Customer Reviews

Have Mercy!: Confessions of the Original Rock 'N' Roll Animal

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

The spirt of "Wolfman" Jack lives in this book!! I think that too many radio DJs these days think boring is good! "Wolfman" Jack always took it to the edge. He made you want to hear more. Today you listen to the radio to hear a song or two that is "the new or hot thing of the day." "Wolfman" always played such a mix of music and even help make a few others career. He is a force that is missed in radio today. He will always be my favorite of all time. Long live "Wolfman" Jack!!

This is a great history of both the Wolfman and early jazz and blues, leading into rock and roll. I sure wish current radio was as it was in the 1960s and 1970s. This country would be a better place.

This book describes radio the way it used to be...the way it should still be. DJ's were real live personalities, not a computer, and they played your requests. I never got to hear the Wolfman on the air but because of this book I consider myself one of his biggest fans. If you are in radio, thinking about a career in radio, or if you are a true radio fan you simply must read this book.

Wolfman Jack "was" the ultimate D.J of all time. No one will ever fill his shoes. This book defines how his career got started, but it's too bad it wasn't accompanied by an "audio". You can't learn about or know "Wolfman" unless you've heard one of his shows. I was stunned that the entertainment world never gave him a tribute! But he "did"it in the way he lived his life! HAVE MERCY WOLFMAN. (insert a HOWL here!)

Wolfman, who left us a few years ago, led a life few of us can imagine. Influenced by the great DJ's of a long lost era, and music few of us have ever heard (I was born in 1949), Wolfman was a juve (short for juvenile deliquent, a term for a lost soul, or worse, someone headed into the hands of the justice system). But through an amazing string of circumstances he found himself first in a prestigious broadcasting school, then happened into a string of low power, low budget AM stations where he was allowed to create the persona of the Wolfman. His experiences with XERF, the Mexican powerhouse read like a poorly written thriller, except they are true. I couldn't put this book down and knocked of it's 350+ pages in two days. Buy this book, you won't be sorry.

I enjoyed listening to Wolfman Jack on the radio while growing up and also seeing him host the Midnight Special on TV. This book was written a few short months before he died. The book is engrossing and describes a life full of mischief and experiences that never stopped. I could not put this book down. There are parts of the book that are a little surprising, such as his heavy drug usage in the 1970's, but that's not unexpected. He had a rough start in life and managed to become a huge success by following his dream and not letting anything stop him. You will also learn that he was really a very good man. If you remember the Wolfman and appreciated his talents, and wonder how he became as popular as he did, you will enjoy this book very much.

I read the book after he died. What a book!! The book takes the reader for a ride with a character that the reader will never forget!

The book will make a great movie and I hope that there is a movie made from the book.

I can not wait till the publisher starts publishing the book again because I will buy another one for sure.

HAVE MERCY!!

HAVE MERCY! takes a wild ride through an important era of broadcast history. HAVE MERCY! captures the renegade spirit that led a few pirates and pioneers to take risks for entertainment sake. HAVE MERCY! does a superb job of describing the times and painting a picture of what those who ventured into early rock were up against. HAVE MERCY! helps us to better understand what made one white boy howl in the night - and others sing the blues. HAVE MERCY! makes clear the impact of radio in the early days of rock-n-roll. Its a classic expose' on pop culture. HAVE MERCY! shows the drive and determination and focus and endurance and high energy it took to succeed in a highly competetive industry. HAVE MERCY! catches the gimmicks and the glamour. HAVE MERCY! drops all the right names in all the right places. HAVE MERCY! doesn't shy away from revealing the hazards, the hardships, the dirty deals and the difficult decisions either. HAVE MERCY! is a roller coaster without seatbelts - a wooden one with plenty of bumps and sharp turns and deep drops along the way. HAVE MERCY! chronicles the life of a street tough kid with a dream - someone least likely to succeed - who beat the odds and made it. HAVE MERCY! relives the roots of rock as told through THE VOICE that spoke for a whole generation. HAVE MERCY! grabs onto the craziness of THE VOICE but doesn't see the flip side. Nothing is revealed about the inner stuff the Wolfman was made of. HAVE MERCY! tells the what, when and where of Wolfman's story but fails to communicate the why well enough for reader's know who the Wolfman really was. Its as if the author is writing from a distance - on the outside looking in when a more compelling biography would be told from the inside looking out. HAVE MERCY! recants the making of the personality . . . but fails to see beyond the legend the Wolfman had become. If I hadn't already known the huge impact Wolfman had on my generation, I'm not sure I would've comprehended it from the book. The author tries, but fails to show the true connection between THE VOICE and his listeners. HAVE MERCY! gets the facts but not the feelings. Its like when a record company measures the quality of a song by its sales instead of its message or craftmanship. HAVE MERCY! records details but never gets the big picture. The author never catches the vision. He rides with the Wolfman but never contemplates the reason. He notes the Wolf's charisma but never understands it. Its clearly too overwhelming to describe and so its treated almost like an after-thought. Not a lot of effort goes into getting to know Wolf's fans or measuring his impact on the world around him either. HAVE MERCY! never sees the Wolfman as a wholistic being - the author never gets into his soul the way I, the reader, wanted him to. And so, the Wolfman came across as a wild, but somewhat packaged, entertainer with a well inflated ego - rather than a dedicated spokesman whose main mission may have been just to spread some joy. What if the radio was nothing more than a vehicle to enable the Wolfman to accomplish that goal? HAVE MERCY! only suggests such honorable motives - instead the author dwells on stereotypical indicators that suggest the Wolf was mostly after fortune and fame. The Wolfman is depicted as a relentless industry climber willing to do just about anything to claw his way to the top. HAVE MERCY! had me asking whatever happened to Robert Smith? Did he completely disappear whenever the Wolf came out to play? If HAVE MERCY! were an instruction manual on how-to develop a strong stage personality the author would succeed in covering the steps and listing the most sensational ingredients needed - but he'd fail to give a clue as to what makes the recipe work. The author wasn't able to make me feel the fire and the author didn't manage to make the Wolfman bleed. His pen barely scraped the surface. Had it dug deeper it may have gotten to the heart of the story. A good book gets the info, keeps the pace and tells an interesting story - but a great book goes beyond the expected by sharing keen insights and by giving the reader something valuable to hang onto long after the last page is read. HAVE MERCY! is a good book, not a great one. I walked away exhausted from a really wild journey - but still not certain as to who I'd shared it with. That's a shame because I'm certain there was more to the Wolfman than the world ever got a chance to know, or this author ever managed to uncover.

Total Krap.

I started to just leave my review at those two words, but thought better of it in the interest of saving some other poor hapless soul the trouble and expense. Let me clarify...
IF your interest is in anecdotes of immorality - adultery, drug use and the like set against a [distant] backdrop of radio - and amateurish attempts at social/cultural engineering and historical inaccuracy/revisionism, you might enjoy this tome. BUT, if your interest is in radio history, read the chapter on XERF -which was quite entertaining - and forget the rest.
If you are a fan of Wolfman, may I suggest you re-watch American Graffiti, listen to old radio shows and clips, and let the legend live on in your mind. After reading this book, your admiration will suffer mightily.