Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974-2001), by Don Felder

I've always loved the Eagles; they are one of the few bands that I regret not getting to hear in person. (I'd dearly like to find a time machine and go back to a show in 1977 when Jimmy Buffet was the opening act!) They are still touring, but not with the same members that created the magic in the 1970's. One of those former members is Don Felder, guitarist and the primary writer of (among others) "Hotel California"—one of the greatest Eagles songs ever.

This biography comes across as fairly honest; Felder doesn't gloss over how poorly he treated his father or first wife, although he does try and justify the behavior a bit. The highlight, of course, is the history of the Eagles that is included along the way. Don Henley and Glenn Frey have terrible reputations (sadly not uncommon with talented musicians; see Eddie Van Halen, Ike Turner, Morrissey, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, ...) and Felder does nothing to clear their names. In 2001 he was fired from the band and subsequently filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination and breach of fiduciary duty. Unfortunately the book only lightly covers this, unlike the great amount of detail that went into the time leading up to the acrimonious split. It isn't clear if the lack of substance here is due to a confidentiality agreement or not wanting to relive uncomfortable memories, but it hurt the overall story quite a bit—almost like reading a mystery with the last chapter missing. Despite being one-sided, I found this to be a compelling read and had me listening to the Eagles on repeat on Spotify.

First Sentence:

We could hear the rumble of the crowd in the dressing room.

For You to See the Stars, by Radney Foster

Radney Foster is a genius. His album Del Rio, TX 1959 is one of those rare records where every single song is brilliant; four of the ten tracks made the Top 40 country charts ("Nobody Wins" was the highest, peaking at #2) but the other six are equally amazing. "A Fine Line" (not one of the four that charted) might be my favorite, but it is honestly difficult to rank them. I wore the CD out when it was released, and it remains a staple in my playlists today. Recently Foster played the Saxon Pub here in Austin (a great venue that attracts singer-songwriters; my wife and I have also seen The Band of Heathens, Walt Wilkins, and The Accidentals among others) and I was finally able to catch him live. Not only did he sing a great set, but he read excerpts from For You to See the Stars, a book of short stories he'd written as a companion to his album of the same name. After the show I snapped up a copy of the book and quickly devoured it and the accompanying music. Out of ten stories, five literally made me cry and one made me laugh out loud. All are exceptional. I truly hope Foster continues to write—both songs and books.

First Sentence (from the Foreword):

The bus was an old Eagle.

Van Halen Rising, by Greg Renoff

I do love me some Van Halen. I've seen them in concert with various lineups nine times and own every album (including a four CD bootleg set). Simply put, I believe they changed the sound of rock and roll and are the best band from this country to ever exist. When I found this book I was intrigued; I came late to Van Halen fandom (Diver Down was my first VH album) so when discovering this band history I realized I didn't know a lot about their history before getting signed. The author does a great job with a very well researched history and the story of how Van Halen became Van Halen is pretty damn interesting!

The Van Halen brothers came from a musical family; their dad was a professional jazz musician (he actually plays the clarinet on "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now") so they came by talent naturally. David Lee Roth was a born showman, but early on was a terrible vocalist. In fact, when he first met Alex and Eddie there was a strong mutual dislike amongst the three; this was obviously eventually overcome but even when they finally got together it was unclear if Roth was going to make it as the front man. (In fact, Ted Templeman who produced the first Van Halen albums seriously considered replacing Roth with another upcoming singer, Sammy Hagar!) Michael Anthony was added initially to provide a fuller vocal sound; in my opinion his spectacular background vocals and harmonies are a big part of what made Van Halen special. (I saw the A Different Kind of Truth tour where Anthony was replaced by Wolfgang Van Halen and the band simply doesn't sound the same.) The book ends in 1978 right after their first world tour (largely opening for a soon-to-be-Ozzy-less Black Sabbath) where Van Halen discovers they owe Warner Brothers $1.2 million for costs incurred on the tour.

While very well done, there are a couple of things that detracted from the story. Of the scores of interviews used to compile the narrative, surprisingly only Michael Anthony was included from the actual band. Anecdotes from the other members appear only as cited works from other publications. And yes, this is the story of the formation of the band (the subtitle is "How A Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal") , but there has been so much drama since their debut with multiple singers and bass players I find myself wanting to read the next volume. Again, this was a great book and I recommend it to any rock fan, but it left me wanting an encore.

