On My Radar:

Blood: A Memoir
by Allison Moorer
Da Capo Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Mobile, Alabama, 1986. A fourteen-year-old girl is awakened by the unmistakable sound of gunfire. On the front lawn, her father has shot and killed her mother before turning the gun on himself. Allison Moorer would grow up to be an award-winning musician, with her songs likened to “a Southern accent: eight miles an hour, deliberate, and very dangerous to underestimate” (Rolling Stone). But that moment, which forever altered her own life and that of her older sister, Shelby, has never been far from her thoughts. Now, in her journey to understand the unthinkable, to parse the unknowable, Allison uses her lyrical storytelling powers to lay bare the memories and impressions that make a family, and that tear a family apart.

Blood delves into the meaning of inheritance and destiny, shame and trauma — and how it is possible to carve out a safe place in the world despite it all. With a foreword by Allison’s sister, Grammy winner Shelby Lynne, Blood reads like an intimate journal: vivid, haunting, and ultimately life-affirming.

On My Radar:

Bring It On Home: Peter Grant, Led Zeppelin, and Beyond — The Story of Rock's Greatest Manager
by Mark Blake
Da Capo Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Peter Grant is the most famous music manager of all time. Often acknowledged as the “fifth member of Led Zeppelin,” Grant’s story has appeared in fragments across countless Zeppelin biographies, but none has explored who this brilliant and intuitive manager yet flawed and sometimes dangerous man truly was. No one has successfully captured the scope of his personality or his long-lasting impact on the music business. Acclaimed author and journalist Mark Blake seeks to rectify that.

Bring It On Home is the first book to tell the complete uncensored story of this industry giant. With support from Grant’s family interviews with Led Zeppelin’s surviving band members, and access to Grant’s extensive archive and scores of unpublished material, including his never-before-published final interview, Blake sheds new light on the history of Led Zeppelin and on the wider story of rock music in the 1960s and ’70s.

Full of new insights into Grant’s early life as an actor, wrestler, and road manager for rock ‘n’ roll pioneers Chuck Berry and Little Richard; the formation of Led Zeppelin; his seclusion following the demise of the band; and his recovery from substance abuse, Bring It On Home reveals a man who, after the extraordinary highs and lows of a career in rock ‘n’ roll, found peace and happiness in a more ordinary life. It is a celebration, a cautionary tale, and a compelling human drama.

On My Radar:

Slugfest: Inside the Epic 50-Yeat Battle Between Marvel and DC
by Reed Tucker
Da Capo Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

THEY ARE THE TWO TITANS OF THE COMIC BOOK INDUSTRY--the Coke and Pepsi of superheroes--and for more than 50 years, Marvel and DC have been locked in an epic battle for spandex supremacy. At stake is not just sales, but cultural relevancy and the hearts of millions of fans.

To many partisans, Marvel is now on top. But for much of the early 20th century, it was DC that was the undisputed leader, having launched the American superhero genre with the 1938 publication of Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel's Superman strip. DC's titles sold millions of copies every year, and its iconic characters were familiar to nearly everyone in America. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman--DC had them all.

And then in 1961, an upstart company came out of nowhere to smack mighty DC in the chops. With the publication of Fantastic Four #1, Marvel changed the way superheroes stories were done. Writer-editor Stan Lee, artists Jack Kirby, and the talented Marvel bullpen subsequently unleashed a string of dazzling new creations, including the Avengers, Hulk, Spider-Man, the X-Men, and Iron Man.

Marvel's rise forever split fandom into two opposing tribes. Suddenly the most telling question you could ask a superhero lover became "Marvel or DC?"

Slugfest, the first book to chronicle the history of this epic rivalry into a single, in-depth narrative, is the story of the greatest corporate rivalry never told. Complete with interviews with the major names in the industry, Slugfest reveals the arsenal of schemes the two companies have employed in their attempts to outmaneuver the competition, whether it be stealing ideas, poaching employees, planting spies, or launching price wars. The feud has never completely disappeared, and it simmers on a low boil to this day. With DC and Marvel characters becoming global icons worth billions, if anything, the stakes are higher now than ever before.

