Jimmy Page: The Definitive Biography by Chris Salewicz

(2019: nonfiction)

From the inside flap

“The original enigmatic rock star, Jimmy Page, is a mass of contradictions. A towering presence in the guitar world and one of the most revered rock guitarists of all time, in private he is reclusive and mysterious, retiring, and given to esoteric interests. Over the decades he has the exchanged few words with the press, given the level of his fame, and an abiding interest in the demonic and supernatural has only made the myth more potent.

“In the mid-Sixties Jimmy Page was London’s most-in-demand session man, playing on records by everyone from Donovan to the Who to the Kinks. In 1964 he accepted an offer to join the Yardbirds, where he replaced Eric Clapton and made blues-based music alongside Jeff Beck. Quickly tiring of the constraints of that band, Page, along with Robert Plant, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones, formed what would quickly become the biggest rock band of all time, Led Zeppelin would go on to sell over 100 million records in the U.S. alone. Songs like ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ ‘Dazed and Confused,’ and ‘Whole Lotta Love’ remain rock radio staples to this day. With their mountain of money, revolving door of groupies, and excessive drug-taking, Led Zeppelin wrote the book on rock ‘n’ roll until it all inevitably imploded.”

Review

Jimmy is an excellent biography about the storied multitalented musician and producer. Salewicz, for the most part, focuses on Page’s musical output, business life and his romantic/bad habits, only briefly mentioning his children, so if you are looking for details about his kids, you won’t find much here. This is worth reading, maybe owning, if you are a rock/Zeppelin/Page fan.

David Bowie: A Life by Dylan Jones

(hb; 2017: biography)

From the inside flap

"Dylan Jones's engrossing, magisterial biography of David Bowie is unlike any Bowie story ever written. Drawn from over 180 interviews with friends, rivals, lovers, and collaborators, some of whom have never before spoken about their relationship with Bowie, this oral history weaves a hypnotic spell as it unfolds the story of a remarkable rise to stardom and an unparalleled artistic path. Tracing Bowie's life from the English suburbs to London to New York to Los Angeles, Berlin, and beyond, its collective voices describe a man profoundly shaped by his relationship with his schizophrenic half-brother Terry; an intuitive artist who could absorb influences through intense relationships and yet drop people cold when they were no longer of use; and a social creature equally comfortable partying with John Lennon and dining with Frank Sinatra. By turns insightful and deliciously gossipy, DAVID BOWIE is as intimate a portrait as may ever be drawn. It sparks with admiration and grievances, lust and envy, as the speakers bring you into studios and bedrooms they shared with Bowie, and onto stages and film sets, opening corners of his mind and experience that transform our understanding of both artist and art. Including illuminating, never-before-seen material from Bowie himself, drawn from a series of Jones's interviews with him across two decades, DAVID BOWIE is an epic, unforgettable cocktail-party conversation about a man whose enigmatic shapeshifting and irrepressible creativity produced one of the most sprawling, fascinating lives of our time."


Review

This is one of the best collective-voices biographies I have read in a long time, a compilation of detailed and sometimes-wild quotes relating to Bowie’s numerous distinct phases, musical and otherwise. Life runs from Bowie’s childhood and art-focused adolescence to his last days in New York, when he released his final album Blackstar (2016), days before his death. This is an excellent read if you are a Bowie fan.

Gold Dust Woman: A Biography of Stevie Nicks by Stephen Davis

(hb; 2017: biography)

From the inside flap

"Stevie Nicks is a legend of rock, but her energy and magnetism sparked new interest in this icon. At sixty-nine, she's one of the most glamorous creatures rock has known, and the rare woman who's a real rock 'n' roller.

"Gold Dust Woman gives "the gold standard of rock biographers" (The Boston Globe) his ideal topic: Nicks' work and life are equally sexy and interesting, and Davis delves deeply into each, unearthing fresh details from new, intimate interviews and interpreting them to present a rich new portrait of the star. Just as Nicks (and Lindsey Buckingham) gave Fleetwood Mac the 'shot of adrenaline' they needed to become real rock stars--according to Christine McVie--Gold Dust Woman is vibrant with stories and with a life lived large and hard:
--How Nicks and Buckingham were asked to join Fleetwood Mac and how they turned the band into stars
--The affairs that informed Nicks' greatest songs
--Her relationships with the Eagles' Don Henley and Joe Walsh, and with Fleetwood himself
--Why Nicks married her best friend's widower
--Her dependency on cocaine, drinking and pot, but how it was a decade-long addiction to Klonopin that almost killed her
-- Nicks' successful solo career that has her still performing in venues like Madison Square Garden
--The cult of Nicks and its extension to chart-toppers like Taylor Swift and the Dixie Chicks "

Review

Gold is a good, fast-moving and informative read about the mystically-themed singer, whose successful career spans more than four decades. Davis deftly captures the sense of drama, love and other emotions that imbued her thus-far dealings with Fleetwood Mac and others, while keeping the writing and timeline relatively light and lively. Gold is a book worth reading if you are a fan of Nicks/Fleetwood Mac.

