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The Wrecking Crew
- The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Best-Kept Secret
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
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Publisher's summary
Audie Award Winner, History, 2013
If you were a fan of popular music in the 1960s and early '70s, you were a fan of the Wrecking Crew - whether you knew it or not.
On hit record after hit record, by everyone from the Byrds, the Beach Boys, and the Monkees to the Grass Roots, the 5th Dimension, Sonny & Cher, and Simon & Garfunkel, this collection of West Coast studio musicians from diverse backgrounds established themselves as the driving sound of pop music - sometimes over the objection of actual band members forced to make way for Wrecking Crew members.
Industry insider Kent Hartman tells the dramatic, definitive story of the musicians who forged a reputation throughout the business as the secret weapons behind the top recording stars. Mining invaluable interviews, the author follows the careers of such session masters as drummer Hal Blaine and keyboardist Larry Knechtel, as well as trailblazing bassist Carol Kaye, who went on to play in thousands of recording sessions. Listeners will discover the Wrecking Crew members who would forge careers in their own right, including Glen Campbell and Leon Russell, and learn of the relationship between the Crew and such legends as Phil Spector and Jimmy Webb.
Hartman also takes us inside the studio for the legendary sessions that gave us Pet Sounds, Bridge Over Troubled Water, and the rock classic “Layla”, which Wrecking Crew drummer Jim Gordon cowrote with Eric Clapton for Derek and the Dominos. And the author recounts priceless scenes, such as Mike Nesmith of the Monkees facing off with studio head Don Kirshner, Grass Roots lead guitarist (and future star of The Office) Creed Bratton getting fired from the group, and Michel Rubini unseating Frank Sinatra's pianist for the session in which the iconic singer improvised the hit-making ending to “Strangers in the Night”.
The Wrecking Crew tells the collective, behind-the-scenes stories of the artists who dominated Top-40 radio during the most exciting time in American popular culture.
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Legendary music producer LA Reid - the man behind artists such as Mariah Carey, Toni Braxton, Kanye West, Rihanna, TLC, Outkast, Pink, Justin Bieber, and Usher - changed the music business forever. Now he tells his story, taking fans on an intimate tour of his life. Sing to Me is a fascinating journey from Reid's small-town R&B roots in Cincinnati, Ohio, and his work as a drummer to his fame as a Grammy Award-winning music producer and his gig as a judge on the hit reality show The X Factor.
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Wow!! What a journey!!!
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By: LA Reid
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So Many Roads
- The Life and Times of the Grateful Dead
- By: David Browne
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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No longer dismissed as relics of the hippie era, a new generation has lionized the Dead for creating a culture that paved the way for social networking, free music swapping, and the uncompromising anticorporate attitude of indie rock. Now, fifty years after the band first began changing rock 'n' roll both sonically and psychically, So Many Roads paints the most vivid portrait yet of the Grateful Dead, one of the most enduring institutions in American music and culture.
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Great first book on the Dead
- By robert on 10-30-15
By: David Browne
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Thelonious Monk
- The Life and Times of an American Original
- By: Robin DG Kelley
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 25 hrs and 30 mins
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Thelonious Monk is the critically acclaimed, gripping saga of an artist's struggle to "make it" without compromising his musical vision. It is a story that, like its subject, reflects the tidal ebbs and flows of American history in the 20th century. To his fans, he was the ultimate hipster; to his detractors, he was temperamental, eccentric, taciturn, or childlike. His angular melodies and dissonant harmonies shook the jazz world to its foundations, ushering in the birth of "bebop" and establishing Monk as one of America's greatest composers.
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The definitive bio of Monk
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By: Robin DG Kelley
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Outlaw
- Waylon, Willie, Kris, and the Renegades of Nashville
- By: Michael Streissguth
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Waylon Jennings. Willie Nelson. Kris Kristofferson. Three renegade musicians. Three unexpected stars. Three men who changed Nashville and country music forever. Streissguth's new book brings to life an incredible chapter in musical history and reveals for the first time a surprising outlaw zeitgeist in Nashville. Based on extensive research and probing interviews with key players, what emerges is a fascinating glimpse into three of the most legendary artists of our times and the definitive story of how they changed music in Nashville and everywhere.
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Revealing little-known Details does Captivate!
- By Cody Meyer on 11-20-17
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Here Comes the Night
- The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues
- By: Joel Selvin
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Here Comes the Night: Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues is both a definitive account of the New York rhythm and blues world of the early '60s, and the harrowing, ultimately tragic story of songwriter and record producer Bert Berns, whose meteoric career was fueled by his pending doom. His heart damaged by rheumatic fever as a youth, doctors told Berns he would not live to see 21. Although his name is little remembered today, Berns worked alongside all the greats of the era.
