In selections ranging from Bruce Springsteen on his experience of backing up Chuck Berry, to Joan Didion sitting in on a Doors recording session, to Henry Rollins on Madonna, to Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments. Tom Wolfe, Patti Smith, Don DeLillo, John Lennon, Frank Zappa, Nick Hornby, and dozens of other Rock & Roll celebrities record their reactions to the music of our generation. This 672-page compendium presents hours of fascinating writing. Published in 2000, this was one of the best collections of great writing on the music, artists, and personalities we grew up listening to. All the key players are here. Who is your favorite Rock & Roll group or artist? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
I. DEFINITION OF TERMS
“What we talk about when we talk about rock and roll.”
Bob Dylan Bringing it all Back Home
Irvine Welsh In Me Around Me and Everywhere
Pete Townshend Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy
Nick Hornby Looter
Salman Rushdie A World Worthy of Our Yearning
Levon Helm, Martin Scorsese and Robbie Robertson And if it Dances
II. ANCESTORS
“Jerry Lee … beat the boogie so hard that there was nothing left of the rhythm, nothing but the sounds of the Holy Ghost.”
Charlie Gillett From the introduction to The Sound of the City
Robert Johnson Me and the Devil
Alan Lomax The Land Where the Blues Began
Bob Dylan Blind Willie McTell
Robert Palmer From the Delta to Chicago
Greil Marcus The Myth of Staggerlee
James Miller King of the Delta Blues
Nick Tosches Jerry Lee Sees the Bright Lights of Dallas
Grace Lichtenstein and Laura Dankner Fats
Bumps Blackwell Up Against the Wall with Little Richard
Colin Escott and Martin Hawkins 706 Union Avenue
Charlie Gillett The Fives Styles of Rock and Roll
III. SUPERSTARDOM
“We sing the guitar electric.”
Brian Wilson Do You Remember?
Peter Guralnick Elvis, Scotty and Bill
Chuck Berry Got to Be Rock and Roll Music
Nelson George The Godfather of Soul
Philip Norman A Good Stomping Band
Tom Wolfe Words to the Wild
Patti Smith dog dream
Charles Shaar Murray Hendrix in Black and White
Joel Selvin These are the Good Old Days
Richard Goldstein Next Year in San Francisco
Peter Guralnick Return of the King
Terry Southern Riding the Lapping Tongue
Jaan Uhelszki I Dreamed I Was Onstage with Kiss in my Maidenform Bra
Bob Marley with Timothy White Worth Dying For
Anthony DeCurtis A Life at the Crossroads
Dave Marsh I Wanna Know if Love is Real
Joyce Millman Primadonna
Jon Pareles Precious Oddball
Gavin Martin Articulate Speech of the Heart
IV. WEIRDNESS
“Fame requires every kind of excess.”
Mae Boren Axton Testimony in the Payola Hearing
Unknown The Plane Crash
Tina Turner with Kurt Loder A Fool in Love
Dave Marsh Merchants of Filth
Maureen Cleave More Popular than Jesus
Ronnie Spector with Vince Waldron Inflatable Phil
Stanley Booth Altamont
Richard Goldstein Gear
Pamela des Barres Every Inch of My Love
Don DeLillo Free of Old Saints and Martyrs
John Lennon The Ballad of John and Yoko
Jon Savage Ruined for Life
Robert McG. Thomas, Jr. Rock and Roll Tragedy
William S. Burroughs and Devo Fed by Things we Hate
Frank Zappa Statement to the Senate Commerce Committee
Lynn Hirschberg Strangelove
Jeffrey Rotter Our Little Satan
V. PRESENT AT THE CREATION
“The tape is going and that is Bob fucking Dylan over there singing, so this had better be me sitting here playing something.”
Doc Pomus Treatise on the Blues
James Brown with Bruce Tucker The T.A.M.I. Show
Patti Smith Rise of the Sacred Monsters
Al Kooper with Ben Edmonds How Does it Feel?
Jules Siegel A Teen-age Hymn to God
Joan Didion Waiting for Morrison
Bill Graham and Robert Greenfield Woodstock Notion
Michael Lindsay-Hogg Video Pioneer
Jackson Browne The Load Out
Nik Cohn Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night
Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain Punk Apostles
Tom McGrath Integrating MTV
Jason Gross Licensed to Download
VI. SOUL
“Unless my body reaches a certain temperature, starts to liquefy, I just don’t feel right.”
Lucy O’Brien Girl Groups
Daniel Wolff A Change is Gonna Come
Patricia Smith Life According to Motown
Jon Landau Otis Redding, the King of Them All
Robert Gordon Dan and Spooner
Jerry Wexler with David Ritz The Queen of Soul
Gerri Hershey Soul Men
Roddy Doyle From The Commitments
David Ritz What’s Going On
Rickey Vincent The Mothership Connection
Michael Gonzales My Father Named Me Prince
Greg Tate Hip-Hop Defined
VII. CRITICS
“In the twentieth century, that’s all there is: jazz and rock and roll.”
