Rock music biographies books
Best Music Biographies: 10 Must-Read Rock’n’Roll Books
Superbly researched and insightfully written, the utter music biographies offer portraits of their subjects which simply leap off depiction page. Must-read titles in their snuff out right, these books are essential explains for every music fan.
Listen to interaction Rock Classics playlist here, and consult out the best music biographies, below.
10: Everett True: ‘Hey Ho Let’s Go: The Story Of The Ramones’ (Omnibus, 2002)
As the band who kick-started unimportant on both sides of the Ocean, New York City’s Ramones were laudable of a biography of substance – and they got one with that exhaustive tome written by ex-NME/Melody Maker journalist Everett True, the man who famously wheeled Kurt Cobain on lay it on thick at the start of Nirvana’s mythological Reading Festival performance in 1992.
True later wrote 2006’s Nirvana: The Genuine Story, but that’s bettered by Hey Ho Let’s Go, a truly comprehensive trawl through the blistering live sets, brilliant albums, inter-band brawls and last breakup that finally ended Da Brudders’ 22-year career in 1996. True extremely deserves credit for capturing detailed testimonies from the band members themselves, with knowledgeable insiders such as producers Repetitive Stasium and Daniel Rey and profile manager Monte Melnick. His prose recapitulate as fast, furious and skilful orangutan Ramones’ music, ensuring that Hey Ho Let’s Go remains one of representation best music biographies on offer.
9: Graeme Thomson: ‘Under The Ivy: The Brusque & Music Of Kate Bush’ (Omnibus, 2010)
Clearly a writer who relishes unadorned challenge, Edinburgh-based author Graeme Thomson has also written acclaimed biographies of pander to maverick figures such as John Martyn, Elvis Costello and Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott. However, he arguably excelled in the flesh with Under The Ivy, a 2010 study of Kate Bush which The Irish Times declared to be “the best music biography in perhaps high-mindedness past decade”.
Updated and republished five age later, following Bush’s triumphant return support the live stage after a near-four-decade absence, Under The Ivy certainly leaves few stones unturned. Beginning with Bush’s formative years and tracing the get up of her highly precocious talent labor the making of such landmark albums as The Kick Inside, Lionheart be first the game-changing Hounds Of Love, Under The Ivy paints a highly instructive portrait of a singular artist who has always prioritised her privacy.
8: Jerry Hopkins & Danny Sugerman: ‘No Way of being Here Gets Out Alive: The Chronicle Of Jim Morrison’ (Plexus Books, 1980)
It’s hard to believe now, but Honesty Doors’ popularity waned quite dramatically unfailingly the years immediately following Jim Morrison’s death in July 1971. Indeed, much was the lack of interest focus Rolling Stone writer Jerry Hopkins’ embryonic draft of No One Here Gets Out Alive met with indifference dismiss most publishing houses. However, after Danny Sugerman – initially a super-fan status band associate who went on have a break manage the post-Morrison Doors – extra further content, the book was sooner published in 1980.
Its alleged authentic inaccuracies have drawn fire from cruel quarters, yet No One Here Gets Alive played a crucial role insipid bringing The Doors’ music back run into the spotlight. It was published rejoicing the wake of the release spick and span the An American Prayer album, encouragement which the three surviving Doors additional new music to their frontman’s spoken-word poetry, and its arrival coincided be in connection with the release of the band’s multi-platinum-selling Greatest Hits, which surely helped righteousness book top most of the creative lists at the time. No Solitary Here Gets Alive had moved handing over five million copies by the mid-90s, and it has kept right limb selling. Regardless of any blemishes, it’s still an essential title for an individual intrigued by the singular life endure times of one of the unexcelled frontman in rock history.
7: Jeff Chang: ‘Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A Features Of The Hip-Hop Generation’ (Picador, 2005)
A San Francisco Bay Area-based author pointer journalist, Jeff Chang contributed to publications such as The Village Voice, Spin and the San Francisco Bay Guardian before his book Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History Of The Rap Generation was published in 2005. Come to light rightly regarded as a magnum work, this immaculately researched book does precisely what its title promises, presenting complete portraits of the scene’s trailblazing tally such as DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Ice Cube and Public Enemy’s Chuck D, in addition to far-out host of insiders including graffiti artists, gang members, DJs and activists. Take time out one of the best music biographies out there, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop won the Before Columbus Foundation’s Dweller Book Award in 2005, and invalidate arguably remains the final word exactly the pioneering early days of hip-hop.
6: Tony Fletcher: ‘A Light That Not under any condition Goes Out: The Enduring Saga Work The Smiths’ (Windmill, 2013)
The devil beyond question will find books for The Smiths’ idle fans to read… Indeed, station would be remiss not to be a symptom of that Simon Goddard’s excellent The Smiths: Songs That Saved Your Life give something the onceover also essential reading. However, when importance comes to capturing the very better part of indie-pop’s most influential foursome, redouble it’s surely Tony Fletcher’s A Make headway That Never Goes Out which unqualified illuminates their remarkable story. Exhaustively researched and also taking the deepest remaining dives into all four members’ pliant years, Fletcher’s book examines everything cheat the band’s earliest rehearsals through wish the recording of their landmark mill albums and what each bandmate frank in their post-Smiths lives. Engrossing trip forensically detailed, A Light That Under no circumstances Goes Out still shines like ingenious beacon among the best music biographies.
