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Books By Famous Musicians
Not sure, but I suspect that this is a relatively small sub-genre of books. Of course there's a huge quantity of books on music theory, music history, biographies of musicians, etc, etc, but I hope the topic of this thread is more manageable. Off the top of my head I can only think of a handful of famous musicians who have had the time, discipline or inspiration to write a book, but I am prepared to be surprised:
Brian Wilson: Wouldn't It Be Nice John French: Beefheart Through the Eyes of Magic Leonard Cohen: Beautiful Losers Bob Dylan: Tarantula (which generated this huge thread: https://www.musicbanter.com/media/60...tarantula.html) Bob Dylan: Chronicles John Lennon: In His Own Write and A Spaniard In The Works (frequently published in one volume) Gerald Moore: Am I too loud? Eric Clapton: The Autobiography Posh Spice: Learning To Fly So this is an invitation to expand that list, and talk about the books by famous musicians that you've read, would recommend, or have just heard of and wondered about. |
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Derek Bailey - Improvisation
A great look into the way improvisation was and is prevalent in lots of diverse musical styles. Chris Cutler - File Under Popular A collection of essays about mostly experimental music and and its political and societal aspects. Some good stuff there and lots of bands that one should check out. |
I've only read two books by musicians: the memoirs of Keith Richards and Carrie Brownstein
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Can't really go wrong with any of John Cage's books. So far I've read For the Birds and Silence: Lectures and Writings and both were brilliant.
Harry Partch's Genesis of a Music is a pretty enlightening look at microtonality, equal temperament, and music education but it is a damn chewy read that I'd only recommend for those willing to put a lot of effort into it. It was tough for me, at least. Deathconsciousness is a booklet that accompanies the album of the same name by Have a Nice Life. Daniel Barrett of HANL repeated this concept with the self-titled debut from his project Giles Corey. I've yet to read either. Quote:
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What about Violent J's Behind The Paint?
He talks about how he used to throw bricks at prostitutes and the time he sexually assaulted Sheryl Crow at the final Woodstock. |
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i) Relief that it wasn't Tarantula vol II ii) Surprise at how accessible and unpretentious Bob's writing was iii) Disappointment at how little it ultimately revealed about the great man __________________________________________________ _________ Quote:
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__________________________________________________ ______ I'd forgotten that Keith Richards wrote a book, Marie. Thanks for the reminder. His book falls into what is probably the biggest category of musicians' books: Memoirs and autobiogs. And if your journals get published posthumously, does that count as writing a book? If so, Kurt Cobain deserves a mention here too. To judge from grindy and Frownland's reading, the next category could be Musical Analysis and Manifestos, with a last category of Other. I don't know how big the "Other" category might be, but it includes a fair amount of self-indulgent material that probably doesn't appeal much today. That certainly describes Cohen's Beautiful Losers, which I once attempted to read - and here are two samples from books by J Lennon and J Morrison, whose books at least share the great virtue of brevity: https://beatlesblogger.files.wordpre...rite-pages.jpg...https://41.media.tumblr.com/6215d3b1...2o1_r2_500.jpg |
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https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon...._AC_SY400_.jpg I'm getting the first book in the mail soon, and I've read a good portion of the second. I haven't been able to get ahold of the David Berman's works until after he passed away, but his lyrics are great, and I've read really good things about both of his books of poetry. |
Miles’ autobiography really wild
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I forget where I heard this, but Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) allegedly worked on two novels throughout his life that he never finished. I feel like Hey Garland I Dig Your Tweed Coat is an excerpt from one of these unreleased novels because even though his lyrics are always top notch, the imagery in that one is viscerally vivid in a more prose-y way for Beefheart.