On My Radar:

Goodnight L.A.: The Rise and Fall of Classic Rock - The Untold Story from inside the Legendary Recording Studios
by Kent Hartman
Da Capo Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Before disco, punk, hair metal, rap, and eventually grunge took it all away, the music scene in Los Angeles was dominated by rock 'n' roll. If a group wanted to hit it big, L.A. was the place to be. But in addition to the bands themselves finding their footing, their albums also needed some guidance. That came from a group of dedicated producers and engineers working in a cadre of often dilapidated-looking buildings that contained some of the greatest recording studios the music industry has ever known.

Within the windowless walls of these well-hidden studios, legends-to-be such as Foreigner, Fleetwood Mac, Pat Benatar, Boston, the Eagles, the Grateful Dead, Chicago, Linda Ronstadt, Santana, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Loggins and Messina, REO Speedwagon, and dozens more secretly created their album masterpieces: Double Vision. Rumours. Hotel California. Terrapin Station. Damn the Torpedoes. Hi Infidelity. However, the truth of what went on during these recording sessions has always remained elusive. But not anymore.

Longtime music-business insider Kent Hartman has filled Goodnight, L.A. with troves of never-before-told stories about the most prolific and important period and place in rock 'n' roll history. With music producer Keith Olsen and guitarist Waddy Wachtel as guides to the journey and informed by new, in-depth interviews with classic rock artists, famed record producers, and scores of others, Goodnight, L.A. reveals what went into the making of some of the best music of the past forty years. Readers will hear how some of their favorite albums and bands came to be, and ultimately how fame, fortune, excess, and a shift in listener demand brought it all tumbling down.

On My Radar:

I am Brian Wilson: A Memoir
by Brian Wilson with Ben Greenman
Da Capo Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

They say there are no second acts in American lives, and third acts are almost unheard of. That’s part of what makes Brian Wilson’s story so astonishing.

As a cofounding member of the Beach Boys in the 1960s, Wilson created some of the most groundbreaking and timeless popular music ever recorded. With intricate harmonies, symphonic structures, and wide-eyed lyrics that explored life’s most transcendent joys and deepest sorrows, songs like “In My Room,” “God Only Knows,” and “Good Vibrations” forever expanded the possibilities of pop songwriting. Derailed in the 1970s by mental illness, drug use, and the shifting fortunes of the band, Wilson came back again and again over the next few decades, surviving and—finally—thriving. Now, for the first time, he weighs in on the sources of his creative inspiration and on his struggles, the exhilarating highs and the debilitating lows.

I Am Brian Wilson reveals as never before the man who fought his way back to stability and creative relevance, who became a mesmerizing live artist, who forced himself to reckon with his own complex legacy, and who finally completed Smile, the legendary unfinished Beach Boys record that had become synonymous with both his genius and its destabilization. Today Brian Wilson is older, calmer, and filled with perspective and forgiveness. Whether he’s talking about his childhood, his bandmates, or his own inner demons, Wilson’s story, told in his own voice and in his own way, unforgettably illuminates the man behind the music, working through the turbulence and discord to achieve, at last, a new harmony.

Out This Week:

Digging Up Mother: A Love Story
by Doug Stanhope
Da Capo Press
Hardcover

I just finished this book last night, and it is one of the most thorough, warts-and-all celebrity memoirs I've ever seen.  A enjoyable, if sometimes uncomfortable, read.  If you are a fan of Doug Stanhope, or even if you're not, you should read his memoir.  I have a feeling it'll stay with me for a while. -- BookDude

From the publisher's website:

Doug Stanhope is one of the most critically acclaimed and stridently unrepentant comedians of his generation. What will surprise some is that he owes so much of his dark and sometimes uncomfortably honest sense of humor to his mother, Bonnie. It was the cartoons in HER Hustler magazine issues that molded the beginnings of his comedic journey, long before he was old enough to know what to do with the actual pornography. It was Bonnie who recited Monty Python sketches with him, who introduced him to Richard Pryor at nine years old, and who rescued him from a psychologist when he brought that brand of humor to school. And it was Bonnie who took him along to all of her AA meetings where Doug undoubtedly found inspiration for his own story-telling.

Bonnie’s own journey from bar-tending to truck driving, massage therapy, elder abuse, and stand-up comedy and acting never stopped her from being Doug’s genuine number one fan. So when Bonnie’s alcoholic, hoarding life finally came to an end, so many weird adventures later in rural Arizona, it was inevitable that Doug and Bonnie would be together for one last journey.

Digging Up Mother follows Doug's absurd, chaotic, and often obscene life as it intersects with that of his best friend, biggest fan, and love of his life—his mother Bonnie. And it all starts with her death—one of the most memorable and amazing farewells you will ever read.

In My TBR Stack:

81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska's Frozen Wilderness
by Brian Murphy
Da Capo Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Shortly before Christmas in 1943, five Army aviators left Alaska’s Ladd Field on a routine flight to test their hastily retrofitted B-24 Liberator in harsh winter conditions. The mission ended in a crash that claimed all but one—Leon Crane, a city kid from Philadelphia with no wilderness experience. With little more than a parachute for cover and an old Boy Scout knife in his pocket, Crane now found himself alone in subzero temperatures. Crane knew, as did the Ladd Field crews who searched unsuccessfully for the crash site, that his chance of survival dropped swiftly with each passing day.

But Crane did find a way to stay alive in the grip of the Yukon winter for nearly twelve weeks and, amazingly, walked out of the ordeal intact.

81 Days Below Zero recounts, for the first time, the full story of Crane’s remarkable saga. In a drama of staggering resolve and moments of phenomenal luck, Crane learned to survive in the Yukon’s unforgiving wilds. His is a tale of the capacity to endure extreme conditions, intense loneliness, and flashes of raw terror—and emerge stronger than before.

On My Radar:

27: A History of the 27 Club Through the Lives of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse
by Howard Sounes
Da Capo Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

When singer Amy Winehouse was found dead at her London home in 2011, the press inducted her into what Kurt Cobain's mother named the 27 Club. "Now he's gone and joined that stupid club," she said in 1994, after being told that her son, the front man of Nirvana, had committed suicide. "I told him not to..." Kurt's mom was referring to the extraordinary roll call of stars who died at the same young age, including Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison of the Doors. All were talented. All were dissipated. All were 27.

In this haunting book, author Howard Sounes conducts the definitive forensic investigation into the lives and deaths of the six most iconic members of the Club, as well as some lesser known members, to discover what, apart from coincidence, this phenomenon signifies.

In a grimly fascinating journey through the dark side of the music business, Sounes uncovers a common story of excess, madness, and self-destruction. The fantasies, half-truths, and mythologies that have become associated with the Club are debunked. Instead, a clear and compelling narrative emerges, one based on hard facts, that unites these lost souls in both life and death.

In My TBR Stack:

How to Be a Man (And Other Illusions)
by Duff McKagan
Da Capo Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The cofounder of Guns N' Roses, Velvet Revolver, and Walking Papers shares what the hard-knock rock life has taught him about how to be a good dude (in spite of it all).

One wouldn't usually turn to a veteran of Guns N' Roses for advice on how to live, but Duff McKagan is not a typical rock musician. As chronicled in the New York Times bestseller It's So Easy (and other lies), Duff got sober at thirty, went back to school, got smart about money, fell in love, became a father, and got his life back on track. Through trial and considerable error, Duff has learned to strike the balance between family and work, travel and contentment, financial aptitude and sacrifice.

In How to Be a Man (and other illusions), Duff takes the reader into the life of an international rock musician and shares, with disarming candor and humor, the solid life lessons he's learned along the way to success and fulfillment in both his family life and his career. From hard-won advice on such basics as starting with a strong base and staying humble, to techniques on how to stave off depression and transform darker impulses into something productive, How to Be a Man is the ultimate guide to rocking life—not as a dissolute train-wreck "rock star," but as a man destined for success and longevity.

In My TBR Stack:

Alex's Wake: A Voyage of Betrayal and a Journey of Remembrance
Martin Goldsmith
Da Capo Press
Hardcover


From the book jacket:

Alex's Wake is a tale of two parallel journeys undertaken seven decades apart. In the spring of 1939, Alex and Helmut Goldschmidt were two of more than 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany aboard the St. Louis, "the saddest ship afloat" (New York Times). Turned away from Cuba, the United States, and Canada, the St. Louis returned to Europe, a stark symbol of the world's indifference to the gathering Holocaust. The Goldschmidts disembarked in France, where they spent the next three years in six different camps before being shipped to their deaths in Auschwitz.

