In my last column, I asked several music writers what books have shaped, and continue to shape, their writing. Originally, I had planned on devoting one column to the books both music writers and musicians were reading, but the questions I asked the musicians differed slightly from those I asked the writers. So this installment of The Reading Room is devoted to musicians.
Several of the artists I included here have written a memoir, or autobiography, that’s just been published. Others are working on autobiographies, and I wondered if any of them had another musician’s memoir in mind as they were writing theirs.
I asked each person slightly different questions, and I have included them below. I have not edited their responses — with the exception of grammar and punctuation. I wanted their voices to stand out here.
Bonnie Bramlett
Bramlett co-wrote “Superstar” and “Give Peace a Chance” with Leon Russell. As Delany and Bonnie, she and Delaney Bramlett recorded five albums of propulsive soul music. She has had a successful solo career, in addition to singing as a backup singer with artists from Steve Cropper, Ike and Tina Turner (she was the first white Ikette), and Joe Cocker, among many others.
She is at work on a memoir.
Henry Carrigan: Did you read other musicians’ memoirs as you were preparing to write yours? If so, did you think of any one of those books as models for your own writing? Are there other books that influenced you as a writer?
Bonnie Bramlett: Early on in my life I read. Billie’s Blues by Billie Holiday. Then Yes I Can By Sammy Davis Jr. I read Edith Piaff. They were to encourage me in my very scary endeavor, to be a Great Star!
I have thumbed through a few recent offers but my old war wounds have left me in deficit as a reader today. I did read enough to know who didn’t write their stories.
No, I am not using any previous works as a pattern. I am going in a different way. I’m telling my story from my POV. How it was to me — right or wrong. My truth has gotten me this far, so that’s what it is. My TRUTH! And honey, it ROCKS!
What’s your favorite music memory, and why?
I’ve had quite a few of what I call great moments, but they were mostly not public events. My great moments were personal. Secrets shared. Tears and laughter and moments of vulnerabilities, all shared in the act of just being real with each other. I have been blessed with many of those moments. Some I shall share, some I will not … yet. I’m workin’ on it.
If you could recommend one book about music that would help people understand the music business, what would it be?
In my “share” of Ike Turner I write where he gave the Ikettes a book called This Business Called Show Business. He told us that everything we needed to know was in that book, so if we got screwed it was our own damn fault. Ha! I was 17 and I lost my book in the first month. Robbie Montgomery still has hers and so does Vanette Fields, I’ll bet.
Steve Forbert
Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Forbert’s latest album is Compromised; he is at work on a memoir to be published in spring 2016.
Henry Carrigan: Did you read other musicians’ memoirs as you were preparing to write yours? If so, did you think of any one of those books as models for your own writing? Are there other books that influenced you as a writer?
I’m always reading musicians’ memoirs or a music biography.
I began to write mine just to give some friends that got interested in doing a play some raw material about my Greenwich Village experience to work with. Then I decided to join the current crowd of songwriters telling their own stories.
Raymond Carver and Truman Capote will always have an effect on any attempt I’d make at writing prose.
What’s your favorite music memoir, and why?
The Tommy James was certainly fun to read.
I love the early part of all these stories. The best part of almost all music careers is when people are finding their way, feeling about in the dark, “playing it by ear” as they go along. You know, inventing whatever it is they will later be well known for.
The book Robert Draper wrote about Rolling Stone magazine was excellent. Dark Star, about Jerry Garcia, is quite good. I liked both of the books about Bill Graham. I recently picked up David Crosby’s Long Time Gone and found it to be terrific.
My friend R.S. Field says the bio on Fats Domino is excellent. I hope to get to that soon.
If you could recommend one book about music that would help people understand the music business, what would it be?
Well, technically speaking, I read This Business of Music as a teenager and it helped me some. There must be a “digitally updated” one out now.
Those interested in the early mechanics of it all should read Nolan Porterfield’s book on Jimmie Rodgers, which detours into Ralph Peer’s Peer/Southern music publishing company and his crafty invention of mechanical royalties.
Steve Fishell
Renowned Nashville pedal steel guitarist Fishell toured recently with Rodney Crowell and Emmylou Harris on their The Traveling Kind tour. He also produced The Big E: A Salute to Steel Guitarist Buddy Emmons (2013).
Henry Carrigan: What books have helped shape you as a musician?
Steve Fishell: When I was 17 I read The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone’s biographical novel about Michelangelo Buonarroti. The book had a profound effect on me. I became fascinated reading about Michelangelo’s artistic drive and his pursuit of perfection as he followed his muse. I discovered the pedal steel the following year and all bets were off.
