(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Has any cultural era, including the Renaissance, been the subject of more books than The Golden Age of Rock and Roll? For example, more than 3000 titles have been published about The Beatles alone.
I would think there are at least a couple of thousand places down to number two on the list, but over the last 40 years, music biography has grown to become a genre with its own shelves in bookstores, its own subgenre and its own literary history. And, in line with the people being biographed: their own fads.
After Keith Richards – the very personification of the thesis that if you can remember the 60's you were not there – set sales records with his memoirs, Life, came the flood: Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young with rather festive, a bit gloomy and rather uninteresting autobiographies, respectively. That the autobiography should sit loosely with an artist group that has had it as part of the work instruction to sow contempt for the press, surprises no one who has been to a press conference with a pop star.
It is thus the stories of the survivors that are told in the last ten years' success biographies, but the genre as such is built on the dead. In 1981, a rock biography entered the New York Times bestseller list for the first time. Jim Morrison Biography No One Here Gets Out Alive awakened the publishing industry to understand that the millions who bought rock records could, surprisingly, also read. In the 80's, rock biographies often dealt with the young dead, not least the morbid 27-club members Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Eventually, Elvis Presley and John Lennon joined the funeral procession.
The dramaturgical curve, with the premature death as a climax towards the end of No One…, created in itself a dynamic narrative, and on top of it all a narrative that maintained the rock's promise of never getting old. The original rock biography was about people who followed the recipe "live fast – die young". But what about those who did not die in time to die young, but lived to an age when death has long since lost its sensational power?
John Entwhistle and John Martyn
In this year's avalanche of musician biographies, there are two who, when read together, give a picture of related musicians in their respective divisions, both caught in the crosshairs.
the point between art, mythology and industry. Both The Ox: The Authorized Biography of John Entwistle og Small Hours: The Long Night of John Martyn also tells something about how the art of biography is changing. The consequences for such genius' friends and family, what the rock industry is often called "civilians", have now become a central part of history.
Both The Whos bassist John Entwhistle (1944–2002) and the guitarist / songwriter John Martyn (1948–2009) would have long ago received their biographies if they had only had the sense to die as 27-year-olds, too. That would have given their biographies a better dramaturgical curve. Both had already delivered their most essential works by that age. So with that, their biographies have to deal with the question: How do you make the rest of your life go?
Keith Moon (1946–1978), rock's most famous rattlesnake, with a death certificate confirming the myth, was a little boy compared to his brother-in-law John Entwhistle when it came to the play, shall we believe the book The Ox. The difference between the two is first and foremost that Entwhistle continues the party for 25 years after Moon's death, before ending in character with a cocaine-induced heart attack in a hotel suite in Las Vegas in the company of a stripper or two the night before a new tour with The Who. Sex and drugs and rock and roll, indeed.
That the autobiography should sit loosely with an artist group that has had it as part of
the work instruction to sow contempt for the press, surprises no one who has been on
press conference with a pop star.
Entwhistle's self – esteem, his fortune, his whole life was built on the fact that for a long time he could call himself the leading bassist of rock, a virtuoso musician who changed the framework of his instrument – a goal that only the very best will achieve. . Beyond playing music, however, Entwhistle did not have as many goals in life, apart from having as much fun as possible most of the time, as formulated by Spinal Tap's late drummer.
John Martyn, on the other hand, was a little genius singer from Glasgow who went to London to make himself fat and famous. In the long run, he should reach at least one of these goals. Martyn was initially uncompromising in his music and created groundbreaking recordings that were met with excellent reviews, but he never became a star despite respectable sales, well noticed after his best creative period was over. Like Entwhistle, Martyn also managed to come up with a unique approach to the instrument. No one has yet managed to get an acoustic guitar further out into space than Martyn, but his reputation also rests on records he recorded before he turned thirty. Had he also died as a 27-year-old, he would today have had a status similar to his friend Nick Drake (1948–1974) – the suicide who may not have been a suicide at all (but that is a different biography). Up to several, in fact. Instead, John Martyn grew old, fat, sick, and less and less popular – in all the forms of life. And to top it all off, he was called one of the worst assholes to ever sign a record deal.
The artists' families
Two musicians of the same generation who moved the development of music are probably both worth a book or two, but the truth is that neither Entwhistle nor Martyn's life would hardly have become literature if it were not for how bad they lived when the guitar plug was pulled out. Both were functioning alcoholics with a careless and to some extent massive intake of other drugs and a fluctuating relationship with their immediate family members. There are two journeys towards the same goal we get described, in Small Hours og The Ox, made in the first and third, partly fourth, class, respectively.
Because while John Entwhistle's solution when the box office is empty is to laugh at another million-dollar tour with The Who, Martyn must stand on his own two feet. It turns out, long before he in 2000 has to amputate one leg.
In both of these books, the stories of the now adult children also have their place, a dimension that is increasingly becoming part of the art of bioigraphy, here at home skilfully toured by Torgrim Eggens in his acclaimed Axel Jensen biography. It is partly heartbreaking reading.
Both authors make it a point that the artists' respective families want the shadowy sides to appear as well. In this way, it must be noted in John Martyn's case that one seldom reads an authorized biography with stronger light on the dark corners unless an inheritance settlement has gone wrong. It is difficult, not to say eerie, to imagine that Entwhistle or Martyn must have done something significantly worse than what is now written in the books about their lives – according to the children. A blissful mixture of sins of omission, narcotic excesses and bloated but fragile self-images interspersed with some violence in Entwhistle's case, and a great deal of violence in Martyn's.
To a lesser extent about music
Another feature that has become clearer over the years is that musician biographies are less and less about music. Yes, music seems to be a problem for some musician cinemas, whether it's because the writers do not really know much about music, or because that part of the job is left to YouTube, where you can find several videos where John Entwhistle explains his musical expressions all the way down to the equalizer setting in a few minutes. Creating exciting readings of the same is naturally a challenge. But to go completely around the bend? The two nerds / assholes could have deserved more attention for what, after all, made them big names, without having to go to the detriment of the rest of the content. It should be possible.
Are these the latest – yes, who is really left to write books about now?
