As rockers age they like to publish their autobiographies. Here are nine, in order of best to worst
1. Rod Stewart (Rod: the autobiography). He’s funny! Rod does not take himself seriously and is a great story teller. He does not bore you with a long description of his childhood. I’m not a huge fan of his post Faces music but it was easy to like him. To appreciate the book you should know who The Faces were and have heard of Jeff Beck and Maggie May. No need to have an in depth knowledge of Rod’s material from the 80s, 90s or beyond. He has excellent aside chapters on topics such as model trains and football. He’s set it up so these are easy to skip.
2. Mike Love (Good vibrations, my life as a Beach Boy). I like listening to the Beach Boys but am not a huge fan. Nonetheless, this was a very entertaining book. They’ve had lots of drama with rather different versions in other media. Mike Love co-wrote many of their top hits with Brian Wilson but Wilson’s father Murray surreptitiously took control of their publishing rights. For many songs, Love was not listed as co-author and received no royalties. Meanwhile, Brian may or may not have been complicit. He kept assuring Love he’d get songwriting credit and apparently knew what his father was up to. However, by the late sixties Brian Wilson was so out of it after heavy drug use that he may not have had any idea what was going on. The Beach Boys get into Transcendental Mediation and Love gets invited by Maharishi Yogi to his ashram in Rishikesh, India. He’s also invited rock stars like The Beatles and Donovan hoping they’ll become instructors. A good time is had by all. Then there is the tale of Dennis Wilson and Charles Manson. This is spooky. Manson is trying to get into the music business; The Beach Boys have him in the studio, don’t do anything for him except record one of his songs and claim it as their own. Manson and his entourage of babes make themselves at home in Dennis’s house. Eventually, Dennis moves out and rents another house. Later, their collaborator Terry Melcher moves in. He is the son of Doris Day. When she finds out he’s living in the house Dennis rented and Manson is on the prowl she gets him out of there. Then the house is let to Roman Polanksi. The Manson Family comes calling, looking for Dennis(?), for Melcher(?), but are happy to butcher Polanski’s family instead. Yowsa! I’m glad Manson is dead or I’d be having nightmares. Finally, there is the saga of the very involved lawsuit by Mike Love against Brian Wilson to get publishing rights. He wins and can claim damages to about $100 million. He has Brian give him $5 million. Although he’s the ultimate California flake, into horoscopes and other wacky things, we can’t help but love Love.
3. David Clayton Thomas (Blood, Sweat and Tears). Of all the autobiographies I’ve posted reviews for here, this is the only one that brought me to tears. Some people think that if they did something as an adult that made them famous then everyone will be interested in their perfectly ordinary childhood. The worst offender here is Keith Richards. Clayton Thomas spends a lot of his book on his childhood and teen years but it may well be the best part of the story. His father was a mentally damaged World War Two vet and alcoholic (or just a very nasty asshole) and he made life very unpleasant for David, who even changed his last name to escape his father’s shadow. His tale of juvenile delinquency, reform school, and prison is riveting and terribly sad. You can get a summary in his song “Burwash” from his 2019 album Say Somethin’. After prison, he got over a tough beginning, eventually graduating from street performance on Yonge Street in Toronto to playing the bars; then the Yorkville coffee houses and finally to Greenwich Village in New York. It wasn’t easy and Clayton Thomas was a hard working guy. The ride to the top of the charts with Blood, Sweat and Tears is glossed over rather quickly. The rest of the book is anticlimactic, as he spends three decades on the has been circuit rehashing his early songs in increasingly crummy venues. When he finally throws off the shackle of those BS&T hits and emerges as a solo performer, it gives the book an uplifting finale.
4. Roger Daltrey (Thanks a lot, Mr. Kibblewhite). Daltrey does not dwell especially on The Who. He seems to be a very decent, hard working guy. He’s quite modest and often quite funny.
5. Pete Townshend (Who I am). Pete is the “thinking man” of rock and is pretty serious about things, especially sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and religion. To enjoy his book you have to realise this is not a history of The Who. Various Who folk appear in the book, of course, but this is about Pete. I’m a big fan of The Who and Pete’s solo work so this was an important book for me. If you don’t know much about the music then this book probably won’t do much for you.
6. Dave Davies (Kink). Dave comes across as a very sympathetic character, constantly tormented by his evil older brother Ray. Well, he can tell the story however he likes. This book is best for ardent Kinks fans.
7. Keith Richards (Life). He’s got some great stories to tell, starting with the prologue. But, and this is a big but, he goes on and on in boring detail about his uninteresting childhood. Best to skip these pages. He should have read Rod’s book first. So, some dull stuff to wade through but no one has been where Keith Richards has been. Also, very helpful if you’re thinking of getting into drugs.
8. Neil Peart (Roadshow: Landscape With Drums). Neil is the best drummer in the best band (Rush!) going today but his writing is a bit on the boring side. He comes across as a bit of a wiener. For example, he decides to travel to Rush gigs by motorcycle. Okay, fine. He also decides to visit U.S. National Parks along the way to get their special passport stamped. Okay, fine. But, he doesn’t even bother going into the parks. He just rides up to the gate, gets his passport stamped and rides off. At the Everglades NP they tell him it’s actually pretty cool inside but he won’t go in. Good anecdote: He’s in Switzerland and goes into a shop and says he needs a lock for his bicycle. The shopkeeper tells him he doesn’t need a lock in Switzerland. Neil says he’s riding into Italy the next day. The shopkeeper says, “No lock can help you there.”
9. Eric Clapton (Clapton: the autobiography). Clapton is my favourite guitarist. That doesn’t mean he can write a good book. The problem here is he preaches. He did this much drugs and did this much drinking back in the bad old 70s and 80s but now he’s clean. Hallelujah. Boring.
eriktalvila 