Customer Reviews

Faces of Music: 25 Years of Lunching with Legends

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a trip, and I can't put it down. The interviews are short-often just five or six questions. Like photographs, they capture the spirit of their subjects, who clearly are getting a kick out of their charming and eccentric interviewer.

Mr. Bonzai pulls some great insights and hysterical one-liners out of these folks. Many of the big names have already been interviewed to death, but Bonzai gets them to say new things. Like, when he asked Al Kooper what music he'd most like to hear that was created before the birth of recording technology, Kooper replies, "The music they played at the Marquis de Sade's parties." Or, he asks Elliot Scheiner what tips he'd give new engineers, Scheiner says essentially "Don't make your clients pay to rent your gear." It's warm, practical, sincere advice, and maybe so right on that it's out of place, but therefore becomes right on, again. Most interviews have something fun and new like that. The photos are great, too-spontaneous, fun, and well crafted.

I learned a lot, but this book is really pure entertainment. It takes about a minute to read each interview, so the reason for my caption's recommended function is obvious.

I also recommend Mix Masters, by Maureen Droney (which I edited). Totally different style of interviews, focusing on recording studio technique, but the two books would offer good relief from each other.

Jonathan Feist
Managing Editor, Berklee Press

This is THE BOOK. It's a monster of a tome and the questions are a curious mix, awe-inspired, and having you run the razor's edge of laughing both at and with. It's a collection that will have you feverishly thumbing through the whole thing just to find out what happens next. An unqualified work of mad genius.


Eugene Robinson, Editor-in-Chief, EQ Magazine

FACES OF MUSIC: 25 YEARS OF LUNCHING WITH LEGENDS packs in hundreds of original photos and nearly two hundred original interviews with some of the most famous names of music history. In 1967 the author attended his first recording session - at the invite of John Lennon - an experience which would lead to not only his association with the Beatles but to his exploration of recordings by other great musicians. FACES OF MUSIC includes short interviews with Kris Kristofferson, guitarist Les Paul, major studio owner Chris Stone and many more. Any who would understand the music biz needs this book.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch