The Rock And Roll Book Of The Dead [Paperback]

David Comfort (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 2009

"Once you're dead, you're made for life." --Jimi Hendrix

Hendrix. Janis. Morrison. Elvis. Lennon. Cobain. Garcia.

Their reckless brilliance held the key to their self-destruction. Their deaths had much in common--and, surprisingly, so did their lives. From lonely childhoods marred by loss to groundbreaking music and turbulent careers that ended tragically and suspiciously, David Comfort explodes the myths as he probes:

• The sinister roles of Hendrix's manager and girlfriend in his death and subsequent cover-up

• The bizarre odyssey of Jim Morrison's corpse

• Why Kurt Cobain was worth more dead than alive to Courtney Love

• The twisted motives that caused John Lennon to sail through the Devil's Triangle to Bermuda--nearly going down in a storm--shortly before he was fatally shot

• The crippling disease and "miracle" drug that drove Elvis to suicide

Charismatic and gifted, but also isolated and conflicted, these are not the rock icons you thought you knew. Here are their larger-than-life stories of turmoil and excess that led to their early deaths and ultimate immortality. It's a wild ride to the other side of fame.

"Fame is the soul eater." --Jerry Garcia

"Everybody loves you when you're six foot in the ground." --John Lennon

Includes Rare Photos

David Comfort is the author of three bestselling nonfiction books. His short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines, including Eclectic Literary Forum, Pacific Review, Coe Review, and Belletrist Review. He has been the recipient of several literary prizes and a finalist for such prestigious awards as the Nelson Algren Award and America's Best. A former rock musician, he has spent over 30 years studying rock music, particularly the revolutionary and fatalistic pioneers of the 1960s. He lives in Santa Rosa, California.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Citadel; First Printing, September 2009 edition (August 25, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806531215
• ISBN-13: 978-0806531212
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,126,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Comfort is the author of three popular nonfiction titles from Simon & Schuster. His short fiction has won several literary prizes and has reached the finals for such prestigious awards as the Faulkner Award, Nelson Algren Award and America's Best. His current title, THE ROCK AND ROLL BOOK OF THE DEAD, The Fatal Journeys of Rock's Seven Immortals, is a study of the tempestuous lives, tormented relationships, and tragic ends of Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, and Kurt Cobain.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Sloppy and poorly researched., January 4, 2010

By 

The Supernatural Anaesthetist (NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rock And Roll Book Of The Dead (Paperback)

Comfort begins his book with by claiming to present "for the first time... an impartial point of view committed not to adulation or defamation, but to the truth" and then proceeds to instead compose a mishmash of bits and pieces from a multitude of the seamier "tell-all" books that have been written about his subjects. This is a more than a bit disingenuous but is actually the least of this book's problems. There are an endless array of factual errors in this book that leave me believing that he knows little to nothing about the musicians that he is writing about. I will list only a few examples, as a thorough list would be enough for a book in itself. He claims Jimi Hendrix's mother died when he was ten and in the very next paragraph says she died when he was fifteen. In a brief aside about Brian Wilson, he errantly attributes a condition Wilson suffered from called tardive dyskinesia to LSD use in the '60s, when in fact it is well-documented that the condition (which Wilson suffered from in the '80s) was a result of antipsychotics prescribed to him by Dr. Eugene Landy (this condition is a well-known side effect of the specific medication that Wilson was prescribed). On one occasion he follows the phrase, "Lennon sang..." with lyrics actually sung by Paul McCartney. A couple of quotes in the Jerry Garcia section are attributed to "Grateful Dead manager Vince Welnick" (Welnick was the band's keyboard player, not manager). Like I said, these mistakes are but a few of dozens that this book is riddled with, and it makes it hard to take anything here very seriously. If you want "all the dirt" then there are plenty of books out there that are far more well written.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poorly Slung Hash, September 20, 2010

By 

W. K. Gray "cretinous layabout" (South Carolina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Rock And Roll Book Of The Dead (Paperback)

Not entirely without merit - this book did at least generate enough interest that I now want to read some legitimate material on a couple of the Seven, as Comfort so portentously calls them. The Lennon material I was already very familiar with, however, and I KNOW that portion is riddled with misinformation, which leads me to be sceptical of this rest of this sensationalist hash. Lennon did NOT write or sing Helter Skelter. He never wrote a song called Dream # 9 (#9 Dream, and it was not on the "Mind Games" album). At one point he quotes a Lennon lyric that I've NEVER encountered anywhere (it's possible I'm in the wrong here, but I don't think so), and he ascribes malicious intent to Yoko's sending John sailing off into the Bermuda Triangle, which can only mean she meant to murder him, right? I mean, but for the fact that the myth of the Bermuda Triangle has been de-bunked about a thousand times over, he was sent into certain death, wasn't he? Check again. Ships and planes routinely traverse the Bermuda Triangle daily, with no disproportionate mayhem ensuing.
I will say that he makes a soundly reasoned-out case for Courtney Love's involvment in Kurt Cobain's death, provided it's an undistorted account. I found this section fairly compelling, and would like to read more.
I think the book has more facts right than wrong, and I was interested enough to finish it. I just think Comfort saw, as can we, the dollar signs that guided him.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but flawed tales, February 28, 2011

By 

Bruce Wahler (Ashby, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Rock And Roll Book Of The Dead (Kindle Edition)

David Comfort creates a captivating narrative of seven ultra-famous rock stars that is hard to put down. Even though I already knew many of their stories, I learned (or re-learned) new details from reading the book. That said, I found some of his attempts to connect the seven with common threads a stretch. He also tends to stitch two or more disconnected lines of song lyric together to prove a point about the artist's thoughts, a questionable leap in some cases. Finally, there are enough minor lyrical misquotes attributed to the stars whose songs I know well (Lennon, Hendrix, Morrison) to make me wonder if the same isn't true of other details. Any book that claims to take a cold, hard look at lives filled with myth and legend should take extra care to get the facts straight -- and lyrics that support one's conclusion are facts. So, in the end, I was left with the same feeling that I get when watching a 'docu-drama': it's an interesting theory, but is it the truth?