Join the Rock N Roll Librarian Shelley Sorenson and the Rock N Roll Archaeologist Christian Swain as they discuss the definitive biography of singer-songwriter Nick Lowe, best-known for "Cruel to Be Kind" and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding"

Described as "Britain's greatest living songwriter," Nick Lowe has made his mark as a pioneer of pub rock, power-pop, and punk rock and as a producer of Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, the Damned, and the Pretenders. He has been a pop star with his bands Brinsley Schwarz and Rockpile, a stepson-in-law to Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, and is the writer behind hits including "Cruel to Be Kind" and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding." In the past decades, however, he has distinguished himself as an artist who is equally acclaimed for the second act of his career as a tender yet sharp-tongued acoustic balladeer.

Biographer Will Birch, who in addition to being a music writer was a drummer and songwriter with The Records, has known Lowe for over forty years and melds Lowe's gift as a witty raconteur with his own authoritative analysis of Lowe's background and the cultural scenes he exemplifies. Lowe's parallel fame as one of the best interviews in the business will contribute to this first look into his life and work--and likely the closest thing fans will get to an autobiography by this notoriously charming cult figure.

This is not an authorized biography, but Lowe has given it his spiritual blessing and his management and label are fully on board. Cruel to Be Kind will be the colorful yet serious account of one of the world's most talented and admired musicians.

http://nicklowebiography.com

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Shelley and Christian have a great time getting into the memoir from Bruce Dickinson, the larger-than-life, multifaceted lead vocalist of Iron Maiden, one of the most successful, influential and enduring rock bands ever.

Pioneers of Britain’s nascent Rock & Metal scene back in the late 1970s, Iron Maiden smashed its way to the top, thanks in no small part to the high-octane performances, operatic singing style, and stage presence of its second, but twice-longest-serving, lead singer, Bruce Dickinson. As Iron Maiden’s front man—first from 1981 to 1993, and then from 1999 to the present—Dickinson has been, and remains, a man of legend.

But OTT front man is just one of the many hats Bruce wears. In addition to being one of the world’s most storied and well-respected singers and songwriters, he is an airline captain, aviation entrepreneur, motivational speaker, beer brewer, novelist, radio presenter, and film scriptwriter. He has also competed as a world-class level fencer. Often credited as a genuine polymath Bruce, in his own words (and handwritten script in the first instance!), sets forth many personal observations guaranteed to inspire curious souls and hard-core fans alike.

Dickinson turns his unbridled creativity, passion, and anarchic humour to reveal some fascinating stories from his life, including his thirty years with Maiden, his solo career, his childhood within the eccentric British school system, his early bands, fatherhood and family, and his recent battle with cancer.

Bold, honest, intelligent and very funny, his memoir is an up-close look inside the life, heart, and mind of one of the most unique and interesting men in the world; a true icon of rock.

What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography by Bruce Dickinson is published by Dey Street Books October 31, 2017) Find it here on Amazon

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Disclaimer: The views expressed here by Shelley Sorenson are made in her capacity as a private citizen, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the San Francisco Public Library or the City of San Francisco.

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Shelley and Christian dig deep into friend of the show Meredith Ochs' latest book, Aretha: The Queen of Soul - A Life in Photographs. Since the book is filled with photos, along with three essays by Ms. Ochs, we decide to play as many disparate songs by the Diva of divas to showcase just how amazing Aretha really was during her lifetime.

Aretha Franklin’s voice was legendary, unforgettable: deeply rooted in gospel, yet versatile enough to brilliantly interpret R&B, rock, soul, pop, and jazz standards, it fueled a six-decade career. Her vocal wallop was a mix of preaching, rebuke, and elation. From the languorous “I Never Loved a Man (the Way That I Love You),” to the funky “Chain of Fools,” to the fiercely feminist “Think,” to the definitive, demanding version of Otis Redding’s “Respect,” Franklin’s songs played out against the tumultuous sociopolitical backdrop of the late ’60s like a soundtrack meant to set things right.

Her accolades were many: she received the Kennedy Center honor in 1994, won 18 Grammys, was the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and performed for presidents and the Pope. Illustrated with 85 photos, and with insightful text from noted radio personality and author Meredith Ochs, Aretha explores the diva’s life, from her formative years growing up in Detroit, to her singing and recording career from the 1950s until her untimely death in 2018, to her numerous honors, awards, and causes, including her advocacy for civil rights and the arts.

Get the book here

Diggers, you can support the show by wearing cool rock n roll gear from TeePublic: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/rocknroll

Disclaimer: The views expressed here by Shelley Sorenson are made in her capacity as a private citizen, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the San Francisco Public Library or the City of San Francisco.

Call us at 650-822-ROCK or email at: [email protected]

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Shelley and Christian dive into Bruce's autobiography, 'Born to Run'.

In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl’s halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That’s how this extraordinary autobiography began.

Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bringing to these pages the same honesty, humor, and originality found in his songs.