Joe McEwen Little Willie John
Robert Christgau Rock Lyrics are Poetry (Maybe)
Paul Williams All Along the Watchtower
J.R. Young Reviews of After the Goldrush and Live Dead
Contra Wilson Of Cock Rock Kings and Other Dinosaurs
Ellen Sander Inside the Cages of the Zoo
Dave Hickey The Delicacy of Rock and Roll
Jeff Gomez Fanzine
Lester Bangs Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung
VIII. TRIBUTES
“Because when he was alive he could not walk, but now he is walking with God.”
Lewis Shiner Saving Jimi
Lester Bangs Where Were You When Elvis Died?
Yoko Ono Statement to the Press
Joel Selvin More than `the Piano Player’
Mikel Gilmore Kurt Cobain’s Road from Nowhere
Phil Spector Save the Last Dance for Me
For me its Dylan, Springsteen, Rolling Stones and Lou Reed. Followed closely by The Kinks, The Who, Tom Waits and The Clash.
Steve, excellent choices!
Wow, what a list! Difficult to decide …
Of course Dylan was very important for a young “revolutionary” like my favourite has always been and still is Steve Winwood. When I was alone I went to the USA twice to see him, once in Florida and once in Texas …
From the moment I heard “Gimme some lovin’ …” I was hooked and Blind Faith (whose fantastic concert in Hyde Park, London I missed by a week or so …) was also sensationalI
Eric Clapton btw is my wife’s favourite – followed by Miles Davis and Satchmo (of course these are not R&R, but still …)
Blues is also important for us, the classics like Robert Johnson and then Chuck Berry etc – we’ve seen them playing on the DVDs of the Clapton “Crossroads Festivals”, unfortunately never live. Among the younger Bluesmen: Joe Bonamassa.
Last not least: Ray Charles – whos What’d I say part 1 and 2 was the first single record I bought while still at school – many people thought I was crazy!
Wolf, you (and your wife) have good taste in Rock & Roll artists!
Thanks, George!
The others have also named performers/groups who I enjoy – in the 60s as a student I was lucky to have AFN (Us soldiers radio) – I didn’t have the money to buy all the records that I liked …
Chicago of course, Roy Orbison (what a great group the Traveing Wilburies were later!) Neil Young and and …
One of the few things that I really missed:
Going to concerts – it was just too expensive say to drive/hitchhike to Munch or Berli where the big names played and of course impossible to go to the USA (much too expensive).
When the $ fell in the mid 80s and I could afford to fly to Florida or New York City, Rock had totally changed …
Wolf, I used to go to concerts in the Seventies, but once Patrick and Katie arrived in the 1980s, concert attendance was few and far between.
Nice one. I have eclectic taste and find it impossible to narrow down a list of “favorites” to a few. We still go to concerts, and these days we tend to see mostly people and groups in our age range – for example, last year we saw Bonnie Raitt, Dion, Ronnie Spector, George Thorogood (we’re seeing him again next week), Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, Boz Scaggs, Chicago, Earth Wind & Fire, Graham Nash, Dixie Chicks, Happy Together tour (Turtles, Chuck Negron, etc.), Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris (with Robert Plant & Steve Earle), Jackson Browne (with Eddie Vedder & Rosanne Cash), Steely Dan (with Rickie Lee Jones), Los Lonely Boys, James Taylor (with Jimmy Buffett & Sarah McLachlan).
Other favorites not touring here last year: John Fogerty, Bob Seger, Santana, Neil Young, Michael McDonald (we’re seeing him this year).
Jeff, that’s a great list of performers. BOSTON has a concert in Vegas in a couple of weeks. I wish I could have seen that!
Like Jeff, I can’t narrow it down, but I suspect everyone’s favorites have to do with the age they were when they first heard the artists. It’s more than the music (for me) that makes favorites. It’s the whole gestalt — where I was, who I was with, what was happening in the world at the time, and so on.
Bill, my first Rock concert happened when Bob Dylan performed in Buffalo in 1965. And, I was listening to a lot of Motown music back then.
Probably the same tour I saw. Bob Dylan and the Hawks(later The Band).
Steve, great minds think alike. That Dylan concert was magical! The Hawks (aka, The Band) sounded great!
Beyond the Beatles, I can’t really rank my favorites. I knew EVERY group/artist from 1963 until the late 1980s–around the time I got married and started having kids. Specific songs bring back intense memories and impressions…but I can’t pick just one or two favorite artists.
Deb, music was so much a part of our lives back then. I used to listen to the radio for hours per day. Now, I listen to the radio when I’m driving round running errands. Big difference!
I just got Sirius radio with my new lease and find myself listening to Little Stevens Underground Garage all the time.
Steve, I listen to Sirus/XM radio when I driving around doing errands. I like Soul Town, but I’ll check out Little Stevens Underground Garage.
