During the current days of isolation, many people have taken to reading as a way to while away the time. Personally, I’ve pretty well always got a book on the go. According to my info on Goodreads, I read over 70 books last year. At the moment, I’m at the two dozen mark for 2020.
At this point, I thought that I’d share some of things that I’ve read so far this year. In this post, I’ll cover some of the music-related books.
Jaki Liebezet: The Life, Theory and Practice of a Master Drummer – Jono Podmore (editor). As a fan of the German group Can since I heard their first album (Monster Movie) on an import records radio programme in 1970, I was very pleased to learn of this new book on their incredible drummer.
This volume is bookended with a concise biography and a massive discography. But, the meat-and-potatoes of the book centres around the rhythm system of drumming known as dot-dash. Since this part of the book makes up about half of the content, this is where the value of the book will vary from reader to reader. Despite the fact that my own compositional work rarely deals with percussion or rhythm, I still found this section very interesting.
For me, one of the highlights of the book is the exhaustive discography which covers every release from his jazz beginnings through his work with Can and the last chapter of his life with Club Off Chaos.
Overall, I found this book to be a very engaging read. But, I’m not sure how it will appeal to people who are not interested in all of the technical information presented here.
The Life of Curtis Mayfield: Traveling Soul by Todd Mayfield with Travis Atria. The re-release of Curtis Mayfield’s first four LPs as a box set last year got me to wonder if there was a biography out there. Sure enough, I discovered this book by his son Todd.
The book covers his humble beginnings towards a successful career as a member of the Impressions and subsequent journey into his solo work. It reveals him to be a man focused on his music and also someone who was driven to retain the rights to everything he was involved with. It also shows how this drive could often lead to conflict in both this personal and professional life.
It is a thoroughly researched and well presented portrait of one of the most important figures to ever emerge from the American music scene.
Not Dead Yet by Phil Collins. Despite the fact that I have been a Genesis fan since the early ’70s, this book was not particularly high on my list to read. But, I stumbled across an advance uncorrected proof at a thrift shop and picked it up. I’m glad that I did as it proved to be a quite enjoyable read.
Collins covers his entire history from his early years as a child actor to his work with Genesis, his solo career and eventual situation of alcoholism and illness. It’s a warts-and-all account of both is successes where he does not shy from accounts of pitfalls and personal failures. A quick and enjoyable read.
Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter by Randy L. Schmidt. Whether you were a fan of soft rock in the ’70s or not, everybody seemed to agree that Karen Carpenter was a singular voice in the music world at the time. I can still recall buying the Carpenters self-titled LP on the same day as Paranoid by Black Sabbath. Both held appeal to me for different reasons.
While others had attempted to write a biography of Karen Carpenter in the past, the hyper-protective nature of her family always resulted in a dead end. Fortunately, this was not the case for Schmidt. He was able to finally dig beyond the surface in order to get to the roots of her life.
Of course, it was a life of tremendous success on the surface but, he manages to dig deep into a personal life which was far from perfect. It’s a touching portrait that shows the sad physical decline of Carpenter leading to her eventual death from complications related to anorexia. In the end, it’s a story that will no doubt be of interest to the fans of one of the most distinctive voices in popular music.