Now and again he also throws out a few profundities such as "we're all stuck on this often miserable earth where life is essentially tragic, but there are glints of beauty and bedrock joy that come shining through from time to time to remind anybody that there is something higher than ourselves. And I am not taking about putrefying gods but about a sense of wonder about life itself...". Finally, my other favourite passages are in a piece about John Lennon's death where he writes "The Beatles did lead but they led with a wink. They may have been more popular than Jesus but I don't think they wanted to be the world's religion. That would have cheapened and rendered tawdry what was special".

WHITE BICYCLES - JOE BOYD

Joe Boyd closes his excellent memoir observing that he dispelled at least one myth about the 1960s: he was there and he remembered it. The book sparkles with fond recollections of his association with an impressive gallery of blues and folk musicians throughout that decade; the music of Muddy Waters and other early blues masters, Bob Dylan, early Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention, Nick Drake and many others truly comes alive in these pages. Boyd seems to have met or dealt with the main movers and shakers of the period as he progressed from music odd job man, to tour manager to album producer and then became a big wheel in the thriving late 60s folk rock movement. I was especially interested in his stories about the UK blues rock invasion and his recollections about Bob Dylan going electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Here he elegantly sums up the significance of that night: "the old guard hung their heads in defeat while the young, far from being triumphant, were chastened. They realised that in their victory lay the death of something wonderful. The rebels were like children who had been looking for something to break and realised, as they looked at the pieces, what a beautiful thing it had been......anyone wishing to portray the history of the sixties as a journey from idealism to hedonism could place the hinge at around the 9.30 on the night of 25 July 1965."

ENGLAND'S DREAMING - JON SAVAGE

This book deserves every one of the accolades it was awarded at the time. It is a meticulously researched and lucidly written account of the genesis, development and ultimate demise of the late 70s "punk rock" movement spearheaded by The Sex Pistols, a group of working class urchins from London, and their street hustler manager Malcolm McLaren. The casual reader will be more interested in the narratives dealing with McLaren's activities on the avant garde fringe of the sex fetish/fashion industry, the Pistols' rise from a bunch of talentless roughnecks hanging around London's pub rock scene to global notoriety as purveyors of snarling 2 chord nihilism, social antagonism and aggression. Savage presents near definitive accounts of the early bust ups with law enforcement, the Bill Grundy show expletives episode (which made the Pistols tabloid fodder for the next 2 years), EMI's dumping of the band (which actually hurt the company more than the band), the controversy over "God Save The Queen" (the true No 1 record in the country during Jubilee week in 1977), the chaotic tours, mutual loathing of John Lydon and McLaren and the demise of Sid Vicious from a vulnerable, impressionable teenager to a self-destructive manic depressive hooked for life on hard drugs to the extent that one morning in October 1978 he finds himself charged with knifing his junkie girlfriend in the stomach after a row about their latest smack deal. However, I was most interested in Savage's eloquent passages about the historical and cultural context of the Pistols and punk rock generally. Early in the book he talks about how post-war mass consumer enfranchisement was exposed as a sham by the 1970s and how the country's social life had degenerated into warring factions. This was the cradle where punk was born. On the Pistols' music he observes that "at a time when songs generally dealt with the pop archetypes of escape or love, they threw up a series of insults and rejections, couched in a new pop language that was tersely allusive yet recognizable as everyday speech". Later he argues that the band were "the last gasp of youth as a single unifying force", that they "reasserted the primacy of pop as the divining rod of the times at the very moment when they predicted its loss of power in the 1980s, weakened by power politics, cynicism and demographics" and that they "said "No" so forcefully the world had been forced to listen". And on that theme he concludes his wonderfully intelligent book writing thus "History is made by those who say "No" and Punk's uptopian heresies remain its gift to the world".

THERE'S A RIOT GOIN ON - PETER DOGGETT

I enjoyed this book because the subject matter, the 1960s, is endlessly fascinating. The author sweeps across the landscape of late sixties political militancy, from the Yippees and the Weatherman movement to the Black Panthers, as well as their collaborators in the entertainment industry and the avant garde. The rather forensic accounts of political intrigues inside these various groups and their battles with the US political establishment were a bit tedious in places. Much more interesting were the anecdotal accounts of the antics of John Lennon, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe MacDonald and others as they flirted with and/or funded many of the campaigns of the day, whether it was civil rights and social issues, US withdrawal from Vietnam or a host of other hippy inspired stunts mostly motivated by celebrity gesture politics. Quite a lot of the book is devoted to how the counter culture's leaders sought out Bob Dylan to lead their so-called "revolution" only to be met with Dylan's intellectual indifference and shifting political allegiances to the right. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who is remotely interested in late 20th century American social and cultural history.

THE PEOPLE'S MUSIC - IAN MCDONALD

Ian MacDonald's style of writing was slightly different from his illustrious NME peers Nick Kent and Charles Shaar Murray, each of whom took a more abrasive, argumentative approach to their journalism. MacDonald applied a rigorous intellect to rock music writing. These articles are superbly well written, the ones on Dylan and The Beatles stand out for their clinical observations about the contributions each made to popular culture in the 20th century. Of course, both have been documented at length and MacDonald doesn't break any new ground but he sums them up with elegant expressions. On Dylan he writes "flawed as it is by division and fear, Dylan's work constitutes the peak achievement of critical articulacy in popular music in the last half century....as for his artistry, the verdict is complicated by the difficulty of defining what sort of artist he is, and further muddled by comparisons with others (e.g Keats) whose methods and assumptions are almost entirely different from his. What's clear is that his dynamic presence in post war popular culture has been seminal for the thinking minority in several generations. In terms of the people's music only the Beatles can be compared to him in influence on the temper of our time". MacDonald also supplies an interesting comparison between Lennon and McCartney's lyrical styles, surely a much debated topic over the decades "the essential difference between the two as writers is one of temperament. Lennon's allegiance to truth over beauty reflects in the close correspondence between his lyrics and his melodies, the music expressing the feeling evoked in the mood of the song as a whole. McCartney, by contrast, could let his natural facility create music more loosely constrained by the sentiment of the lyric, although at his best he could be every bit as musically expressive as his partner."