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Great book.
- By The Blimmer on 10-14-23
By: Joel Selvin
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Paul McCartney
- A Life
- By: Peter Ames Carlin
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of the definitive biography of former Beach Boy Brian Wilson offers new insight into the life and music of Paul McCartney, one of the world's most popular and influential musicians. Informed by new, exclusive interviews with friends, bandmates, and collaborators, the book describes McCartney's many triumphs as well as his failures, from the Beatles era through his decade with Wings and his subsequent solo career.
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Great...But
- By Diego on 05-02-10
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Relentless
- The Memoir
- By: Yngwie J. Malmsteen
- Narrated by: Yngwie J. Malmsteen, Fred Berman
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Yngwie Malmsteen's revolutionary guitar style - combining elements of classical music with the speed and volume of heavy metal - made him a staple of the 80s rock scene. Decades later, he's still a legend among guitarists, having sold 11 million albums and influenced generations of rockers since. In Relentless, Malmsteen shares his personal story, from the moment he burst onto the scene seemingly out of nowhere in the early 80s to become a household name in the annals of heavy metal.
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yngwie rules!
- By Chief on 02-23-21
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My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire
- By: Maurice White, Herb Powell
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The late Grammy-winning founder of the legendary pop/R&B/soul/funk/disco group tells his story and charts the rise of his legendary band in this sincere memoir that captures the heart and soul of an artist whose groundbreaking sound continues to influence music today. With a foreword by David Foster.
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Maurice--Earth, Wind and Fire
- By Linda Ealey on 02-28-17
By: Maurice White, and others
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Wild Tales
- A Rock & Roll Life
- By: Graham Nash
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- Unabridged
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From Graham Nash - the legendary musician and founding member of the iconic bands Crosby, Stills & Nash and The Hollies - comes a candid and riveting autobiography that belongs on the reading list of every classic rock fan.
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The Best of the Recent Rock Biographies
- By Steven Schuster on 10-28-13
By: Graham Nash
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When Giants Walked the Earth
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- By: Mick Wall
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- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
They were the last great band of the '60s and the first great band of the '70s. They rose, somewhat unpromisingly, from the ashes of the Yardbirds to become one of the biggest-selling rock bands of all time - and eventually paid the price for it, with disaster, drug addiction, and death.
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Very annoying but tolerable for serious fans.
- By M. Allen on 08-14-19
By: Mick Wall
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Everybody Wants Some
- The Van Halen Saga
- By: Ian Christe
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
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How did a pair of little Dutch boys trained in classical music grow up to become the nucleus of the most popular heavy metal band of all time? What's the secret behind Eddie Van Halen's incredible fast and furious guitar solos? What makes David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar so wacky? And, are all those stories about groupies, booze bashes, and contract riders true? The naked truth is laid bare in Everybody Wants Some - the real-life story of a rock 'n' roll fantasy come true.
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Good details of albums and post-1984 career
- By IndyMATT on 12-30-18
By: Ian Christe
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Power Chord
- One Man's Ear-Splitting Quest to Find His Guitar Heroes
- By: Thomas Scott McKenzie
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
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Power Chord is the story of one man’s epic pilgrimage to gain rock enlightenment from the gods and guitar heroes of the Golden Age of heavy metal. Author Scott McKenzie set off to make contact with the legendary metal superstars he worshipped in his rural Kentucky youth - men like George Lynch of Dokken, Glen Tipton of Judas Priest, and Ace Frehley of KISS - hoping to gain wisdom and a better understanding of the electric guitar mystique.
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Such a fun read, especially for metal-heads
- By Jack on 04-01-23
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Fire and Rain
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- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
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January 1970: the Beatles assemble one more time to put the finishing touches on Let It Be; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are wrapping up Déjà Vu; Simon and Garfunkel are unveiling Bridge Over Troubled Water; James Taylor is an upstart singer-songwriter who's just completed Sweet Baby James. Over the course of the next twelve months, their lives---and the world around them---will change irrevocably.
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Fascinating information, easy to listen
- By NCKitkat on 07-28-11
By: David Browne
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What listeners say about The Wrecking Crew
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Patrick King
- 04-29-14
Left Guessing
Is there anything you would change about this book?
It seems as though Kent Hartman learned to write by composing blurbs for paperbacks. His alliterative metaphors double up on each other. This "look at me" style of writing is really annoying especially when you hear it read aloud. Just one typical example, he refers to Phil Spector as "The elfin emperor." Perhaps that doesn't sound like a big deal but four or five of these things per page it really begins to grate on the listener after a while.
Starting a book about several disparate people describing events that seemed important to them was I though very hokey and not at all enlightening: Hal Blaine caught in a circus fire, Glenn Campbell getting a whipping... come on!