In the spring of 2011, Alex's grandson, Martin Goldsmith, followed in his relative's footsteps on a six-week journey of remembrance and hope, an irrational quest to reverse their fate and bring himself peace. Alex's Wake movingly recounts the detailed histories of the two journeys, the witnesses Martin encounters for whom the events of the past are a vivid part of a living present, and an intimate, honest attempt to overcome a tormented family legacy.

In Stores Now:

I Never Met a Story I Didn't Like: Mostly True Tall Tales
Todd Snider
Da Capo Press
Trade Paperback

Todd Snider's website



I first heard of Todd Snider when I managed a music store (remember those?) and received a promotional copy of his first CD, "Songs For the Daily Planet."  The cd quickly became a favorite of mine due to the combination of quirky yet poignant songs it contains.  The "big hit" is actually a hidden track (remember those?).  Who does that?

Years later, I met Todd Snider in a Books-A-Million in Nashville.  He was there with his lovely wife buying drinks at the coffee shop inside.  I introduced myself and shook his hand.  As he was leaving, he looked back, made eye contact, and gave a big wave on the way out.

I'm a huge fan.  If you like quirky singer-songwriters and can handle a little twang with your music, give him a listen.

As far as this book goes, I loved it!  If you are already a Todd Snider fan you are required to own it; I'm willing to bet that there are many things you'll learn about Todd inside.  If you are a newcomer to Todd, understand that he is well-known for his penchant for telling long but funny stories in between songs.  This book contains many of those stories, often embellished, but always funny.

From the book jacket:

For years, Todd Snider has been one of the most beloved country-folk singers in the United States, compared to Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, John Prine, and dozens of others. He's become not only a new-century Dylan but a modern-day Will Rogers, an everyman whose intelligence, self-deprecation, experience, and sense of humor make him a uniquely American character. In live performance, Snider's monologues are cheered as much as his songs. But never before has he told the whole story. Running the gamut from personal memoir to shaggy-dog comedy to rueful memories of his troubles and triumphs with drugs and alcohol to sharp-eyed observations from years on the road, I Never Met a Story I Didn't Like is for fans of Snider's music, but also for fans of America itself: the broad, wild country that has produced figures of folk wisdom like Will Rogers, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Tonya Harding, Garrison Keillor, and more. There are storytellers and there are performers and there are stand-up comedians. And then there's Todd Snider, who is all three in one, and something else entirely.

New Nonfiction Hardcovers This Week:

Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion
by Robert Gordon
Bloomsbury USA
Hardcover

The story of Stax Records unfolds like a Greek tragedy. A white brother and sister build a monument to racial harmony in blighted south Memphis during the civil rights movement. Their success soon pits the siblings against each other, and the brother abandons his sister for a visionary African-American partner. Under integrated leadership, Stax explodes as a national player until, Icarus-like, the heights they achieve result in their tragic demise. They fall, losing everything, and the sanctuary they created is torn to the ground. A generation later, Stax is rebuilt brick by brick and is once again transforming disenfranchised youth into stellar young musicians.

Set in the world of 1960s and ‘70s soul music, Respect Yourself is a character-driven story of racial integration, and then of black power and economic independence. It’s about music and musicians—Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, the Staple Singers, and Booker T. and the M.G.’s, Stax’s interracial house band. It’s about a small independent company’s struggle to survive in an increasingly conglomerate-oriented world. And always at the center of the story is Memphis, Tennessee, an explosive city struggling through volatile years. Told by one of our leading music chroniclers, Respect Yourself will be the book to own about one of our most treasured cultural institutions and the city that created it.

27: A History of the 27 Club through the Lives of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse

by Howard Sounes

Da Capo Press

Hardcover

When singer Amy Winehouse was found dead at her London home in 2011, the press inducted her into what Kurt Cobain’s mother named the 27 Club. “Now he’s gone and joined that stupid club,” she said in 1994, after being told that her son, the front man of Nirvana, had committed suicide. “I told him not to….” Kurt’s mom was referring to the extraordinary roll call of iconic stars who died at the same young age. The Big Six are Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison of the Doors, Kurt Cobain and, now, Amy Winehouse. All were talented. All were dissipated. All were 27.

