The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce [Paperback]

Fred Goodman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 31, 1998

In 1964, on the brink of the British Invasion, the music business in America shunned rock and roll. There was no rock press, no such thing as artist management -- literally no rock-and-roll business. Today the industry will gross over $20 billion. How did this change happen?

From the moment Pete Seeger tried to cut the power at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival debut of Bob Dylan's electric band, rock's cultural influence and business potential have been grasped by a rare assortment of ambitious and farsighted musicians and businessmen. Jon Landau took calls from legendary producer Jerry Wexler in his Brandeis dorm room and went on to orchestrate Bruce Springsteen's career. Albert Grossman's cold-eyed assessment of the financial power at his clients' fingertips made him the first rock manager to blaze the trail that David Geffen transformed into a superhighway. Dylan's uncanny ability to keep his manipulation of the business separate from his art and reputation prefigured the savvy -- and increasingly cynical -- professionalism of groups like the Eagles.

Fred Goodman, a longtime rock critic and journalist, digs into the contradictions and ambiguities of a generation that spurned and sought success with equal fervor. The Mansion on the Hill, named after a song title used by Hank Williams, Neil Young, and Bruce Springsteen, breaks new ground in our understanding of the people and forces that have shaped the music.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you wanted to write the definitive history of rock music, you'd need three things: a deep appreciation of the music, an understanding of business, and a journalist's skills and instincts. Fred Goodman has all three, and The Mansion on the Hill is a must-read for anyone interested in how a counter-cultural phenomenon with moral overtones became--in a mere thirty years--a multibillion-dollar business. Goodman, a former editor at Rolling Stone, traces the arc of this weird transformation by focusing principally on the stories of a handful of key artists and their managers--Bob Dylan and Albert Grossman, Neil Young and David Geffen, and Bruce Springsteen and Jon Landau--but the book is richly populated with others, famous and not-so-famous. Goodman makes good use of his extensive research (he conducted 200 interviews over three years), and admirably balances reportorial analysis with a certain passion for the values that rock music once stood for--and sometimes still does. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Fans shocked by Bob Dylan's nonreaction to a bank's using "The Times They Are A-Changin'" as an ad jingle have their worst fears confirmed by Goodman's screed on the co-opting of Woodstock nation's music. Taking his title from separate songs by Hank Williams (senior, and barely mentioned), Neil Young, and Bruce Springsteen, Goodman examines how a music marketed for its antiestablishment stance became mere product in the hands of hip capitalists like Jon Landau and David Geffen. Ex^-Rolling Stone editor and reviewer Landau is portrayed as an operator unconcerned with niceties like conflict of interest, such as reviewing records by musicians with whom he was financially involved, in his pursuit of pelf. This should not surprise us about big-time entertainment, of course, and Goodman just underscores how a pop music that arose from the left-wing, anticapitalist American folk scene was merchandised and hyped until it became what it originally reacted against: the boring, unimaginative mainstream. Good book, sad story, and excellent companion to Selvin's Summer of Love (1994). Mike Tribby --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (March 31, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679743774
• ISBN-13: 978-0679743774
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #374,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The rock business is even worse than you think, December 22, 2002

By 

David Field (Groveland, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce (Paperback)

I bought this book because I was mildly interested but before long I was sucked into the tale about how the money talked louder than any musician's ability.

This is story of how several clever people took the talent-driven music of the mid to late sixties and gradually turned this into a money-driven enterprise where all the artist needed to do was keep the gullible public into believing that "it's all about the music, man!"

The book covers some of the major players like Bruce Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau, and record mogul David Geffen, along with the artists they were involved with like Dylan, Neil Young, the Eagles, and plenty more. The book shows how the industry evolved from Warner Brothers execs (in WB blazers) signing the Grateful Dead (and being scared to death of being given LSD) - to the CBS policy of the mid-eighties of taking acts that the company wanted to succeed and have them make a few low-selling albums and play live gigs so they would have more credibility with record buyers.

The execs were every bit as exotic as the artists they represented, and thought nothing about double-dipping their clients' earnings even though they were already assured of millions. I was astounded to learn that at the height of the Eagles' success they went out on tour and got NINETY-SEVEN AND A HALF PERCENT of the receipts, leaving the venue with just two and half percent.

Essential reading for anyone interested in the music industry, especially people trying to break into the scene. Check your integrity at the door, because it will just be an impediment otherwise.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very well written, if depressing, September 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce (Paperback)

You don't have to be a raving fire 'n brimstone type to lament the passing of the "good old days" of rock. You just have to switch on your radio now and hear songs that were once anthems being used to hawk jeans, beer, bank cards, etc. and if that doesn't make you even a little indignant, you're either too young to remember or too embalmed to give a damn. Fred Goodman's book is a good accounting of some of the other nails in rock's coffin, the forces of the entertainment business who saw gold in them thar hills. Yeah, I know, I know---how foolish, how naive to think that rock could be anything BUT a commodity, as with any other form of popular entertainment. Perhaps so, but naivete is what started rock off in the first place, the idea that boundaries were made to be broken and that not all rebels join the herd in the end. I'm still playing my Dylan albums, though, and if the lustre has worn off the man's image somewhat as time has gone by, it doesn't change the fact that Dylan---and Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen and Joni Mitchell and even Glenn Frey and Don Henley---still made a large body of music that mattered then and matters now. But the old image of rock as "music of the people" or whatever, that's gone the way of all flesh.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Mansion is Bigger Than Your Mansion, February 22, 2006

By 

Lilting Banshee (Roseburg, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce (Paperback)

If you have ever winced at the rapid co-opting of 60's and early 70's rock music by big business and/or mercenary musicians, if you have ever gritted your teeth at paying $15+ for a CD and then wondered who gets your money, if you ever hoped that there was once something culturally meaningful in the rock scene and wondered what happened, then this book will provide many answers. Two things made this book difficult for me: 1) Goodman lays out details and names names with such frequency I could have used a glossary listing of the major players cynically manipulating the burgeoning cultural shifts of the "summer of love" from radio to underground newspapers to rock venues 2) the machinations of many of the artists and most of their managers illustrate such a sad, greedy side of humanity. Everyone who gets rich--really, really, really rich--does it by successfully, often ruthlessly, exploiting consumer willingness to pay for rock and roll product. The organist of Springsteen's E Street band, Danny Federici, sums up one of their mega-tours this way: "We started out as a band, which turned into a super, giant corporate money-making machine." And that about sums up the last 40 years of rock and roll. My advice: read this book, then seek out all of the really great musicians (and CD labels) out there who haven't been sucked up into mega-marketing campaigns, corporate sponsored tours, and manufacturing soundtracks for multinational companies.