Similarly, billy woods has the lyric "Too scared to write the book, took it, put it in the hook of a song. No one listened to it, looks like I wasn't wrong" and hopefully he comes through with something because he's definitely got the mind to write a real classic. Quote:
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Of course your confusion of judgement is what many of us go through: consumers, critics and artists themselves. In Brian Wilson's autobiog he details a cocaine-fuelled writing frenzy with Van **** Parks one weekend; after some all-nighters of drugs and inspiration, they had no ability to assess the worth of what they'd written. I haven't read "The Lords and New Creatures", but just on that one page I posted, this bit seems very good to me:- We are not constant We are an arrow in flight The sum of the angles of change __________________________________________________ _____________ And as for John Lennon, I should have praised his books more. They are not just brief, they are fun. JL is not trying to be an artist with some exhaulted, portentious message, he's just enjoying the English language, and is a worthy heir to a long tradition going back to Edward Lear and Lewis Carrol. At one pre-internet time I used to regulary dip into his books to enjoy the likes of the following:- Spoiler for Quotes from In His Own Write:
And yes, Frownland, now you mention it, Hey Garland sounds much more like an extract from a story than a song. |
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Have read these over the years and would generally recommend:
Ravi Shankar – Raga Mala Jah Wobble – Memoirs of a Geezer John Lydon – Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs; and Anger Is An Energy Richard Lloyd – Everything Is Combustible Richard Hell – I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp Jim Dickinson – I’m Just Dead, I’m Not Gone Loretta Lynn – Coal Miner’s Daughter Chris Stamey – A Spy In The House Of Loud Johnny Ramone – Commando: The Autobiography of Johnny Ramone Steve Jones – Lonely Boy Sun Ra – This Planet Is Doomed: The Science Fiction Poetry of Sun Ra Chris Difford – Some Fantastic Place Will Carruthers – Playing The Bass With Three Left Hands |
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However: John later had the chance to put his oar in when a woman, while asking for his autograph, remarked, “I never thought I would stoop to asking for such an autograph.” To which John stooped to reply, “And I never thought I would be forced to sign my name for someone like you.” :laughing: |
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No, I didn't know that story about Lennon's speech at Foyles. Surely B Epstien should've prepped him about what to expect.
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It's been modernised since, but Foyles used to be a confusing labrynith covering 4 floors and a basement; you'd get lost trying to find the section you wanted, then get lost again trying to find your way out! Did you ever get a chance to go there, ribbons? Quote:
https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1...05l/527509.jpg ...which is right on topic for this thread , of course, and a good excuse to post this charming song, wth a gallery of great photos:- |
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And I've realized that I misspelled Foyles in my earlier post! We Yanks are much more liberal (greedy?) than the Brits in the placement of the possessive apostrophe in business and place names. :) Good catch on Jim Morrison's "thievery" of Richard Fariña's title, Been Down So Long It Looks Up To Me. You have piqued my interest in that book - I've heard about it for years but never managed to read it. Thanks for sharing that lovely song and video, as well. I've watched a few YouTube videos of Richard & Mimi appearing on Pete Seeger's show Rainbow Quest. I like Richard's dulcimer playing (almost an American-raga sound), and Mimi's vocals are so similar to sister Joan! Time to dig deeper into Richard & Mimi's music. :cool: |
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The Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons by Igor Stravinsky A series of lectures that Stravinsky presented to Harvard. There's a great deal of insight as is to be expected, but it's also weirdly authoritarian and reminds me a lot of the "dancing about architecture" trope whenever he digs into aesthetics specifically. The language, flow, and style of it is rough too, but I'll let the translator take the blame for that. Valuable for musicians and Stravinsky heads. |
I think Patty Smith is the only musician whose books I've read. I loved Just kids.
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Theory of Harmony by Arnold Schoenberg A textbook on harmony and everything surrounding it by the master. Better than most theory books I've looked at since Schoenberg tries to show what music is capable of as opposed to looking in the rearview mirror and dictating what music has done. Stravinsky should've stuck to doing and not teaching but Schoenberg is boss at both. A must for musicians really, but readable enough for nonmusician fans of Schoenberg to take a gander. If you've read Cage's work, this would be a good supplement because you can spot some of Schoenberg's influence on his student. https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/com...44l/922398.jpg Orientations: Collected Writings by Pierre Boulez An incredibly thorough look at historical approaches to music and where it's going, informed by his own compositions and those that he's conducted. Received this on christmas so I've only taken a glance at it but have high hopes. Spoiler for table of contents:
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Nick Cave - And the Ass Saw the Angel and also The Death of Bunny Munro
Steve Earle - Dog Roses and I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive |
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