A Paul Nelson (1936–2006) acolyte delivers a labor-of-love exhumation of the pioneering rock critic’s legacy.
Even among rock fanatics of the 1960s and ’70s, Nelson never attained (nor seemed to strive for) the higher profile of Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, Robert Christgau or Dave Marsh. Yet few were as beloved among his peers, his acolytes, even the artists he reviewed and perhaps too often befriended. This welcome volume spotlights the work of the critic who championed the young Bob Dylan’s transition from topical songs to electric rock, who provided early support for Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne and Warren Zevon and who served a stint at Mercury Records during which he signed and championed the New York Dolls and became buddies with Rod Stewart. Says Jay Cocks, who became a successful screenwriter and was the film and music critic for Time during Nelson’s most prolific years, “Paul was one who deserves the word critic; the rest of us were reviewers.” Says Jann Wenner, whose Rolling Stone hired Nelson as review editor and then accepted his resignation as the magazine moved toward shorter reviews in a section that was more aligned with popular taste: “He had that authority and that level of gravitas that these other guys, [Jon] Landau and Greil (Marcus) had had before him. He was the last of that tradition. I guess that era of the independent fiefdom came to an end with Paul.” Avery’s book also serves as a memorial to a man who saw his career succumb to paralyzing writer’s block as well as changing journalistic values, who clerked in a video store and became borderline destitute, who refused contact with former friends and colleagues and who died a week before his body was discovered. Reading Bruce Springsteen description of Nelson’s “fan’s enthusiasm…tempered by the incredible intelligence” recalls an era when the rock critic, and rock criticism, really mattered.
Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-60699-475-7
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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