He describes growing up Catholic in Freehold, New Jersey, amid the poetry, danger, and darkness that fueled his imagination, leading up to the moment he refers to as “The Big Bang”: seeing Elvis Presley’s debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. He vividly recounts his relentless drive to become a musician, his early days as a bar band king in Asbury Park, and the rise of the E Street Band. With disarming candor, he also tells for the first time the story of the personal struggles that inspired his best work, and shows us why the song “Born to Run” reveals more than we previously realized.

Born to Run will be revelatory for anyone who has ever enjoyed Bruce Springsteen, but this book is much more than a legendary rock star’s memoir. This is a book for workers and dreamers, parents and children, lovers and loners, artists, freaks, or anyone who has ever wanted to be baptized in the holy river of rock and roll.

Rarely has a performer told his own story with such force and sweep. Like many of his songs (“Thunder Road,” “Badlands,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “The River,” “Born in the U.S.A,” “The Rising,” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” to name just a few), Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography is written with the lyricism of a singular songwriter and the wisdom of a man who has thought deeply about his experiences. 

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On October 7th, 2017 Tom Petty joined the rock n roll orchestra on the other side. He was 67 years young. For rockers around the world, like Prince a few months earlier, it was a shock coupled with immense sadness. Forever on we will not have Tom around with his Heartbreakers disposing easy wisdom in song or slyly telling off adversaries with Southern charm or that kick ass band that hummed like a stock car racer. It was a hard one to take.

Join the Rock N Roll Librarian Shelley Sorenson and the Rock N Roll Archaeologist Christian Swain as they discuss Warren Zanes’ 2015 biography of the Gainesville born singer songwriter born in 1950 who found rock n roll as the only answer to his passions.

No one other than Warren Zanes, rocker and writer and friend, could author a book about Tom Petty that is as honest and evocative of Petty's music and the remarkable rock and roll history he and his band helped to write.

Born in Gainesville, Florida, with more than a little hillbilly in his blood, Tom Petty was a Southern shit kicker, a kid without a whole lot of promise. Rock and roll made it otherwise. From meeting Elvis, to seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, to producing Del Shannon, backing Bob Dylan, putting together a band with George Harrison, Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne, making records with Johnny Cash, and sending well more than a dozen of his own celebrated recordings high onto the charts, Tom Petty's story has all the drama of a rock and roll epic. Petty, known for his reclusive style, has shared with Warren Zanes his insights and arguments, his regrets and lasting ambitions, and the details of his life on and off the stage.

This is a book for those who know and love the songs, from "American Girl" and "Refugee" to "Free Fallin'" and "Mary Jane's Last Dance," and for those who want to see the classic rock and roll era embodied in one man's remarkable story. Dark and mysterious, Petty manages to come back, again and again, showing us what the music can do and where it can take us.

Petty: The Biography

Disclaimer: The views expressed here by Shelley Sorenson are made in her capacity as a private citizen, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the San Francisco Public Library or the City of San Francisco.

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For more than fifty years, Paul Simon has spoken to us in songs about alienation, doubt, resilience, and empathy in ways that have established him as one of the most beloved artists in American pop music history. Songs like “The Sound of Silence,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Still Crazy After All These Years,” and “Graceland” have moved beyond the sales charts and into our cultural consciousness. But Simon is a deeply private person who has resisted speaking to us outside of his music. He has said he will not write an autobiography or memoir, and he has refused to talk to previous biographers.

Finally, Simon has opened up—for more than one hundred hours of interviews—to Robert Hilburn, whose biography of Johnny Cash was named by Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times as one of her ten favorite books of 2013. The result is a landmark book that will take its place as the defining biography of one of America’s greatest artists

Join Shelley and Christian as they dive into this amazing book and make sure you listen to our companion show, 'Deeper Digs in Rock: Robert Hilburn on Paul Simon' where the former LA Times music critic shares some incredible tales.

'Paul Simon: The Life' was published by Simon & Schuster on May 8, 2018

Disclaimer: The views expressed here by Shelley Sorenson are made in her capacity as a private citizen, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the San Francisco Public Library or the City of San Francisco.

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This episode the Rock N Roll Librarian Shelley Sorensen and C Swain review ‘Hit So Hard’ by original drummer for the 90’s grunge band, Hole.

Patty Schemel's story begins with a childhood surrounded by the AA meetings her parents hosted in the family living room. Their divorce triggered her first forays into drinking at age twelve and dovetailed with her passion for punk rock and playing the drums. Patty's struggles with her sexuality further drove her notoriously hard playing, and by the late '80s she had focused that anger, confusion, and drive into regular gigs with well-regarded bands in Tacoma, Seattle, and Olympia, Washington. She met a pre-Nirvana Kurt Cobain at a Melvins show, and less than five years later, was living with him and his wife, Hole front-woman Courtney Love, at the height of his fame and on the cusp of hers. As the platinum-selling band's new drummer, Schemel contributed memorable, driving beats to hits like "Beautiful Son," "Violet," "Doll Parts," and "Miss World." But the band was plagued by tragedy and heroin addiction, and by the time Hole went on tour in support of their ironically titled and critically-acclaimed album ‘Live Through This’ in 1994, both Cobain and Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff had died at the age of 27

With surprising candor and wit, Schemel intimately documents the events surrounding her dramatic exit from the band in 1998 that led to a dark descent into a life of homelessness and crime on the streets of Los Angeles, and the difficult but rewarding path to lasting sobriety after more than twenty serious attempts to get clean. ‘Hit So Hard’ is a testament not only to the enduring power of the music Schemel helped create but an important document of the drug culture that threatened to destroy it.

