Sinister: Good music biogs

[Mark Crutch]

> Also, can anyone recommend any good music biogs? I'm hooked on them at the
> moment for some reason and am currently reading one on the wonderful Patti
> Smith but am nearly finished and would like to know what else is good.

I can thoroughly recommend "Cor Baby That's Really Me" by John Otway. It's
an autobiography, but it's all written in the third person because he felt
stupid cataloguing his list of failures in the music industry, and it felt
better to imagine he was writing about someone else. It's absolutely
hilarious, yet at the same time quite sad and touching stuff.

For those of you who don't know of John Otway, he got in the charts in
1977, to number 27, and has been making a career off it ever since. He's
brilliant live, and is playing the Royal Albert Hall later this year (see
www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~xav for more details).

Amongst his odder moments in the pop world were: buying a Bentley with his
#250k advance, then hiring a chauffeur because he can't drive; being dumped
by the record company, then holding a benefit concert for them after they
announced record losses, because he felt guilty; hyping a record to within
inches of the top 40, then losing out due to an industrial dispute at the
BBC; charting with a "punkish" song in 1977, then releasing a soppy ballad
with 100 piece orchestra as his follow up, on the basis that the punks
might want a change!

His autobiography was released a few years ago, but is set for a millenial
re-release, with new photos and an extra chapter or two. It's being
released on 1st October, and should be available through most bookshops. A
cracking good read.

B & S content? Well, you can't have everything.

Xav

--
xav at compsoc.man.ac.uk
http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~xav
"It hath whirred into life"
 
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