More recently, I’ve become obsessed with Charlie Parker, the greatest improviser of all time. My son gave me a copy of Stanley Crouch’s book Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker. Crouch toiled on the book for years and he brilliantly captures Parker’s personal — and ultimately tragic — struggles as he mastered his instrument.
What books are on your bedside table now?
Currently I am reading Furious Cool, a biography about Richard Pryor, by brothers Joe and David Henry. I like it because the authors jump fearlessly out of chronological order to paint their portrait of Pryor. I’m also reading Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy by Judd Apatow. He had the audacity at age 15 to ask top comedians like Steve Allen, Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno for interviews … and they agreed! It’s a revealing look inside the minds of comic genius.
What is your favorite music memoir and why?
I have many favorites, but I especially love Bob Dylan’s Chronicles Volume One, for its verbal impressionism as he jumps through so many disparate subjects — often with incomplete sentences — weaving a revealing tale all the way from his days in Greenwich Village hanging out in the hospital with Woody Guthrie to his recording sessions in New Orleans with Daniel Lanois. Dylan is funny; the book had me busting out laughing many times. I’d also like to mention Rodney Crowell’s Chinaberry Sidewalks which I love for its stark honesty as Rodney peels back the layers of his intense, crazy childhood.
If you could recommend one book about music that would help people understand the music business what would it be?
The bible is All You Need to Know About the Music Business by Donald Passman. It’s written from the artist’s perspective rather than the label’s and it’s a must-read for anyone getting started today. Get his most recent revision due out in November.
Ray Wylie Hubbard
Singer-songwriter and guitarist Hubbard’s latest album is The Ruffian’s Misfortune, and he has just released a new autobiography titled A Life…Well, Lived.
Henry Carrigan: What books have most influenced you as a writer? What books are on your bedside table now?
Ray Wylie Hubbard: Tranformations of Myth Though Time by Joseph Campbell and Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke not only influenced me as a writer but drastically improved my life. On my beside table are Duff McKagan’s It’s So Easy and Greil Marcus’ Like a Rolling Stone.
What’s your favorite music memoir, and why?
It’s a tie: Chronicles by Bob Dylan, and the reason is … it’s Bob Dylan. And I’m Your Man by Sylvie Simmons because … it’s Leonard Cohen.
If you could recommend one book about music that would help people understand the music business, what would it be?
The old book Confessions of a Record Producer by anonymous is pretty gnarly, but it’s right on.
Donna Ulisse
Singer, songwriter, and bluegrass poet Ulisse’s latest album is Hard Cry Moon, and her book, The Songwriter in Me: Snapshots of My Creative Process (2014) is now available as an e-book.
Henry Carrigan: What music books, if any, do you consider to be models for your own writing? Are there other books that have influenced you as a writer?
Donna Ulisse: The Best Of Loretta Lynn is a tattered, coverless songbook that bears the impressions of how much I have loved every page. I have had this book from childhood and lapped up every word of her writing. When I look at of my own writing, I spy the elements I have admired in Loretta Lynn’s writing: the no-nonsense descriptions, her honesty, her choice of words that sound so incredibly her own … she made me want to write songs.
I also have to say that Angela’s Ashes and the books that followed by Frank McCourt had a huge impact on my writing. I could see the images so clearly in my mind, in the scenes he was describing, and it made me more keenly aware than ever of how that kind of descriptive language can transport a reader of books and listener of songs, by words alone. It was also the rhythm of his writing and the way he kept referring back to key things that was so impressive to me.
What’s your favorite music memoir, and why?
This is going to sound weird but my favorite memoir of another musical hero of mine was written in my grandfather Lloyd Porter Butler’s hand. My granddaddy’s youngest brother, Gene “Curly” Butler was an incredible singer and songwriter. He died never knowing the success he ended up having, writing one of Bill Monroe’s most successful duets, “I Hope You Have Learned.” The whole story of Curly’s career and passing was a sad tale that my granddaddy wrote about in a diary none of us knew existed until after he died. I feel like part of my ability to tell stories in an interesting way came from my grandfather and his baby brother. They could make a memory come to life in a most visual way and that is one of my favorite tools in my songwriting today. And of course, Coal Miner’s Daughter was a book I could not wait to read when it came out because of my longtime love of Loretta Lynn.
If you could recommend one book about music that would help people understand the music business, what would it be?
I have to chuckle because the business of music business is not my strong suit. I am fortunate enough to be a longtime published songwriter in Nashville, Tennessee, and having the protection of a team of people that look after the business part of songwriting and the record business I am involved in allows me freedom to go about the creative part: recording and writing songs. I did purchase the book All You Need To Know About The Music Business and set an assignment for myself to become familiar with the aspects of the legal side. I do occasionally refer to this book when I have a question about something but mostly I take the easiest way out and call my publisher.
