Customer Reviews

Tell the Truth Until They Bleed: Coming Clean in the Dirty World of Blues and Rock 'n' Roll

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

 

 

I learned of this book when listening to an interview with the author on the late night AM radio "Joey Reynolds Show" from WOR 710. As someone who came of age in the 60's and enjoyed a modicum of success in the music business, I found most of the book fascinating. The last few chapters cover more obscure artists which held little interest for me. Even though there is no reference to the cover, I assume it's a photo of Frankie Lymon. The title and cover picture gives no indication of the book's contents and I would have passed it by if I saw it in a bookstore. Overall, it's an interesting read and I recommend it to readers who are interested in learning about how the music business operated some 40 years ago. I'm glad I bought the book!

Ignore Spike's typo-riddled review below - this is beautiful piece of reportage that lives up to its title. An unvarnished look at the music business back when it was peopled by talents, not self-deluded "superstars" completely indebted to their auto-tuners... It probably goes without saying that it had an equal number of hustlers and thieves (sometimes in the body of one person). Recommended.

Josh ALan Friedman is best known for plumbing the depths of NY city sleaze culture with Tales of Times Square (also recommended) but here he digs into a dark subculture of blues, R&B and roots rock with equal glee. THe Lieber and Stoller story is worth the price alone -- you dont know these guys like he does -- and then it is down the rabit hole with robbers and junkies and fallen bluesmen, Jewish record hustlers and black men riding the keen edge between high-art and urban casualty. The portraits in this book are flawless. And the writing stinks of the very thing it promises to cover -- the dirty world of blues and rocknroll. If you are a fan of the above, you need this book. HIGHLY recommended.

this book was culled from articles done back in the early Ninties.
It interveiws with the well known to little known entetainers.
Starts off with Lieber & Stoller. which was a fun and surprising
bit of information. the Following artists are interviewed
by a writer with no direction and the book just bogs down
into boring obsurity with little to offer. Again the first article was
very surprising if you lack information on L & S. Otherwise
Skip it .........