Brian Jones: The Making of The Rolling Stones (Viking), by Paul Trynka
Brian Jones is more remembered for his death in a swimming pool than his life. British rock critic Paul Trynka is out to change that with his biography of The Rolling Stones’ guitarist. It’s not a hagiography: Jones was a troubled sexual alley cat described by more than one intimate as “evil.” Yet without him, the Stones would never have congealed; he taught Keith Richards his distinctive style of playing and Mick Jagger how to be a dangerous-looking showman. With his extensive interviews of eyewitnesses, Trynka tries to clear up contradictory memories while finding a pattern of denial among the Stones. Those guys just don’t want to acknowledge their debt to Jones!
Austin City Limits: A History (Oxford University Press), by Tracey E.W. Laird
Austin was a likely destination for musicians with its warm climate and large student population. Country music historian Tracey E.W. Laird chronicles an institution that became pivotal in the city’s rise to musical prominence, PBS’s “Austin City Limits.” “It is a peculiar and local story,” she writes. “At the same time, it is a big story that sheds light on the process of finding musical meaning in late-20th-century and early-21st-century popular culture.” Only PBS would have provided a forum for such a show, Laird writes, as it grew from its roots in ’70s outlaw country to become a showcase for almost any kind of original music.
Blues All Day Long: The Jimmy Rogers Story (University of Illinois Press), by Wayne Everett Goins
Jimmy Rogers is a well-respected blues guitarist but seldom mentioned alongside Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon or Howlin’ Wolf. Wayne Everett Goins, director of the jazz program at Kansas State University, hopes to elevate Rogers to the first rank with Blues All Day Long, the first full-length biography on the musician. Goins comes at the project personally: He grew up with the music and lived a few blocks from Rogers in Chicago. The old hood ties probably helped him gain entry with family and friends of a musician who was the vital support on some of the great Chicago blues recordings of the 1950s, even before cutting his own discs for the Chess label.
Becoming Belafonte: Black Artist, Public Radical (University of Texas Press), by Judith E. Smith
Say Harry Belafonte and someone will reply “Day-O.” “The Banana Boat Song” may have been the singer’s greatest hit, but the “King of Calypso” was also a film and stage actor and political activist. At a time when most African Americans had narrow opportunities in the entertainment industry, Belafonte broke from stereotypes and parlayed his popularity into championing civil rights and other causes. University of Massachusetts American studies professor Judith E. Smith puts Belafonte in context: The mixed ethnic child of West Indian immigrants in Harlem, he was sometimes able to “pass” as something other than black; likewise, despite his obvious affiliation with leftist politics, he was forced to exercise caution during the McCarthy era. Smith’s culturally perceptive biography recreates the milieu of the African American intelligentsia before and during the civil rights era, and the particular role of one activist star.
Woman with a Guitar: Memphis Minnie’s Blues (City Lights), by Paul & Beth Garon
Paul and Beth Garon write like fans, calling Memphis Minnie “one of the most influential blues singers ever to record.” It sounds like the case-building biographers are wont to do—but they back their statement with a who’s who of blues performers who acknowledge their point. The new edition of Woman with a Guitar fills in facts but the big picture is unchanged. Minnie was a rarity in the 1930s-’50s, a guitar-playing blueswoman whose original songs entered the repertoire of many performers. A touch of blues purist snobbery is indicated by the lack of mention of the best known Memphis Minnie cover, Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks.”
Producing Country: The Inside Story of the Great Recordings (Wesleyan University Press), by Michael Jarrett
With Producing Country, Penn State English professor Michael Jarrett assembled an oral history of country music as recounted by the men on the other side of the glass recording booth. Jarrett’s book also works as a partial history of the changing dimension of recorded sound, from its origins as a record of a particular performance to a sonic environment, aural sculpture in the hands of skilled producers and engineers. Jarrett interviewed many producers whose names are familiar outside country music, including Steve Cropper, Jerry Wexler and Jon Langford of The Mekons.
