This close look at one of the ultimate guitar gods should find plenty of readers interested in 1960s and ’70s rock.
A full-length biography of Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page (b. 1944), whose reclusive habits have only added to his mythic status.
London-based music journalist Salewicz (Dead Gods: The 27 Club, 2015, etc.), who has interviewed his subject many times over the decades, chronicles Page’s rise from working-class London roots. Like many of his generation, Page went to art school on the way to finding a musical career. Inspired by American rockabilly records, Page became proficient enough at a young age to find work as a studio guitarist, making good money backing up popular acts. As the British blues revival flowered, he became the lead guitar player for the Yardbirds, following Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. When that group broke up, Page formed Zeppelin, mapping out the band’s path with iron control. Salewicz follows the group through recording sessions and world tours—Zeppelin was especially popular in the United States—with attention to the band’s excesses, which included destruction of hotels along with other violent outbursts, heavy use of drugs and alcohol, and sexual encounters of all sorts. The author also devotes considerable attention to Page’s mystical side, especially his fascination with Aleister Crowley, perhaps giving it more credence than it deserves. Salewicz delves into Page’s battle with drugs, especially heroin and cocaine, and includes copious reminiscences from groupies who linked up with Page over the years, along with plenty of quotes from interviews with the famously reticent musician and with others who were part of the scene. With the band’s dissolution, Page’s hermetic tendencies became more pronounced. Salewicz chronicles the solo projects, the reunions with singer Robert Plant, and the painstaking project of reissuing Zeppelin’s recorded legacy. Dedicated listeners may want more analytical explorations of the music, and, like many rock journalists, the author tosses around superlatives with a free hand. Still, the book is a must-read for die-hard Zeppelin fans.
This close look at one of the ultimate guitar gods should find plenty of readers interested in 1960s and ’70s rock.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-306-84538-3
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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