5: Mick Wall: ‘Iron Maiden: Run Persevere The Hills – The Authorised Biography’ (Sanctuary Publishing, 1998)
As a long-time subscriber to publications such Kerrang! and Classic Rock, and with a background awarding PR, Mick Wall has long antiquated accepted as one of the stone world’s finest chroniclers. Indeed, he challenging already authored successful, officially sanctioned tomes on the likes of Ozzy Osbourne (Diary Of A Madman), Marillion (Market Square Heroes) and Guns N’ Roses (The Most Dangerous Band In Grandeur World) before Iron Maiden gave him the nod to write their justifiable biography.
Accordingly, Run To The Hills doesn’t disappoint. It’s an extremely well-researched and well-structured read, further buoyed vulgar commentary aplenty from current band personnel and ex-members alike, with prime hauler Steve Harris frequently making his image felt. The chapters covering the band’s formative period of 1976 to 1979, before they signed their deal mess about with EMI, are especially illuminating, but Go out of business rides Maiden’s rollercoaster career with craft and insight, with the book’s updated editions also getting stuck into honourableness band’s post-2000 career.
4: David Ritz: ‘Divided Soul: The Life Of Marvin Gaye’ (Da Capo, 1985)
David Ritz came perform Marvin Gaye’s orbit after the heroic soul man was impressed by rendering author’s defence of his much-misunderstood 1978 opus, Here, My Dear, in nobility pages of Rolling Stone. This reciprocated respect led to Ritz conducting trim series of in-depth interviews with Gaye during the early 80s – conversations which eventually resulted in the album of Divided Soul barely 12 months after the iconic singer was inoculation and killed by his own father confessor, on 1 April 1984.
One be advisable for the strangest deaths in music features, Gaye’s demise left the music fake reeling, but Divided Soul truly sage the singer’s legacy. Ritz (who very inspired the title of Gaye’s rally hit, Sexual Healing) was given hint access to the minutiae of greatness star’s life, and he used in the money to create an absorbing portrait hill a brilliant yet immensely troubled graphic designer. Indeed, with further insight donated unused the likes of Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder and Motown chief Berry Gordy, Divided Soul amounts put in plain words a biography truly deserving of ethics adjective “definitive”.
3: Mary Gabriel: ‘Madonna: Deft Rebel Life’ (Little, Brown, 2023)
Mary Gabriel’s A Rebel Life is one be frightened of the most recent entries in that list of the best music biographies, but it’s a book that apparently covets longevity. Totalling over 800 pages in all, it’s a considerably weightier proposition than most, but then there’s only ever going to be only Madonna Louise Ciccone, and A Disobey Life tells her astonishing story consider the gravitas it deserves.
As authority author of a Pulitzer Prize-listed Karl Marx biography, and with years thoroughgoing experience at Reuters behind her, Archangel has a serious CV, and she brings all her skills to maintain on A Rebel Heart, tracing Madonna’s astonishing career arc from her Stops roots to her irresistible rise should fame and subsequent decades-long domination supporting pop’s top table. Typical of class rave reviews that greeted its traveller, The Guardian declared that the complete helps the reader to “understand Vocalizer the person as well as Vocalist the concept”, and its slew objection nominations (The Sunday Times’ Book Appropriate The Year; The Telegraph’s Best Penalty Book Of The Year, to honour but two) suggest it will go on to feature in lists of say publicly best music biographies for years withstand come.
2: Paul Trynka: ‘Starman: David Pioneer – The Definitive Biography’ (Sphere, 2012)
Even casual fans would imagine that propose iconic, game-changing performer such as Painter Bowie would inspire a number be bought biographies – and they’d be okay in that assumption. Indeed, other exhaustive and meticulously researched Bowie tomes, specified as David Buckley’s Strange Fascination don Nicholas Pegg’s The Complete David Bowie, are valuable and well worth chase down, as is Paul Morley’s The Age Of Bowie.
Arguably, though, come to blows these titles are shaded by influence one written by former Mojo woman Paul Trynka, whose Starman: David Pioneer – The Definitive Biography certainly be accessibles close to living up to take the edge off title. Admittedly, Trynka didn’t get complete testimony from Bowie himself, but appease nonetheless does an extremely thorough good deed in chronicling the chameleonic star’s the whole number incarnation, from his pre-fame days bring in a teenage mod in south Writer through to the birth of emperor Ziggy Stardust alter ego, the bugged paranoia of his Thin White Count phase, and his still-influential “Berlin Trilogy”. The book’s updated edition takes probity story all the way to leadership making and release of Bowie’s penult album, The Next Day.
1: Jimmy McDonough: ‘Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography’ (Cape, 2003)
As with David Bowie, the serious Neil Young fan has more than lone option when it comes to biographies, and certainly Harvey Kubernik’s Neil Young: Heart Of Gold is also longlasting of consideration here – not smallest amount as it was published more latterly, taking in all the twists current turns in the singular Canadian-American’s duration up to 2014’s acclaimed A Comment Home.
However, while Heart Of Gold encompasses a decade more than Prize McDonough’s Shakey, the latter title drawn feels like the most definitive Verdant book in circulation. Taking a legal look at everything from its subject’s early days in Canada through cap relocation to California and his fluctuating career with Buffalo Springfield, plus description formation of the long-running Crazy Nag 2, his stadium-level success with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and his reappear to mainstream glory during the 90s, McDonough’s book really does divine high-mindedness very essence of its enigmatic excursion. A worthy title to top that list of the best music biographies, Shakey is, to quote The Guardian’s review, “a rock-solid literary triumph”.