Bruce, by Peter Ames Carlin

(hb; 2012: biography)


From the inside flap:

"For more than four decades, Bruce Springsteen has reflected the heart and soul of America with a career that includes twenty Grammy Awards, more than 120 million albums sold, two Golden Globes, and an Academy Award.  He has also become an influential voice in American culture and politics, inspiring President Barack Obama to admit: 'I'm the president, but he's the Boss.'

"Built from years of research and unparalleled access to its subject and his inner circle, Bruce presents the most revealing account yet of a man laden with family tragedy, a tremendous dedication to his artistry, and an all-consuming passion for fame and influence.  With this book, the E Street Band members finally bare their feelings about their abrupt dismissal in 1989, and how Springsteen's ambivalence nearly capsized their 1999 reunion.  Carlin. . . traces Springsteen's often harrowing personal life: from his lower working-class childhood in Freehold, New Jersey, through his stubborn climb to fame and tangled romantic life, and finally to his quest to conquer the demons that nearly destroyed his father."


Review:

Bruce is an excellent, hard-to-set down biography about an extraordinary man/musician, warts and all.

This is a must-own for any Springsteen fan, as well as one of the best rock bios I've read in a long while.

Quentin Tarantino: The Man, The Myths and His Movies, by Wensley Clarkson

(hb; 2007: biography)

From the inside flap:

"Quentin Tarantino is the most exciting and fascinating film director of recent years. Since he exploded on the screen with the release of Resevoir Dogs, he is one of the few film movie makers to combine critical success and box office clout. With more than a hundred interviews with colleagues, close friends and family, author Wensley Clarkson explores the enigmatic cinematic legend in depth.

"Born in 1963, Tarantino was a film buff from an early age and determined to join the industry, he studied, wrote scripts and polished his already geeky vast knowledge of all things cinematic by working in a video store. True Romance's screenplay was sold early on, but it was the dazzling Resevoir Dogs that was to be his debut and a movie which stunned the world. The hits kept coming with Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown and Kill Bill."

Review:

Solid, engaging, needs-to-be-updated biography - there's not a lot that's new here for Tarantino fans who have followed his press, but it's a good read, with occasional, interesting tidbits (e.g., Christopher Walken, not Michael Madsen, was Tarantino's first choice for Mr. Blonde, the ear-slicing cop-hater in Resevoir Dogs).

Worth checking out from the library, if you're looking for something light and entertaining to read.

Old Gods Almost Dead by Stephen Davis

(pb; 2001, 2002: biography)

From the back cover 

"The saga of the Rolling Stones is the central rock mythology. From their debut as the intermission band at London's Marquee Club in 1962 through their 2002/2003 world tour, the Rolling Stones have defined a musical genre and experienced godlike adulation, quarrels, addiction, legal traumas, and descents into madness and death - while steadfastly refusing to fade away. Now, Stephen Davis, the New York Times best-selling author who has covered the Stones for three decades, presents their whole story, replete with vivid details on the Stones's musical successes - and personal excesses."


Review

Intimate, electrifying read about the Stones - their personalities (and inherent flaws), their music (varied in its influences, sometimes groundbreaking, sometimes not) and their lives.

One of the best rock bios I've read in a long while. Worth owning, this - perhaps one of the most comprehensive Stones/rock bios I've ever read.

Blood & Thunder: The Life & Art of Robert E. Howard by Mark Finn

(pb; 2006: biography. Introduction by Joe R. Lansdale)

From the back cover:

"Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Cimmerian, Solomon Kane, King Kull, and many other characters helped define the genre of heroic fantasy, lived all of his thirty years in the small town of Cross Plains, Texas. While his books remain continually in print, Howard himself has fallen into obscurity. The details of his personal life have become mired in speculation, half-truth, and lies. This engaging biography traces the roots of his writing, correcting many long-standing misconceptions, and takes on a tour of Howard's world as he saw it best: through his own incomparable imagination."

Review:

This is a solid biography that keeps true to its themes (Howard was considered a social misfit within his longtime Texas town; Howard's larger-than-life characters were exaggerated imaginings of rugged Texas men that Howard grew up around; and Howard was a multi-genre writer - humor, fantasy, Westerns - whose non-fantasy works overshadows his other well-written works).

Finn's writing doesn't gets bogged down in superfluous dissections of Howard's work, nor does Finn wallow in unnecessary details regarding Howard's tragedy-truncated life: this makes for a fast-flowing, intriguing book.

