Rock & Roll Books

• Rock & Roll Books

  All the Townes Van Zandt, Texas Troubadours, Southern hip-hop, Zen punk, and Phil Spector, Warren Zevon, and Joe Strummer you can shake a bottle of sunblock at

• To Live's to Fly: The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt

  BY DOUG FREEMAN

• He's a Rebel: Phil Spector: Rock and Roll's Legendary Producer;
  Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector

  BY AUDRA SCHROEDER

• Texas Troubadours

  BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ

• Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life & Times of Doc Pomus

  BY SHAWN BADGLEY

• Shout, Sister, Shout! The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe

  BY MARGARET MOSER

• Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer, The Definitive Biography

  BY DAN OKO

• Babylon's Burning: From Punk to Grunge

  BY MARGARET MOSER

• I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon

  BY JIM CALIGIURI

• Nirvana: The Biography

  BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY

• Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music

  BY DAVID LYNCH

• Sit Down and Shut Up: Punk Rock Commentaries;
  My So-Called Punk: How Neo-Punk Stage-Dived Into the Mainstream;
  Punk Love

  BY DARCIE STEVENS

• Third Coast: Outkast, Timbaland, & How Hip Hop Became a Southern Thing;
  Pimps Up, Ho's Down: Hip Hop's Hold on Young Black Women;
  To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic

  BY GRAHAM REYNOLDS

• Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life

  BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY

• Modest Mouse: A Pretty Good Read

  BY MELANIE HAUPT

• You Don't Love Me Yet: a novel

  BY JAY TRACHTENBERG

• Inside the Music of Brian Wilson: The Songs, Sounds, and Influences of the Beach Boys' Founding Genius

  BY GREG BEETS

• Jimmy Page: Magus, Musician, Man, an unauthorized biography

  BY AUSTIN POWELL

• Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry

  BY JIM CALIGIURI

• The Rockabilly Legends: They Called It Rockabilly Long Before They Called It Rock and Roll

  BY GRAHAM REYNOLDS

Jimmy Page: Magus, Musician, Man, an unauthorized biography

by George Case

Hal Leonard, 293 pp., $25

Unraveling the occult mythos and lore of Jimmy Page's notoriously enigmatic life is as difficult as deciphering the esoteric meaning of the pagan's infamous Zoso sigil. Magus, Musician, Man aims to elevate the "Wagner of the Telecaster"'s life and work to scholastic level, emphasizing its social and historical context and impact, while providing an accurate account of how the West was won. Case's unauthorized biography traces the virtuoso's trek from session work with Tom Jones and Burt Bacharach and early development alongside fellow Yardbird Jeff Beck into the depths of crippling drug addiction, the death of Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, and finally Page's painful recovery process in the Firm and collaboration with the Black Crowes, paying particular attention to the guitar models and various tunings used throughout. The author's praise of his subject as an extraordinary musician and a visionary producer, worthy of inclusion in David Howard's Sonic Alchemy, is well-grounded, but Case's admitted idolatry undermines the work of other artists and movements in the process and provides little insight into the mystery behind the sorcerer's magick. The song, unfortunately, remains the same.