The other thing is when you're writing a book about musicians who do you imagine is going to buy it and read it? People who are very interested in music and how musicians develop their chops, that's who and that's what they want to know. Most of us who read these books have inadvertently done as much research on this subject as the author has. Therefore we expect the author to know that Bertha Spector until the day she died referred to her son by his REAL name, Harvey, NEVER as Phil. If I know that and Mr. Hartman doesn't, what else did he get wrong? My guess is plenty.
So much is glossed over. He tells a very interesting story about how Don Peake conned his way into an important gig by being able to play Be Bop A Lula, one of three songs he knew on guitar. The thing is, after it was discovered that he really couldn't play guitar, he was kept on and the other band members PAID FOR HIS GUITAR LESSONS! Hartman acts as though this is typical musician behavior. It is not. Why did they do this for Peake? This is the story we'd like to know and he writes as though it was self-explanatory. There are many of these instances in this book.
If you’ve listened to books by Kent Hartman before, how does this one compare?
As far as I know The Wrecking Crew is the only book Kent Hartman has ever written.
Which scene was your favorite?
I thought the tragic story of Jim Gordon was well-told and of great interest.
I thought the angst of the Monkeys, the Byrds, etc not being allowed to play their own instruments on recordings attributed to them was interesting and ironic. They were getting paid, weren't they? Would they rather drive a taxi?
Mr. Hartman seems to think that fans were fooled by these prefabricated groups. We were not. One of the most impressive things about the Beatles was that they played their own instruments. We were used to "singing" groups and the Beach Boys, for example, was a singing group. When they became competitive with the Beatles and started claiming they too played their own instruments, they fooled no one. Many of us knew the names, Glenn Campbell, Hal Blaine, Barney Kessel, James Burton etc. If they were a 'secret,' they were a poorly kept secret.
Do you think The Wrecking Crew needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
There is much that is interesting in The Wrecking Crew. There is a continent of information however that is glossed over and left out. The evolution of Barney Kessel is never described nor his mentoring of young Phil Spector. Mac Rebennack I don't think is mentioned once. Leon Russell is glossed over. James Burton, Nino Tempo are footnotes. Much more could be written on this subject in greater detail.
The Swamp Birds are never mentioned as such. Steve Cropper and Duane Allman are name drops.
Any additional comments?
More in-depth Audible books on this subject are, Mick Brown's Tearing Down the Wall of Sound, Tommy James and Martin Fitzpatrick's Me, The Mob and the Music, Life by Keith Richards, and Peter Ames Carlin's Bruce.
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57 people found this helpful
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- Dubi
- 03-31-14
Juke Box Documentary
The Wrecking Crew was a loosely affiliated collection of studio musicians based in L.A. in the 1960s, the people really playing on many of the great songs of that era -- songs by the Beach Boys, Byrds, Monkees, Mamas & Papas, Simon & Garfunkel, and lots of others. This book, like the loosely affiliated film documentary with the same title, pays tribute to these unsung (non-singing) heroes of 1960s rock-pop.
Although the book is meant to be about the musicians, Kent Hartman did something really smart, organizing the chapters by song rather than by personality. When your subjects are anonymous studio musicians who are by definition devoid of the ego that drives their front men, their biographical back stories, while certainly interesting, do not burn down any barns.But those of us who grew up in that decade remember those songs quite well. While recounting how they were crafted, Hartman fills us in on individual members of the Wrecking Crew, how they grew into consummate studio professionals, how they came to play on these songs.
It sticks so indelibly because you know the songs, but you are only now learning how the Crew members' contributed to them -- they didn't just play what was asked of them, they creatively contributed to the arrangements. Like Carol Kaye coming up with the bass line groove on the otherwise boring one-chord Sonny & Cher song The Beat Goes On. Or Hal Blaine placing his drums by an elevator shaft to create the booming sound in the chorus of The Boxer (the book actually gets a key detail wrong -- the drums were not at the bottom of the elevator shaft, but in the hallway next to it).
In many cases, the stories behind how these huge hits of the 60s show how they came together in surprising ways -- that is the real attraction here. I never knew that Frank Sinatra improvised the fade out on the third take of Strangers in the Night, the dubi-dubi-do (check out my name -- I've had to live with this most of my life). And if you ever danced the limbo at a party, you might be surprised to hear the story of how the famous limbo song came to be -- how it was written, what the songwriter called it, and how it affected him. This book is full of those types of gems.
This is pure gold for fans of the songs, and some wonderful musical history for those of us who want to take a deeper look at how hit songs are created -- or at least, how that one seminal era of hit songs were created, before the tide swung back to favor music written and played, in the studio and on the road, by the artists rather than by studio professionals.