Good read, worth owning if you're a fan of Howard's writing.

Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith by Andrew Wilson

(pb; 2003: biography)

From the back cover:

"The life of Patricia Highsmith, author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley, was as secretive and unusual as that of many of the characters who people her 'peerlessly disturbing' thrillers and short stories. In Beautiful Shadow, the first biography of Highsmith, British journalist Andrew Wilson mines the vast archives of diaries, notebooks, and letters the writer left behind, astonishing in their candor and detail. He draws on interviews with her closest friends and colleagues, as well as some of her many lovers, and traces Highsmith's literary roots in the work of Poe, noir and existentialism, whose influence distinguished Highsmith's writing so startlingly from more ordinary thrillers. The result is both a serious critical biography and one that reveals much about a brilliant and contradictory woman, one who despite her acclaim and affairs always maintained her solitude."


Review:

This is one of the best literary biographies I've ever read.

Wilson show Highsmith -- a bristling, often seemingly depressed and private being of contradictions -- for all her flaws and glories. Born on January 19, 1921 (the same birthdate of one of her main writing influences, Edgar Allan Poe, years prior) in Fort Worth, Texas, she quickly realized she was different than those around her, including her family. She knew at an early age that she was romantically attracted to girls, an attraction that led her into more than a few tortured relationships, and impelled her to publish her only blatantly-lesbian novel, Carol, in 1952, under the nom de plume Claire Morgan. (This landmark book -- its ending doesn't conform to the usual "pulp lesbian" novels of that time -- was re-published, over thirty years later, under Highsmith's name, and re-titled The Price of Salt.)

Young Highsmith also realized that she was fascinated by crime stories, especially ones rife with dark ironies and twisted personalities. Psychological, sometimes pseudo-political crime thrillers became her trademark, making up many of the thirty-four books she published in her lifetime. (It was these elements which caused many American publishers and readers to be repelled by her works: her misanthropy, which dictated many of her actions and words, was laid bare in her existential stories. In Europe and other parts of the world, she was better received, commercially and awards-wise.)

American readers' discomfort with Highsmith was reciprocated: she often reviled what America, with its political witch hunts, political and social uptightness, and materialism, stood for, and she wasn't afraid to write about it in her novels. Yet, ironically, many of her core beliefs and attitudes, were, in a twisty way, based on her American childhood.

Privately, she could be an exceedingly difficult, Type-A, financially-stingy person -- judging by what many of her ex-lovers, acquaintances and long-time friends have said of her in interviews, many of which were told exclusively to biographer Andrew Wilson; but she could also be incredibly shy, charming and kind, quietly lending money to friends in need, while moving constantly moving around the world: France, Switzerland, England were her dour playgrounds. She also enjoyed meeting new people, despite her media-"reclusive" -- read: private -- personality.

Wilson captures well all these sides of Highsmith, at once sympathetic and honest. Wilson's sense of flow is sure, always interesting; he shows enough details to back up his portrayal(s) of Highsmith, never verging into didactic overkill (as some biographers are inclined to do). In this regard, this reads more like a lively fiction novel about a real person than a standard biography of a distinctive, talented writer.

Highsmith died on February 4, 1995, of complications arising from her aplastic anemia. The creator of the "whydunit, in which an interest in the criminal and criminal psychology replaces the puzzle" (as one critic from The Times described her work) was seventy-four years old.

Check this out.

Rollin' with Dre: The Unauthorized Account, by Bruce Williams with Donnell Alexander

(hb; 2008: memoir)

From the inside flap:

"As Dre's confidant and the problem-solver to a stable of artists and others who came to know him as 'Uncle Bruce,' Williams was either there when the action went down or close enough to feel the hollowpoints whiz by: Dre perfecting the gangsta era's signature sound displayed on his highly influential The Chronic and its Snoop Dogg-helmed follow-up, Doggystyle; getting out from under Death Row Records, the label Dre co-founded with impresario Suge Knight; launching the careers of Eminem, 50 Cent, and The Game.

"Williams lays it out in black and white, from dish on Tupac Shakur's chaotic rise and fall to the deadly feud between The Row (formerly Death Row Records) and the East Coast MCs and bigshots, from Suge's legal battles to Dre's reconciliation with Eazy-E before E's untimely demise from AIDS, from the hard-won 'overnight' successes of Snoop and Eminem to what it was like rollin' with giants and legends-in-the-making -- and living the life (and bearing the burdens) as a bona-fide master of the game."

