Here's a couple music-oriented books from my bookshelf:

"Jaco: The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius" - Even if you're not into jazz, this book is a fascinating read about one of the greatest musical minds and talents and how his mental health issues eventually led to his death. His voice on bass is still unparelleled (IMO) and reading this story and following up with some of the late bootlegs during his desent prior to his death provide some haunting stuff. The newest version of the book (which originally came out in '95) includes a CD with interviews and music clips from his illustrious career.

"Phil Lesh: Searching For The Sound" - Even if you're not a Deadhead you may still find interest in this, the story of Phil's life with the Grateful Dead. If you are a Deadhead, then you should have already read it! A great read about someone who was classically trained and then joined a acid-influenced blues/rock/jam band and created a genre of music along the way. Even though I've been listening to the Dead for a few years now, I didn't realize HOW bluesy they were in the first few years of the band. As I was reading this book, I was pulling up bootlegs from the time period, a nice way to complement the words and provide a soundtrack to the story!

"The Real Frank Zappa Book" - Kind of an autobiography, it's a lot of short stories and thoughts from Frank himself. Fairly amusing, pretty insightful, I actually lucked out and picked this up at the used book shop in W. Brookfield for a cheap price. (I tried the "musical soundtrack" approach for this one tool, but the book is somewhat all over the place at times...kind of like Zappa's music!)

That's all that's on my bookshelf at this point, my current reading obsession has been cooking books (NOT cookbooks) by chefs like Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman. :-)

 

Here's two that I found real interesting:

All Over But the Shouting (The Replacements). 

Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991: Michael Azerrad

The Dylan Chronicles Volume 1 is mind blowing. You'll never expect the side of Dylan seen in it. His commentary and perspective on so many things confirms why he is so great (better than Leonard Cohen, Jim!).

A Day in the Life is a cool take on The Beatles in that it examines the studio archives in great detail and uses their lives as context, instead of the reverse, as most books do.

Lesh's Searching for the Sound was okay, but it reads like a Garcia love fest, and includes too much about Lesh's boring personal life. Much better is Conversations with the Dead, which is a series of interviews by Grateful Dead Hour's David Gans, and includes really intimate conversations with the band, and, even better, Owsley, the one-time soundman, professional audio pioneer, guru, acid dealer, alchemist, wanted man, etc. Instead of all the typical tye-dye and patchuli crap, it really gets into particulars about the music and the gear, etc.

Most of the other rock books I have read were informative, but sucked as books go.

I just started reading "This is Your Brain on Music - The Science of Human Obsession" and so far it is fantastic. I also really loved "Wish The World Away" the Mark Eitzel bio, The Billy Bragg bio "Still Suitable For Miners" is also excellent. The only Beatles books I have ever fully read was Hunter Davies book "The Beatles" and Ray Colemans "John Lennon" bio. Does John Lennon "In His Own Write" count as a music book? Another good bio was "You Send Me" the Life & Times of Sam Cook.

One of the BEST music books I have ever read was "So You Wanna Be A Rock & Roll Star (How I Machine-Gunned a Roomful Of Record Executives and Other True Tales from a Drummer's Life)" by Semisonic drummer Jacob Slitcher. This book is hilarious and a really honest behind the scenes look at the music industry. At least the music industry as it was when Semisonic had a hit.

One of the first music books I read was "12 Days on the Road; The Sex Pistols and America" by Jimmy Guterman, I was not a huge Sex Pistols fan and I am even less of one now but the author is a relative of a close friend so I read it. Even as a non-fan, the book was great.

Athough it is not technically a music book, "Killing Yourself to Live" by Chuck Klosterman is fantastic. He travels the country to the places that tragic rock star deaths occurred and writes as he travels. The book becomes more about his own life which is interesting but the music references throughout the book are great.

I have read most of the R.E.M. bios, the best ones in my opinion are "It Crawled from The South" and "Remarks", those two are the most thorough and in depth. The "33 1/3" on Murmur is also a great read for not just fans but anyone interested in the recording process. It just so happens to be the recording process of one of the greatest American records ever recorded.

You have to give a nod to Nick Hornsby's book "High Fidelity" too.

Oh wait, Nick Hornsby's "Songbook" is a quick fun music read about his favorite songs. Great book.

On deck is "Trouble Man - The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye" 

<script charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822/US/volcanoboy-20/8001/9d424bbf-c706-47f5-a21f-6e825a7e0073"> </script>

Chuck Klosterman's "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" is also pretty entertaining and thought provoking. It's like Dave Eggers talking about music.

Speaking of books by exes, Cynthia Lennon's book is fabulous. It really shows John in a human light, which I think a lot of people forget that he is a man and not some sort of deity. It does, though, praise him in many ways. I think it is a very fair assessment of his life with Cyn. She really has always loved him and that shines through here.