Tales of... by Josh Alan Friedman

THE GREAT BLUESMAN TELLS IT STRAIGHT

Doc Pomus no longer had to cater to the teenage rock ’n’ roll market. He wrote sophisticated songs for adults. In his final years, he mentored dozens of singers, discovered bands like Roomful of Blues and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and wrote the best lyrics of his life.

Doc’s website

AKA Doc Pomus, the documentary

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

(Music bed under "Mr. Nobody:" "Highway 61" by Josh Alan Band)

Josh Alan Friedman, Josh’s mother Ginger, Doc, Larry “Ratso” Sloman, Peggy Bennett, at Bitter End after Josh’s show, 1989

Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman at the Brill Building

Uncle Doc, courtesy of Shirlee Hauser

THE EARLY STIGMA OF ROCK 'N' ROLL

After a dormant decade, the great songwriter Doc Pomus was back in business by the late 1970s. I became his sidekick, entrenched in Doc’s late-night rock ‘n’ roll whirl, where he held court like a Buddha. He was amazed that so many of his songs became iconic anthems in a genre once vilified as teenage junk.

AKA Doc Pomus documentary trailer

Blues in the Red (Doc’s early 78’s)

Song under Sinatra quote: "Fat Back," by Josh Alan Band (unreleased)

Doc Pomus at the Pied Piper in New York, 1947

Late night at the Lone Star Cafe: Josh’s wife Peggy, Doc, (unidentified singing protege), Josh, 1982

French Elvis Lp. Mort Shuman became a pop star in France and thus received top billing here.

Still from documentary, AKA Doc Pomus: Josh, Doc, (unidentified), Ahmet Ertegun

FROM PARADISE TO THE GUTTER

The Great Pornographer went from Upper East Side family man/pornographer-next-door to Bowery bum. The First Amendment hero became destitute. But he never lost his appetite for pussy and pastrami.

I Goldstein: My Screwed Life, by Al Goldstein and Josh Alan Friedman

When Sex Was Dirty, by Josh Alan Friedman

Al’s Pompano Beach mansion, with the 11-foot finger that welcomed boats on the intracoastal waterway

Goldstein’s New York office

Beach Blanket Hippos: Goldstein and Ron Jeremy on Al's beachfront

Screw ’69, front row: Jim Buckley, Goldstein, and 18-year-old Steve Heller, who would next become The New York Times art director for 33 years

John and Yoko’s Screw interview, 1969

Terry Southern in Screw #801. Cover: Julius Zimmerman

Hitler's Worst Nightmare: Screw’s interview with surviving Third Reich architect, Albert Speer, with Goldstein as “Diddler on the Roof .” Cover: Curt Hoppe.

THE GREAT PORNOGRAPHER GETS SCREWED

With the creation of Screw and Midnight Blue, Al Goldstein liberated sex from the shadows of shame and illegal obscenity. He had no idea what it would lead to today. But in his era, the sexual revolution was a cry for liberation and the laws against sex came tumbling down in his wake.

I Goldstein: My Screwed Life, by Al Goldstein and Josh Alan Friedman

When Sex Was Dirty, by Josh Alan Friedman

Screw magazine, #1,024, "The Weird Sex Life of R. Crumb", illustrated by cartoonist R. Crumb

Screw magazine, #735, "Is God Gay?", illustration of Al Goldstein as God by Curt Hoppe

"Al Goldstein donned a fake prison outfit before his sentencing yesterday." New York Times, 2002

Goldstein with legendary Harlem congressman, Adam Clayton Powell, in late ‘60s.

Al Goldstein’s bar mitzvah, 1949. In three years, he would wear the same undersized suit for his first hooker.

AN EDITOR’S EDITOR

A legend among his peers at the old men’s adventure magazines, Mel Shestack made people believe the impossible. And anyone who fell for his “gentle cons” felt privileged afterward.

Weasels Ripped My Flesh

Even the Rhinos Were Nymphos

It’s A Man’s World

True Action, one of the many magazines published each month by Magazine Management

Mel Shestack presenting a fake mock-up cover to Bruce Jay Friedman at Bruce’s Magazine Management retirement in 1966.

(photo: Jules Siegel)

A Mel Shestack cartoon on a letter to Josh

A BASS PLAYER PREPARES

Jack Bruce reinvented the bass guitar and wrote spectacular songs. Cream lasted a mere three years. But he remained a working musician first and disregarded the pretense of rock stardom.

Cream Box set

Harmony Row

Songs For A Tailor

Jack Bruce in mid-career

Classically trained in cello

Cy Coleman wrote the scores to a dozen legendary Broadway musicals. But he was a jazz pianist first, and virtually invented the sophisticated culture of New York cocktail jazz in the 1950s.

The Best Is Yet To Come

Witchcraft and Lenny

You Fascinate Me So

My father hired Mario Puzo as associate editor at Magazine Management at 655 Madison Avenue in 1960. While working there, Puzo would write his great novel about Hell’s Kitchen, The Fortunate Pilgrim. And then at age 49, break out with the most successful novel in history—The Godfather.

The Fortunate Pilgrim

The Godfather Papers

Weasels Ripped My Flesh! Two-Fisted Stories From Men’s Adventure Magazines

Mario Puzo’s 1966 children's book, with a character named Josh.

Mario Puzo and Bruce Jay Friedman at Bruce’s party leaving Magazine Management in 1966

1960 masthead for Male, Men, Man’s World and True Action magazines

Joel Dorn was one of the last record producers standing from the old music biz. When the new industry pushed him out in the 1980s, he bounced back with the creation of CD box sets. “Don’t give me that ‘Hey, baby’ shit,” he said. “I invented it.”

Joel Dorn discography

Don Mclean: Homeless Brother

As a new, 22-year-old writer for The SoHo News in 1978, I was sent out to interview Lou Reed. He gave the nastiest interview of his life. Then demanded it be printed verbatim.

Lou Reed: Growing Up in Public

Transformer

Little Richard Lanham: On Your Radio