Our hosts also discuss the companion documentary film of the same name with previously unseen footage of Cobain and Love. This is some real rock n roll archaeology, so dig in with a listen and then tell us what you think!

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Disclaimer: The views expressed here by Shelley Sorenson are made in her capacity as a private citizen, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the San Francisco Public Library or the City of San Francisco.

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This episode Shelley and Christian review “Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell” by Professor David Yaffe. Consider this a companion to our interview with Professor Yaffe on Deeper Digs in Rock.

Joni Mitchell may be the most influential female recording artist and composer of the late twentieth century. In Reckless Daughter, the music critic David Yaffe tells the remarkable, heart-wrenching story of how the blond girl with the guitar became a superstar of folk music in the 1960s, a key figure in the Laurel Canyon music scene of the 1970s, and the songwriter who spoke resonantly to, and for, audiences across the country.

In this intimate biography, drawing on dozens of unprecedented in-person interviews with Mitchell, her childhood friends, and a cast of famous characters, Yaffe reveals the backstory behind the famous songs—from Mitchell’s youth in Canada, her bout with polio at age nine, and her early marriage and the child she gave up for adoption, through the love affairs that inspired masterpieces, and up to the present—and shows us why Mitchell has so enthralled her listeners, her lovers, and her friends. Reckless Daughter is the story of an artist and an era that have left an indelible mark on American music.

Published in 2017 by SaraCrichton Books.

Diggers, you can support the show by wearing cool rock n roll gear from TeePublic: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/rocknroll

Please subscribe, rate and review and head over to Patreon to help support our network of rock based podcasts including Reel Rock, Vinyl Snob, Deeper Digs in Rock and The Rock N Roll Archaeology Project.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here by Shelley Sorenson are made in her capacity as a private citizen, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the San Francisco Public Library or the City of San Francisco.

Call us at 650-822-ROCK or email at: [email protected]

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This week Shelley and Christian review 'From Cradle to Stage: Stories from the Mothers Who Rocked and Raised Rock Stars' by Virginia Hanlon Grohl with forward by Dave Grohl. Published by Seal Press, April 2017.

Written by Dave Grohl’s mom (Nirvana, Foo Fighters) to answer her own questions about the experiences of other mothers who had raised rock stars, and based on interviews with women who had done just that. She was curious about whether they were as surprised as she was about their children's fame; whether they worried about their children's well-being in an industry fraught with drugs and other dangers; whether or not they had actively encouraged their children's passions despite the odds against success; and whether they were raised in musical households. During her two year journey she interviewed a several moms of musicians covering a range of genres and generations, such as the moms of Dr. Dre; Amy Winehouse and Geddy Lee.

With exclusive family photographs and a foreword by Dave Grohl, From Cradle to Stage will appeal to mothers and rock fans everywhere.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here by Shelley Sorenson are made in her capacity as a private citizen, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the San Francisco Public Library or the City of San Francisco.

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One of the four Monkees was actually a futurist.

Did you know that he helped birth MTV?

Did you know he put together one of the first country rock outfits of the late 1960's early '70's?

How about the fact he wrote 'Different Drum' famously covered by Linda Ronstadt.

Did you know that Mike Nesmith's mother invented Liquid Paper?  

Shelly and Christian discuss this extremely interesting autobiography, 'Infinite Tuesdays: An Autobiographical Riff by Mike Nesmith.'

Michael Nesmith’s eclectic, electric life spans his star-making role on The Monkees, his invention of the music video, and his critical contributions to movies, comedy, and the world of virtual reality. 

Above all, his is a seeker’s story, a pilgrimage in search of a set of principles to live by. That search took Nesmith from a childhood in Dallas, where his single mother Bette invented Liquid Paper, to the set of The Monkees in Los Angeles; to the heart of swinging London with John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix; and to an unexpected oasis of brilliance in the Santa Fe desert, where his friendships with Douglas Adams and Los Alamos scientists would point him toward the power of the infinite and the endless possibilities of human connection. This funny, thoughtful, self-aware book is a window onto an unexpected life, inflected at every turn by the surprising candor and absurdist humor of an American original.

Opening Infinite Tuesday is like stepping into the world of Michael Nesmith, where something curious is always unfolding, and where riffs on everything from bands to dogs to the nature of reality make for an endlessly engaging journey.

"Beautifully written." —New York Times

“Nesmith is an artist, adventurer and thinker whose nimble creativity soared far above the appellation he was given: “The smart Monkee.” In Infinite Tuesday, he details the inner forces, from personal to spiritual, that kept him forging ahead –and that created stumbling blocks as well. Unsparing and revealing, this book is an unusual, unforgettable read.” —Ben Fong-Torres

Disclaimer: The views expressed here by Shelley Sorenson are made in her capacity as a private citizen, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the San Francisco Public Library or the City of San Francisco.

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