First Sentence:

It's rare that something so loud comes to life in someplace so quiet, but that's exactly how it happened with America's greatest rock band.

Song of Spider-Man, by Glen Berger

Even though Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is often called one of the biggest disasters ever produced on Broadway, it is a show I dearly would have liked to have seen. Spider-Man is one of my favorite heroes, and the descriptions of the action scenes in the show sound amazing. Spider-Man and the Green Goblin battling in the air above the audience, leaping off walls, briefly landing in the aisles before soaring off again. As great as that sounds, Song of Spider-Man makes it clear what a mess the musical actually was.

The reason the show was such a train wreck was the creative minds behind the show didn't understand what makes Spider-Man special. Interestingly, the author of the book is one of those creative minds. Berger details how he and Julie Taymor came up with the story, and then proceeds to cover how it clearly didn't work while they steadfastly held to their original vision. Spider-Man was created in 1962, and in the decades since has been populated with scores of memorable characters. For whatever reason, Berger and Taymor decided to have the main antagonist in the musical be a character from Greek mythology instead. Eventually the producers of Turn Off the Dark brought in a different creative team that salvaged what they could, but the show never could shake the bad press.

Sadly, for as honest as Berger is while discussing the trials and tribulations of the musical, I don't think he ever came to terms with why it all went wrong. He writes of how the plot was eviscerated on the internet and he was so upset he'd go online and respond to the haters (spoiler, it didn't help). He simply couldn't understand why people were disemboweling a show that they had never seen, much less not even being complete yet! I agree the internet can be an awful place and comic fans in particular are famously impossible to please, but it simply isn't that difficult to see why. Imagine if in The Lion King Simba defeats Scar at the end of act one, and then in act two he has to fight a poacher that is Artemis in disguise. It would be awful, right? Well, that is basically the plot of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Amusingly, Taymor is the force behind The Lion King as well, but didn't stray from the source material there.

Song of Spider-Man is a great look behind the curtains at what it takes to create a Broadway production. (It is especially interesting as the musical wasn't a successful one.) Berger doesn't pull any punches either. As a main character in the tale he comes off as indecisive and feckless in some places, fawning and obsequious in others; but, he shares it all, giving an overall impression of honesty. Anyone interested in musical theater should enjoy this.

First Sentence:

The four drinks I knocked back on an empty stomach in the empty VIP room were finally kicking in.

The B Side, by Ben Yagoda

My mother loves the theater and my father loved movies, so I grew up with the sounds of Broadway and Hollywood in the house. I'm as familiar with the music of Cole Porter, George M. Cohan, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Duke Ellington as I am Kris Kristofferson, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The B Side traces American song craft in the early 20^th century, including the rise of ASCAP and BMI, the payola scandal, and the shift in prestige from writers to performers. It is sometimes difficult to read a book about music; words are for the eyes, but melody is for the ears (and both nurture the soul). This story often contains long lists of titles, such as "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)," "I Got Rhythm," "Always," "Stormy Weather," "They Can't Take That Away from Me," "You're the Top," "Sophisticated Lady," "Swinging on a Star," and "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)." I find it virtually impossible to see these names and not pause to hear the tune in my head, making this a very long read, albeit an enjoyable one.

One critique is that the author clearly has a distain for rock-and-roll that often seems arrogant. In places this comes across as broad overstatements such as "the pop music of every era offended and mystified the older generation;" while more true than not, I'm certainly an exception as are many of my friends. In other places, the sentiment is imperiously haughty: "But it isn't possible for [songwriters such as Willie Nelson, Brian Wilson, Smokey Robinson, or Paul McCartney] to write a standard—or, as Keith Jarrett found out, it is possible, but really hard." I believe "Yesterday" and "The Tracks of My Tears" are every bit as good as "Night and Day" or "Puttin' on the Ritz." Yagoda's point is that in his opinion rock is less musically and lyrically sophisticated than a standard, but he seems to have deliberately forgotten that beauty is in the eye of the beholder—or in this case, the ear...

First Sentence:

While not quite on the level of a Richard Rodgers, a Cole Porter or an Irving Berlin, Arthur Schwartz was certainly in the top echelon of American songwriters.

Life, by Keith Richards

The song "She Likes the Beatles, I Like the Stones" could have been written about my wife and me, and the title certainly holds true: I do like the Rolling Stones. I picked up Keith Richards' autobiography hoping to learn more about the group, and 500+ pages later I can certainly say I did. The book covers Richards' life from birth to ~2010 and a hell of a lot of band history along the way. The narrative is very scattershot; loosely chronological but bouncing from anecdote to anecdote in a drunken fashion—fitting for the hard-partying rock-and-roll star!

The Stones were named after the Muddy Waters song "Rollin' Stone" and started as a blues band. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the Stones have such a strong blues and country influence as "Honky Tonk Women" is my favorite tune and many other of my preferred songs clearly have that sound. Some of the more interesting parts are when Richards goes into the stories behind many of the songs: how the lyrics came about, who wrote what, and what the meanings are. For instance, while it seems obvious now, I had no idea that "You Don't Move Me" off of Keith's first solo album Talk Is Cheap was about the feud between Richards and Jagger. In fact, I was unaware just how close the Stones came to disbanding entirely in the late 1980's; I'm sure glad they didn't because the tour for Steel Wheels was the first time I got to see them perform live, in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. I saw them again in Austin about 25 years later, and would go again in a heartbeat if they make it back this way. Great band, great stage presence, great everything!

A lot of the personal anecdotes I found much more compelling than I expected. Many (if not most) revolve around drugs and alcohol, and in the later years a sad number of attempts to sober up—thankfully eventually successfully. One bit that stuck with me was his approach to religion; his definition of heaven and hell is truly frightening: "[Heaven and hell are] the same place, but heaven is when you get everything you want and you meet Mummy and Daddy and your best friends and you all have a hug and a kiss and you play your harps. Hell is the same place—no fire and brimstone—but they all just pass by and don't see you. There's nothing, no recognition." I think I prefer the fire and brimstone interpretation! And finally, as you can see from the picture on the right, clearly there is a reason I like Richards—his natural father has great taste in colleges!

First Sentence:

Why did we stop at the 4-Dice Restaurant in Fordyce, Arkansas, for lunch on Independence Day weekend?

Defying Gravity, by Carol de Giere

This isn't exactly a biography of Stephen Schwartz (the famous musical theater lyricist and composer), but rather one of his artistic output. We get a fair amount of vital stats along the way, but the book really starts with Godspell and ends with Wicked. Godspell is one of my favorite musicals; "All For the Best" is up there with "I'm Gonna Wash that Man Right Outa My Hair" from South Pacific and "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" from Kiss Me, Kate. One of the tidbits we learn is that Toronto apparently had a company of players at one point performing Godspell that included Martin Short, Victor Garber, Gilda Radner, Andrea Martin, and Eugene Levy with Paul Shaffer as the music director. I would have loved to have seen that!

Schwartz is hugely talented; not only did he create music for Godspell, Wicked, and Pippin on Broadway, but for Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Prince of Egypt on the big screen. (And of course many others I'd never heard of.) For all this talent he has been the recipient of many awards: three Oscars, three Grammys, one Golden Globe, but amazingly no Tony Awards. Bad timing seems responsible for the lack of Tonys; Godspell lost to Annie for Best Original Score, Pippin to A Little Night Music, and Wicked to Avenue Q.

Defying Gravity is a great look at not only the career of Steven Schwartz, but of the behind-the-scenes of making a Broadway musical as well. The story of Wicked occupies over half the book and tracks development from the initial idea through the various read-throughs and out-of-town tryouts, up to the debut and critical reviews. I found this to be terribly interesting; I had no idea of how many changes a show goes through during development, or more impressively how many songs get written and thrown away. Some people seeing a show multiple times in these early days could conceivably see a different show each time!

While some of the names and shows are presented as if the reader is already fairly familiar with the world of musical theater, overall it is quite accessible. de Giere has done a good job of describing both Schwartz's success and failures as well as his creative process. I found this a compelling—if simply written—book and thoroughly enjoyed it.

First Sentence:

On warm days in the Long Island suburb of Rosyln Heights, seven-year-old Stephen Schwartz could hear piano music coming through his open window.

1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die, by Tom Moon

One of the ongoing discussions my friends and I have been having for the past couple of decades is the difference between “best” and “favorite.” The argument boils down to this: imagine someone asked you to name the best movie ever made and then asked you to name your favorite movie; without defined criteria (highest grossing, most awards, etc.) is there a difference in your answer? Regardless of where you fall on this matter (by the way, the correct answer is obviously, “of course there is a difference!” ) this book is an excellent example of this exact dilemma. Are these the 1,000 best recordings or simply 1,000 must-hear recordings? Without any defined criteria how possible is it for two people to have the same 1,000-deep list?

Semantics about the meaning of the title aside, this is an utterly fantastic book. Generating this list is an impossible task, but I applaud the inclusiveness Moon took to account for the wildly varying styles of music worldwide. As one would expect for a book targeted at an English-speaking market, the vast majority of selections come from North America and the UK; however, there are diverse entries scattered about from fifty or so other countries such as Brazil, Japan, and Tanzania. A wide selection of genres is represented as well, although I did find some too specialized and others missing entirely: opera and classical get separate categories as do vocals, gospel, and musicals, but swing and reggae are lumped in with jazz and folk respectively. Not a huge issue, but I found the inconsistency odd.

I’ve read this several times now; once cover-to-cover, again to mark the recordings I’ve heard, and then again simply searching for particular artists and songs. Virtually any time I pick this up I can flip to a random page and be enthralled by either the description of artists with which I’m unfamiliar or hearing in my head the music with which I am. My total came to 12% of the list, although I’ve heard much, much more—which brings me to my largest complaint: is someone better for never hearing Porgy and Bess rather than the recording made by the Glyndebourne Festival Opera? I say no.

Because Moon concentrated on specific recordings, most of the classical music included I don’t get to mark off the list because I haven’t heard that particular selection. Chopin, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Mozart, Holst, and many others familiar to most are present, but the specific listings aren’t in my repertoire. For instance, I’ve heard Handel’s Messiah several times, but never the recording by Gabrieli Consort and Players. Many of the more modern artists are difficult to officially count as well because the recordings chosen are compilations or greatest hits; Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Ray Charles all fall into this category. There is also an entire section dedicated to “Various Artists” that has this problem in spades; the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack is a reasonable entry here but Great American Train Songs just seems like cheating as a way to get Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans,” Johnny Cash’s “Rock Island Line,” and Bill Monroe’s “Orange Blossom Special” in the book without taking up multiple spots. There is also a distinct lack of spoken-word and comedy recordings here; I’ll take “Nobody Will Ever Play Baseball” off of Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart or “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “White & Nerdy” over anything by the Fugees or the Chemical Brothers any day of the week.

Musicals are an included genre that I don’t know is completely fair in this context; the music from Hello Dolly!, West Side Story, and Fiddler on the Roof is undeniably fantastic, but I think theater needs to be seen on the stage to be truly appreciated. In fairness to my quibble about specific recordings, though, I think hearing the music without seeing the accompanying book performed is still a wonderful thing. Besides, then we’d have to start arguing about which specific cast and performance of a production one should see!

For the genres where most of my personal musical preferences lay, I find some of the choices downright peculiar. The Dixie Chicks have a must-hear-before-death album but not Joe Ely? The Eagles but not Billy Joel? U2 but not Rush? Pantera and Slayer but not Van Halen or Iron Maiden? The Mikado but not The Pirates of Penzance? Britney Spears “Toxic” is seriously a part of this discussion? Sinatra’s Songs for Swingin’ Lovers is included instead of A Swingin’ Affair!? Okay, maybe Moon got that last one right, but still...! Clearly there are several fun bar arguments to be had here, and this sort of faux-outrage is exactly why I loved this book!

First Sentence (from the Introduction):

When I began work on this book in the fall of 2004, the big number in the title didn’t rattle me much.

Living the Rock ‘n Roll Dream, by Buzz Cason

I heard Buzz Cason play at the Palo Duro Records Unofficial SxSW Showcase last spring along with Tommy Alverson, Trent Summar, and Dallas Wayne—yeah, that was a great night! The four artists took turns playing songs and telling stories. During one of Buzz’s stints in the spotlight he played the oft-recorded “Everlasting Love” which as it turns out, he wrote (although I must admit, I had more fun hearing “Barbeque” off his latest album). The next day I had the opportunity to spend the afternoon in a group of musicians that included Cason and was thoroughly entertained by his stories. When I discovered he’d written a book about his career I jumped at the opportunity to read it, and found that he is as entertaining in prose as he is in person.

Cason’s music has been recorded by a huge variety of performers: Jimmy Buffett, Jerry Reed, Dolly Parton, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Derailers, Jan and Dean, Gloria Estefan, Pearl Jam, U2, and the Beatles to name just a few. He started writing and performing in the 1950’s, long before agents and promoters controlled the industry. Can you imagine Rascal Flatts cramming into a beat-up Ford and driving all night to make a show in the next town? This book is a unique first-hand look into a completely different world. Cason hung out with Elvis, signed Jimmy Buffett to his first contract, and founded the Creative Workshop. He tells stories about meeting Sinatra, Kris Kristofferson, Bo Diddley, and MLK. He has been a composer, a singer, a chipmunk, and now an author. He has a unique perspective on the history of American popular music and I enjoyed every page of this book.

First Sentence:

The first time I can recall anyone suggesting that I participate in singing any other kind of music other than church hymns was when my neighborhood friend, Lewis Dale told me about this thing they called “hillbilly music” that was so popular on radio WSM’s Grand Ole Opry.

Sinatra: The Life, by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan

The last two books I’ve read both had Sinatra as a character. The first depicted Frank as so connected to the mob he could order a hit on a high school student for simply implying Sinatra donated money to Julliard. (Did I mention this was a pretty stupid book?) The second referred to Frank as The Voice; the author’s father was a disc jockey and when he abandoned his family the kid used Sinatra as a surrogate voice on the radio. In any case, after reading about Old Blue Eyes in two books in a row I decided to do a bit more research on him.

I read the Kitty Kelley book back in high school but don’t really remember much about it so I hit the library to see what they had. Not surprisingly there were a bunch of choices, so I picked the latest one. It was really interesting, concentrating on Sinatra’s various relationships with friends and lovers and his mafia connections. With the benefit of more recent memoirs (and legal testimony) and the fact that many of the then-players are deceased, more and more facts are coming to light about what has long been only rumored. The old adage says where there is smoke there is fire, and it appears that it is true here: Sinatra was as mobbed-up as his detractors have always maintained. Sam Giancana and Lucky Luciano are two of the best known mafiosos, but far from the only ones with whom he was friendly. His addiction to Ava Gardner is also well documented, but I’d always heard that Sinatra and George C. Scott had a feud of sorts over Ava (I believe Scott abused her and Sinatra tried to stop him) but there was nothing of that here.

Of course, you can’t talk about Sinatra without discussing music. The Frank revealed here is a man with a passion for crafting beautiful harmonies. I love his work with Riddle but it was hard to just read about it and get any real appreciation for his talent. (I found myself listening to a lot of Frank while reading this—A Swingin’ Affair! is by far my favorite album, every track is a solid winner.) Some of the stories around the songs were interesting, though; for instance New York, New York and My Way are two of his signature songs, but he didn’t actually like either one. Luckily for us, he decided to record them anyway!

First Sentence:

March 18, 1939. In a studio on West 46th Street in New York City, a band was playing Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.”

How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater, by Marc Acito

This is an odd book: I found myself admiring it and hating it at the same time. It is billed as the humorous story of how a kid tricked his father into paying his tuition to Julliard. Sounded amusing, but started really slow. It took the first third of the book to get to the point where tuition is denied; a lot of setup for a weak payoff. It came off as a young adult book: the protagonists are all teenagers and the subject is a coming-of-age story. However, the language and strong sexual content was extremely inappropriate for that age; many scenes are nothing more than fairly explicit porn with a strong homoerotic flavor. Forever by Judy Blume handles this topic in a mature and professional way, but Acito seems to prefer Hustler as a model.

The hero, Ed Zanni, is a self-important, pretentious, eccentric thespian—exactly the image I have in my head of an actor. His incessant whining (while ringing true for an irresponsible high school senior) was thoroughly unenjoyable. I can’t remember the last time I rolled my eyes so much when reading a book. The rest of the cast were all one-dimensional caricatures, The Breakfast Club gone horribly wrong.

That said, the imagery was fantastic: “a voice so warm and pure you want to take a bath in it.” (Oddly the author uses the same phrase later to describe sex.) Another phrase I liked: “Pairs of shoes should be like pairs of people. They should complement one another, not match.” While not very practical, it cemented the offbeat nature of the described character.

Coupled with my love of theater (I respect acting, but don’t have much in common with actors) and the fun phrases I was able to finish this fairly quickly, but I don’t think I’d recommend it.

First Sentence:

The story of how I paid for college begins like life itself—in a pool of water.