Astral Weeks

A Secret History of 1968

By: Ryan H. Walsh

Narrated by: Stephen Hoye

A mind-expanding dive into a lost chapter of 1968, featuring the famous and forgotten: Van Morrison, folkie-turned-cult-leader Mel Lyman, Timothy Leary, James Brown, and many more

Van Morrison's Astral Weeks is an iconic rock album shrouded in legend, a masterpiece that has touched generations of listeners and influenced everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Martin Scorsese. In his first book, acclaimed musician and journalist Ryan H. Walsh unearths the album's fascinating backstory--along with the untold secrets of the time and place that birthed it: Boston 1968.

On the 50th anniversary of that tumultuous year, Walsh's book follows a criss-crossing cast of musicians and visionaries, artists and hippie entrepreneurs, from a young Tufts English professor who walks into a job as a host for TV's wildest show (one episode required two sets, each tuned to a different channel) to the mystically inclined owner of radio station WBCN, who believed he was the reincarnation of a scientist from Atlantis. Most penetratingly powerful of all is Mel Lyman, the folk-music star who decided he was God, then controlled the lives of his many followers via acid, astrology, and an underground newspaper called Avatar.

A mesmerizing group of boldface names pops to life in Astral Weeks: James Brown quells tensions the night after Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated; the real-life crimes of the Boston Strangler come to the movie screen via Tony Curtis; Howard Zinn testifies for Avatar in the courtroom. From life-changing concerts and chilling crimes, to acid experiments and film shoots, Astral Weeks is the secret, wild history of a unique time and place.

One of LitHub's 15 Books You Should Read This March

Engaging and intense history!

Such an amazing story and look into the history of music and counterculture in Boston. There’s a wealth of information here, and a great many characters.

Disappointed

I expected to learn more about Van Morrison and the making of the music for the album “Astral Weeks,” but that was just a sidebar to the story of Mel Lyman, the Fort Hill Community, and the Boston subculture of the 1960’s.
I found the performance of the narrator to be most annoying.

Reader is atrocious - book is marvelous

This book is fabulous, and I cannot believe that this man was chosen to be the narrator. He sounds like a game show host and his mispronunciation of various words and names is cringe worthy. If I were the author of this informative, wonderful book, I would make sure it gets re-recorded with someone else, ideally the author himself.

Loved it!#

I have lived in Boston since 1970 and been involved with various bands and entertainment venues and I never heard anyone ever mention the amazing overlapping stories in this book. A compelling and eye-opening chapter in Boston's history that I knew nothing about. Wow!

long and fantastic exploration of a musical scenew

great story

filled in some gaps and offered up some new ones of an era that influenced and shaped so much without realizing they were doing so