Mary Gauthier
Singer-songwriter Gauthier’s latest album is Trouble & Love; she frequently leads songwriting workshops, and is at work on a book titled The Art of the Song.
Henry Carrigan: What books have most influenced you as a writer? What books are on your bedside table now?
Mary Gauthier: The writing books that I return to again and again are Anne Lamont’s Bird by Bird, and Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write. William Zinsser’s On Writing Well is also a classic. All of these books are on writing prose, not songs, but they are helpful to a songwriter. In some ways, songwriting is an extension of prose — lyrics take prose and make it rhyme. As for new releases and books on my bedside table … I just enjoyed Mary Carr’s book The Art of Memoir, and Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic.
What’s your favorite music memoir, and why?
My favorite music memoir is Just Kids, by Patti Smith. Her writing is superb, well-deserving of the National Book Award that it received. I have been a fan of hers forever, and I am thrilled that she’s writing books now. I loved Dylan’ s Chronicles, and Cash’s Cash –– these books, written by two larger-than-life truly great artists, have the tone of being written by regular guys. That tone, among many others things, makes the books utterly compelling.
If you could recommend one book about music that would help people understand the music business, what would it be?
If there’s a book out there about understanding the music business as it is today, I don’t know about it. I think the subject it vast, and there’s no real one size fits all “music business.” Making a living as an artist requires creative thinking at every turn. The best advice I ever got was from Fred Eaglesmith, who told me to get out of the “music business” and “get in the Mary Gauthier business.”
What he was saying is that we are entrepreneurs now, all of us working outside of the major label system, and we need to think like a business person. Fortunately, I have a small business background and it has served me well as I navigate the business of making money as a singer-songwriter. I quit trying to understand the music business a long time ago … I focus on creating opportunities — for my songs, my personal appearances, and teaching. Also, I am writing a book now on the “Art of Song.” So, looks like the next big business I’ll be in and not understand will be the book business.
Freda Love Smith
A drummer for the Blake Babies, Antenna, and the Mysteries of Life, Smith’s new memoir is Red Velvet Underground: A Rock Memoir with Recipes.
Henry Carrigan: Did you read other musicians’ memoirs as you were preparing to write yours? If so, did you think of any of those books as models for your own writing? Are there other books that influenced you as a writer?
Freda Love Smith: I read Bob Mould’s See a Little Light (written with Michael Azerrad) early in the process of writing Red Velvet Underground, and it directly influenced my own memoir. Mould is honest and forthcoming about personal moments in his career and is open about his sexuality. My default mode is pretty buttoned up and he inspired me to be more loose and vulnerable.
My primary models, though, were culinary books — food memoirs — especially Amanda Hesser’s Cooking for Mr. Latte and Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone. Both incorporate food into the narrative and include recipes. Hesser and Reichl are also both engaging and incredibly readable writers. I wanted my book to be a rock and roll version of their books.
What’s your favorite music memoir, and why?
I am a huge Levon Helm fan and I devoured his book, This Wheel’s on Fire. Not only does it tell the story of one of my favorite bands, but its distinctive and humble voice proves that Levon was among the most gracious souls to walk the earth.
If you could recommend one book about music that would help people understand the music business, what would it be?
I’m definitely dating myself, but I have to say Hit Men by Frederic Dannen. I read it as a young musician and was astounded by its tales of corruption in the music business. I suppose it’s mostly relevant as a historical document at this point, but still worth reading for anyone with the stomach to take a close look at the business, especially the whole racket of independent promoters who determine what’s on the radio.
June Millington
With her sister, Jean, guitarist Millington formed the rock band Fanny; her latest album is Play Like a Girl, and she has just published an autobiography, Land of a Thousand Bridges.
Henry Carrigan: What books have most influenced you as a writer? What books are on your bedside table now?
June Millington: Memories, Dreams, Reflections, by Carl Jung; Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be, by Simone Signoret; The Way of White Clouds: a Buddhist Pilgrim in Tibet, by Lama Anagarika Govinda; Bodhisattva of Compassion: the Mystical Tradition of Kuan Yin by John Blofild; and the autobiographies of Pablo Casals and Pablo Neruda.
Why Jazz Happened, by Marc Myers, is by my bedside right now.
What’s your favorite music memoir, and why?
Bob Dylan’s Chronicles: Volume One — because it’s so thrillingly written. I understood everything he said and described about music, and his descriptions were electrifying. Music is like that.
If you could recommend one book about music that would help people understand the music business, what would it be?
Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business, by Fredric Dannen.