Well, yesterday (after recent discussions), I listened to SGT. PEPPER and PET SOUNDS. Other CDs recently played here include:
Boz Scaggs, MEMPHIS
LOVE FOR LEVON (2 CD live tribute recording)
Carole King, THE LEGENDARY DEMOS
Roy Orbison, BLACK & WHITE NIGHT (the PBS concert)
ABBA, THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION (2 CDs)
THE BLUES HAD A BABY…THEY CALLED IT ROCK ‘N’ ROLL (classic 2 CD set, starting with “Tutti Frutti” and ending with Elvis doing “That’s All Right.”)
Jeff, I’m been listening to the new remastered SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY CD collection. Great stuff!
We are too. Jackie really likes it.
Saw them at Pine Knob (now DTE ) in the 80’s. Not a large crowd and they played during a electrical storm. Couple of tracks from that show were included on their live album. Not in the audience for two many live albums. Was their at the Grande Ballroom when the MC5 recorded Kick Out The Jams and for Bob Segars first live album at Cobo Hall.
Steve, you’ve been part of Rock & Roll history with the MC5 and Bob Segar concerts!
We’ve seen him open for George Thorogood twice, as well as opening for Roy Orbison back in 1988! Always a great show.
Jeff, the new remastered SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY CD sounds great! I’ll have a review posted to this blog soon.
I really can’t narrow it down. My first concert was the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl (first one) They’ll probably be my first choice. My favorites are clearly from the 60’s and 70’s. Pretty much all of the British Invasion (though I wasn’t a fan of the animals, nor Gerry & the Pacemakers – I really prefer mostly fast songs). A year or so ago PBS had a documentary on the Dave Clark 5 and I really enjoyed that.
I loved going to the Rock n Roll HOF as I got some CD’s of groups I really loved: James Gang (walk away was a fav dance tune from my bar hopping days) and Spencer Davis Group. Many of you have named groups I love (abba, stones, carole king, turtles (saw them in concert with Herman’s Hermits)
Maggie, the trip to the ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME was the highlight of the Cleveland BOUCHERCON!
We’ve seen Joe Walsh (formerly of the James Gang) with the Eagles, of course. He’s always fun. He was born in Kansas but lived in NYC and New Jersey in his teens.
Jeff, Joe Walsh could be my favorite Eagle. He also had a successful solo career.
I remember Jack Tempchin, a local. One of my friends met him at the San Diego 200th anniversary in Old Town
my first concert was my favorite, which I know I have mentioned many times. The Supremes and Stevie Wonder. 1966. Lambertville New Jersey, the night we got engaged.
Patti, THE SUPREMES and STEVIE WONDER. What a great duo!
Nice one, Patti. We saw the Supremes in the mid-60s at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. I first saw (then) “Little” Stevie Wonder at a Murray the K concert at the long-defunct Brooklyn Fox in the early ’60s. We last saw him at Madison Square Garden in 2007. He sang “For Once in My Life” and then was joined on the second verse by a special guest – Tony Bennett!
Stevie Wonder of course belongs among the top performers – I sometimes look at lists like “the best 500 soul singers” or “the best 100 rock guitarists” and usually I nod, yes great people – but sometimes I hear a name which is totally unknown to me …
A bit OT
Just read about Laura Nyro who wrote songs interpreted by many famous singers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Nyro
Does anyone remember her?
Wolf, Laura Nyro was a Big Star…and then she wasn’t. She had brief success and then faded away here.
Wolf, she was better known as a songwriter, as most of her stuff was done by The Fifth Dimension, Three Dog Night, Barbra Streisand, and Blood, Sweat & Tears.
We got a Nyro GREATEST HITS CD and it’s amazing how many hits she had for other people. Great stuff.
Laura Nyro did her own songs best. She did some pretty good covers too. Never cared for other artists versions of her songs-esp Streisand and The Fifth Dimension who watered her music down. And Stevie did some good work but burned out after a couple of good albums in the 70’s. He also did a lot of crap like I Just Called to Say I Love You.
The Beatles first! The Beatles last! The Beatles always! Not to say there aren’t scores of fantastic groups out there, but none had as much impact on me as The Beatles!
Wolf: I had a girlfriend who was a big Laura Nyro fan and I was made aware of her then.
Bob, FRESH AIR on National Public Radio is featuring interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr today. There are plenty of media stories about the 50th Anniversary of SGT. PEPPER.
Maybe Shelly Fabares, or Marcie Blaine. But we can’t forget Ricky Nelson or Pat Boone, either. Golly. It’s so hard to choose.
Rick, I had a friend whose older brother dated Marcie Blane (RN: Marcia Blank). Now that’s trivia!
Yep. Of coarse my REAL favorite groups are others………….
You forgot Fabian, Frankie Avalon, Lesley Gore and Little Peggy March. The early 60’s were an oasis of lame before Dylan and the British Invasion.
HA!