Journalists write about “the curse of the 27 Club” as if there is a supernatural reason for this series of deaths. Others invoke astrology, numerology, and conspiracy theories to explain what has become a modern mystery. In this haunting book, author Howard Sounes conducts the definitive forensic investigation into the lives and deaths of the six most iconic members of the Club, plus another forty-four music industry figures who died at 27, to discover what, apart from coincidence, this phenomenon signifies.

Retro Wednesday:

Little Red: Three Passionate Lives through the Sixties and Beyond

by Dina Hampton
Public Affairs Books
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

In the 1960s, a remarkable crop of students graduated from a small, New York City school renowned for progressive pedagogy and left-wing politics: Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School.

Entering college at the peak of the transformative era we now call The Sixties, three of these "Little Redders" would go on to change the course of American history: Angela Davis, African American intellectual activist and Communist Party member; SDS activist and filmmaker Tom Hurwitz; and Elliott Abrams, who would play a key role in the Republican Neoconservative movement.

Based on extensive original interviews and archival research, Little Red follows these characters' divergent, occasionally intersecting, public and private paths through the seminal events and political struggles of the second half of the twentieth century, from the civil rights movement to the Vietnam War; the Summer of Love to radical feminism; Iran-Contra to Occupy Wall Street.

Dina Hampton is a graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and has worked for more than a decade as a reporter and editor for publications including the New York Times and the Daily News. She is a late 1970s graduate of Little Red and also later served as its alumni director and archivist. She lives in New York City.

Summer of '68: The Season that Changed Baseball - and America - Forever
by Tim Wendel

Da Capo Press
Trade Paperback

publisher website

From barnesandnoble.com:

For baseball fans, 1968 was The Year of the Pitcher. The season was dominated by such legends as Don Drysdale, Denny McLain, Luis Tiant, and Bob Gibson. But it was also a season shaped by national tragedy and sweeping change, rocked by the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and shaken by the violence that erupted at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the riots that raged throughout the summer.

For a select few players, the conflicts of ’68 would spur their performance to remarkable heights, elevating the game around them. And in Detroit--which had burned just the summer before during the worst riot in American history--the city rallied behind a Tigers team that would face off against Bob Gibson’s St. Louis Cardinals, the defending champions, in an amazing World Series for the ages.

Soon everything would change--for baseball and America. But for this one unforgettable season, the country was captivated by the national pastime at the moment it needed the game most.

On My Radar: Wednesday Edition

A Bad Idea I'm About to Do: True Tales of Seriously Bad Judgment and Stunningly Awkward Adventure
by Chris Gethard

Da Capo Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

"If you like underdog stories told by a secret comedy superhero, Chris Gethard is your man. Each story is the perfect combination of hilarious and heartbreaking."—Amy Poehler

 "Chris Gethard is comedy in a fighter's crouch."—Seth Meyers

 "There's truly no poorer judgment than not buying this book. Except maybe diving into a swimming pool full of malaria."—Patton Oswalt

 "Chris Gethard stories are like a roller coaster—at times you are scared, shocked, and ultimately exhilarated by the hilarity each story contains—and once you finish one, you wanna hear another one right away."—Paul Scheer, FX's The League and Adult Swim's NTSF: SD: SUV

  "Chris Gethard tells the amazing stories an eccentric old man would tell . . . if that man had lived his f#@king life with any balls. His stories are hilarious and riveting—but more importantly, real."—Rob Huebel, Adult Swim's Childrens Hospital and MTV's Human Giant

Chris Gethard has often found himself in awkward situations most people, including you, probably would have safely avoided. The good news is now, thanks to this book, you can enjoy the painfully funny consequences of his unfortunate decisions at a safe distance. A Bad Idea I'm About to Do invites readers to join Chris as he navigates an adolescence and adulthood mired in hilariously ill-fated nerdom, and to take comfort in the fact that—as his experiences often prove—things could always be much, much worse