Review:

Engaging, solid read. Williams, a former soldier and former prison guard, comes off as a smart, level-headed individual who found himself befriending, and later working for, Andre "Dr. Dre" Young, who, while a genius DJ/producer at the mixing board, was disconnected from the day-to-day realities surrounding him. . . realities that Williams dealt with, on Dre's behalf, for fifteen years. These realities ranged from setting up parties, to chilling out "wilding" (out of control) friends and business associates. One business associate Williams was careful not to offend, but not kowtow to, was Marion "Suge" Knight, the shady, drug-dealing thug who ran the record company Death Row Records; Knight's strong arm tactics later wound Knight up in a prison. Williams also dealt with less volatile personalities, like rapper/lyricist The D.O.C. (aka, Tracy Curry), Tupac (who, less volatile than Knight, adopted the wild attitude of those around him), 50 Cent (aka, Curtis Jackson), The Game, and Eminem (aka, Marshall Mathers, a sensitive mostly-nice kid with a sharp tongue).

In between the gangsta-tale telling, Williams (with Alexander's help) sketches in changes in his own life, about how he went from being wowed by the opulent lifestyle of the rappers (but not the rappers themselves -- bear in mind, Williams had dealt with tough guys in the military and prison) and being a playa of women, to meeting his wife, Vivian, becoming a responsible, happy father of three, and becoming an L.A. club co-owner (with his wife).

He also talks about his friendship with Dre, how it waxed and waned over time. Williams, however, never talks bad about Dre, aside from being sad about opportunities that Dre and other promising friends/rappers lost when Dre dropped the ball in certain business and personal situations. Mostly, Williams, who never comes off as self important -- he shows himself as a witness to events, not a major player -- just seems grateful for the experiences and people around him who helped him get to where he is today: that's a large part of what makes this such a good read, besides the tight editing and the occasionally salacious tale-telling.

Good read, this. Check it out.

Jackal by John Follain

(hb; 1998: biography) From the inside flap: “On an August night in 1994 French counterespionage officers seized the world's most-wanted terrorist from a villa in the Sudan. After more than two decades on the run, Carlos 'the Jackal' had finally been caged. For years he had murdered and bombed his way to notoriety, evading capture thanks to powerful backers and the blunders of Western secret services. Jackal is the definitive biography of this self-proclaimed 'professional revolutionary,' ladies' man, and cold-blooded killer. Setting his story against the larger political picture of the time, it exposes how the Soviet bloc and certain Arab regimes sponsored terrorist actions for their own ends during the Cold War. The tale of Carlos's exploits, including his most daring coup – the kidnapping of eleven OPEC oil ministers in Vienna in 1975 – crackles with suspense, deception, and violence to rival the best-selling fiction of Le Carre and Forsyth. Tracing Carlos's evolution from his childhood in Venezuela to London, Moscow, Paris, East Berlin, and the Middle East, Jackal uses previously untapped sources, including the archives of the East German secret police and the files of France's judicial investigations into Carlos's crimes, to tell his fully story for the first time. “Jackal reveals the web of intrigue, blackmail, and fear that guaranteed Carlos's survival, the helping hand of Colonel Qadhafi, and the true nature of the 'Kremlin Connections.' John Follain shows how the CIA and French intelligence issues their agents a license to kill in their efforts to stop Carlos; how his bravado, combined with events leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, forced him out of the Communist fold; and how betrayal and revenge sealed in a secret pact between France and his masters brought about his downfall...” Review: Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, born October 12, 1949, in Caracas, Venezuela, became famous in 1975 when a reporter, investigating a Rue Toullier apartment (where Sanchez had lived, and later shot three cops, killing two, wounding the third), noticed one of the novels sitting on a bookshelf: Frederick Forsyth's 1971 thriller, The Day of the Jackal. Sanchez had already been using the nom de guerre Carlos, as suggested by one of Palestinian employers, since 1970, but it wasn't until that 1975 attack that Ramirez became known to international security services, and the public as “Carlos the Jackal,” as he was named by that sharp reporter. Carlos's career as a “revolutionary” officially began in December 1973, when he bungled the ordered assassination of Joseph Edward Sieff, a prominent London Jewish businessman – Sieff was wounded, but survived. Prior to that, Carlos, son of a revolution-minded father and an intensely Catholic mother, had spent a year or two in Palestinian training camps, learning how to build bombs, use various guns, and utilize psychological terror. Follain's succinct yet descriptive writing and characterizations of the events and players in Carlos's life keeps the true-life tale moving along briskly. Near the end, the pace slows a bit as the author reveals details about Carlos's trial (which focused on the infamous 1975 Rue Toullier shootings), but it's still semi-interesting. Worthwhile read, especially if you're fans of Robert Ludlum's Bourne trilogy (Ludlum's Carlos, though notably fictionalized, still bears a faint thematic resemblance to the real-life Carlos), or Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal.