Monday, October 10, 2005

Know Much About Rock History

Just finished Peter Guralnick's Dream Boogie:The Triumph of Sam Cooke. Since I never read Daniel Wolff's 1995 Cooke bio, I can't compare. At 651 pages + notes and discography this is a long read. I'd say about a 100 or so pages too long. And it's not as good as Guralnick's Elvis bios (especially the first) or Sweet Soul Music. But it's worth your time because Cooke was an original whose move from Gospel to Soul makes for a good bio.
This has been a catch-up year for me as far as Music bios are concerned. So far this year I've guzzled down a Clash bio, a book about Disco, Marvin Gaye bio, Greil Marcus' Dylan book, Dylan's bio, a couple of books on Punk-Rock + Lester Bangs' books, other Rock critic memoirs, plus a whole bunch of other music or political books.
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