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- Lee
- 08-29-12
Familiar names to any 70's rock fan
The Beach Boys were always a mystery to me. I have gone to see them several times, each time they were worse than the last. The voices intermittently hit the mark, but the musicianship would embarrass a 3rd grade band. I wondered how the same people who recorded Pet Sounds could be in front of me with a minimal knowledge of their instruments. Now I know.
This book is good.
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- Brett
- 04-26-14
A little corny but OK.
This book reminded me of the Casey Kasem Top 40 count down. In Casey's count down he would introduce an up coming song with a cheesy story - the small town kid that finally made it big or the girl that defied the odds and finally launched a hit after so many rejections. The sappy stories never lasted long and a good song always followed so they were palatable. This book, unfortunately, has none of those redeeming qualities, it is not completely unentertaining, however - especially if you know and like the music described.
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- Adelie Manchot
- 02-25-17
The soundtrack of my life
I can remember when and where I heard all the songs mentioned in this book. What astounds and amazes me is the fact that they were all done by essentially the same band! The singers may have changed but the band remained the same.
I now have a folder of music on my MP3 players entitled "The Wrecking Crew" which contains songs I know they played on. Just about everyone who has listened to it loves it, including kids who were born a quarter century after the demise of The Wrecking Crew. I've had to compile a printed playlist of my folder because so many people ask me for one. I wish the author would compile a definitive list for us if he'd be so kind because he has access to contracts and other documents.
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- deeva
- 07-30-12
Fascinating Story Well Told
What made the experience of listening to The Wrecking Crew the most enjoyable?
Bought this book after watching the documentary and found that it contains many more stories and interesting details than the documentary (which was equally good). Who knew?
What other book might you compare The Wrecking Crew to and why?
I can't think of another book to compare this to - it is unique.
What about Dan John Miller???s performance did you like?
Good voice well paced.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
I wish.
Any additional comments?
Anyone who likes rock and roll would like this book.
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- Steven
- 09-17-12
Will change the way you listen to music
I am a fan of the music from the 60's and the 70's, heck truth told there is just about no music I do not enjoy. So as to not give the "plot Away" too badly it tells the history of how the in studio music was recorded during the heyday of Rock and roll. Touches on the Beach Boys, Phil Spector and an interesting story about Glenn Campbell. it's a must read if you enjoy the ins and outs of Rock and Roll.
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- David L. Petry
- 06-25-13
A bit sing-songy
Very interesting material, but written and performed as though for sixth graders. A list of these musicians' works would be a welcome addition.
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- Russell Bernard
- 03-12-13
Fasinating history of 60 and 70 rock'n roll
What made the experience of listening to The Wrecking Crew the most enjoyable?
The information of the different bands was fascinating and a real eye opener to the music business in the 60's and 70's. Interesting to find out who controlled the business and the caliber of musicians at that time.
What other book might you compare The Wrecking Crew to and why?
Me the Mob and the music by Tommy James although a different story, studio muscicians played a huge roll in the outcome of the music.
Have you listened to any of Dan John Miller’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I will view all my rock idols differently after listening to this book. Especially the Beach Boys.
Any additional comments?
Great listen for anyone interested in rock history. I wish I could see the film that was made about the same group of musicians. Check out Carol Kaye on utube.
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- Sam
- 03-17-15
Awful! Great story, but awful writing@
Would you try another book from Kent Hartman and/or Dan John Miller?
Absolutely not. The writing is lazy, unimaginative, and just poor. Phrases like "Don Peak found the guitar, or did the guitar find him?" are literally in this book. I may be more used to academic writing when it comes to music, but this goes far beyond lazy and terrible.
Would you recommend The Wrecking Crew to your friends? Why or why not?
For the writing and performance - NEVER.
For the actual story being told - yes.
How did the narrator detract from the book?
His Phil Hartman-like voice makes every statement sound like the most important thing that happens in this book. But the voices...? Are you kidding? Not only does EVERY young member of the wrecking crew sound like a timid teenager lucky to own an instrument, but notice Phil Spector go from timid teen (a la above) to totally disinterested New Yorker. And please do not do women's voices. Please don't.
What character would you cut from The Wrecking Crew?
The narrator and writer.
Any additional comments?
This is an incredible story. I'm about halfway finished with it and really want to finish it, but oh my gosh it is so bad. The only thing keeping me is my fascination with Los Angeles and the music. I really wish this was a better researched book. I would much prefer research over completely made up, over the top, narratives that have no grounding whatsover. It's ridiculous. This reads like a Sports Illustrated for Kids (remember that magazine??) article from 1990. It's just plain bad. The topic really deserves a robust, well researched look. This absolutely is not it.
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