SHOTS FROM THE HIP - CHARLES SHAAR MURRAY

As one might expect from one of the top UK rock writers around, this is a fine collection of Murray's articles in various publications during the 1970s and 80s like Oz, NME and Q magazine. The best chapters are undoubtedly his perceptive reviews of various live performances although there are also a few interesting pieces about broader subjects like the legacy of punk rock, glam rock and good interviews with the likes of novelists JG Ballard and Kurt Vonnegut, Diana Ross, Paul McCartney, David Bowie and Patti Smith. Here is Murray describing a Black Sabbath gig in the early 70s - "You need to feel as if Geezer's sproinging away on the coils of your cerebellum while they are connected up to a light socket, if you wanna get technical about it. Simultaneously Tony Iommi's got to be heaving giant slabs of semi-sentient guitar grunge around behind your eye lids and Bill...well, Bill's probably out back smashing his way through a brick wall by the simple expedient of hitting it with his head, while Ozzy caterwauls about something or other locked in a basement". And I loved his description of The Sex Pistols on stage - "..and the band kicks into Anarchy in the UK, Jones' guitar a saw toothed snarl teetering on the edge of a feedback holocaust, Sid's bass synched firmly into Cook's walloping drums and Rotten an avenging scarecrow, an accusing outcast cawing doom and contempt like Poe's raven".

LAST TRAIN TO MEMPHIS: THE RISE OF ELVIS PRESLEY - PETER GURALNICK

Elvis Presley's musical career pre-dates me by one generation though I've always been aware of his legacy and, of course, his early rock'n'roll hits are central to the development of youth culture and popular music in the mid 20th century. The man will still be an icon a hundred years from now. Guralnick's first biography on The King takes the reader into every aspect of Elvis's childhood, adolescence and subsequent meteoric rise to fame and fortune by the time he reached his early 20s. The book is brimming with details about Elvis's passion for country, blues and gospel, his burning desire to sing and perform, his devotion to family and friends and ambition to make it in Hollywood. Guralnick details every minutae of Elvis's Sun Studio recordings with Sam Phillips and subsequent RCA releases, as well as the relentless tours and TV appearances where his wild eyed, hip swinging antics shocked middle class America but left millions of their kids screaming for more. What comes through is how Elvis's modest origins, religious sensibilities and stable family life more or less kept him away from the vices that afflicted so many other showbiz celebrities of that era. The book ends with the death of his mother - to whom he was devoted - just before he went into the army in 1958, which was probably the main turning point in his life; from then on Elvis's life became darker and much more complicated.

APATHY FOR THE DEVIL - NICK KENT

This is not quite in the same class as Kent's superb collection of rock'n'roll essays and articles "The Dark Stuff". Nonetheless, its a very entertaining read and it was a nice touch to take his title from a comment Bob Dylan made when Kent asked him what he thought of a Rolling Stones show they attended in 1977 (when the band were indeed beginning to slide a bit). There is a lot of narrative, perhaps too much, about Kent's drug abuse and life on skid row as well as bitter sweet recollections about ex lovers, NME colleagues and rock industry associates. The more compelling passages are Kent's lurid first hand accounts of life on the road with Led Zeppelin, sharing smack with Iggy Pop and Keith Richards, his association with the Malcolm McLaren and the Sex Pistols and ultimate disillusionment with the whole music scene at the end of the 1970s when both progressive rock and its nemesis punk rock both lost their way. Throughout the book Kent makes a number of astute observations about the music business and how the rock'n'roll dreams turned into nightmares for a lot of the superstars who came out of the 60s.

CROSS TOWN TRAFFIC - CHARLES SHAAR MURRAY

This is by far a better book about Jimi Hendrix than most other biographies and hagiographies on the market. Murray is a superb rock writer and here he examines in some depth the musical and cultural influences on Hendrix the artist - jazz, soul and blues - as well as the cultural and technological revolutions that helped shape the 1960s as the most significant decade in the history of popular music. In a series of well argued and very informative chapters he explains how Hendrix went from talented session man to godfather of psychedelic rock guitar in the space of 4 years and how his musical sensibilities originated in the Delta and Chicago blues of Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, the bop jazz of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis and the soul of Ray Charles and Sly Stone. The book closes with a rather interesting chapter on the development of electric guitars by Gibson and Fender and, for Hendrix fans and collectors, an excellent detailed discography. Here Murray sums up in elegant prose the significance of Hendrix's epoch making rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock in 1969 "..That clear pure tone - somewhere between a trumpet and a high pealing bell - is continually invaded by ghostly rogue overtones; the stately unreeling of the melody derailed by the sounds of riot and war, sirens and screams, chaos and alarm....Hendrix presented a compelling musical allegory of a nation bloodily tearing itself apart, in its own ghettos and campuses, and in a foreign land which had never done anything to harm its tormentors".