A series of lively postcards from a peerless journey. “Definitely long, definitely strange—and definitely a trip,” said band...
Like a Grateful Dead concert, McNally’s authorized biography of the great band is amiable, digressive, and transporting, capable of minor misadventures but always worth witnessing.
McNally was anointed official Dead historian in 1980, by Jerry Garcia, who admired the accuracy and sensitivity of McNally’s book on Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady (Desolate Angel, 1979). He hasn’t let the band down. Working in linear fashion—punctuated by chapters that convey a you-are-there atmosphere: equipment setups, interview snippets, stage snafus, and moments of glory—McNally keeps the writing liquid, mellow despite all the detail it sheds, exhaustive without being exhausting. McNally’s job couldn’t have been easy, considering the general chaos and disorganization that surrounded the band, not to mention the unbridled use of recreational intoxicants. (It is a measure of the anecdotal pleasures here to learn that the Dead were introduced to LSD by the CIA.) But he does a yeoman’s job of tracking both their footsteps and their mindsets, setting them within (or outside) the context of the country’s evolving politics and culture, conjuring a sense of their genuine eccentricities, the irritants that generated their pearls: the lightning in a bottle of “Live Dead,” the endlessly unfolding “Dark Star,” and “St. Stephen,” with its “medieval vision set inside a psychedelic ambience.” The Dead made music that defined their lives and then shared it with friends; the stage was their living room. They were cooperative, leaderless, real-time, Dionysian, ready to follow their emotional and artistic vicissitudes. So they did, as McNally chronicles, alone and together, brilliant and abysmal; some survived, others did not. But what a time: be-ins, Woodstock (yes, they were there), Fillmore East and West and every stage in between, turned on and tuned in—and the music, it was always about the music, though “we never failed to have some fun,” Garcia pointed out.
A series of lively postcards from a peerless journey. “Definitely long, definitely strange—and definitely a trip,” said band member Phil Lesh. Wish you were here.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2002
ISBN: 0-7679-1185-7
Page Count: 600
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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