My Cross to Bear


Gregg Allman - 2012
    No subject is taboo, as one of the true giants of rock ’n’ roll opens up about his Georgia youth, his long struggle with substance abuse, his string of bad marriages (including his brief union with superstar Cher), the tragic death of  brother Duane Allman, and life on the road in one of rock’s most legendary bands.

Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Star


Ian Hunter - 1974
    Ian Hunter's revealing tour diary was first published in 1974 to coincide with the band's global success. It gives an insight into life with a rock group on the road.

No One Here Gets Out Alive


Danny Sugerman - 1980
    With an afterword by Michael McClure.

Mr Pikes: The Story Behind The Ibiza Legend


Tony Pike - 2017
    the real Hugh Hefner BOY GEORGE Tony created the concept of the boutique hotel. PAUL OAKENFOLD Roguish and very appealing. I like ebullient, charming characters. GRACE JONES I found extraordinary peace at Pikes, and Tony Pike is the best host... the number one ! JOAN BAEZ There's no place like Pikes. You arrive... then a few days later you come round again without fully knowing quite what happened... but you know it was great. KYLE SIMMONS (BASTILLE) I have never seen a man so happy in a leopard skin thong as Tony ! SHIRLEY KEMP (WHAM) Thanks for a fab time, Tony FREDDIE MERCURY

Dirty Rocker Boys


Bobbie Brown - 2013
    But the wide-eyed Louisiana beauty queen’s own dreams of making it big in Los Angeles were about to be derailed by her rock-and-roll lifestyle. After her tumultuous marriage to Jani imploded, and her engagement to fast-living Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee ended in a drug haze—followed by his marriage later to Pamela Anderson—Bobbie decided it was time Hollywood’s hottest bachelors got a taste of their own medicine. Step one: get high. Step two: get even. In a captivating, completely uncensored confessional, Bobbie explicitly recounts a life among some of the most famous men in Hollywood: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kevin Costner, Mark McGrath, Dave Navarro, Sebastian Bach, Ashley Hamilton, Rob Pilatus of Milli Vanilli, Matthew and Gunnar Nelson, Orgy’s Jay Gordon, and many more. No man was off limits as the fun-loving bombshell spiraled into excess, anger, and addiction. Bobbie survived the party—barely—and her riveting, cautionary comeback tale is filled with the wildest stories of sex, drugs, and rock and roll ever told.

Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music


Ted Templeman - 2020
    Along the way, Ted details his late ’60s stint as an unlikely star with the sunshine pop outfit Harpers Bizarre and his grind-it-out days as a Warner Bros. tape listener, including the life-altering moment that launched his career as a producer: his discovery of the Doobie Brothers. Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music takes us into the studio sessions of No. 1 hits like “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers and “Jump” by Van Halen, as Ted recounts memories and the behind-the-scene dramas that engulfed both massively successful acts. Throughout, Ted also reveals the inner workings of his professional and personal relationships with some of the most talented and successful recording artists in history, including Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Eric Clapton, Lowell George, Sammy Hagar, Linda Ronstadt, David Lee Roth, and Carly Simon.

Off the Rails: Aboard the Crazy Train in the Blizzard of Ozz


Rudy Sarzo - 2005
    This exciting biography also clears a lot of misinformation and bogus theories circulating around the late, great, guitar virtuoso Randy Rhoads' life and death. Written by journeyman rock bassist Rudy Sarzo, this is a first hand account of Rudy s experience on the road with Ozzy and his Blizzard of Ozz band.

The Cynical Idealist: A Spiritual Biography of John Lennon


Gary Tillery - 2009
    Cynical Idealist reveals, for the first time, the spiritual odyssey of this extraordinary man. Out of a turbulent life, from his troubled, working-class childhood throughout his many roles -- Beatle, peace advocate, social activist, househusband -- Lennon managed to fashion a philosophy that elevates the human spirit and encourages people to work, individually and collectively, toward a better world. Like Socrates, Lennon wanted to stimulate people to think for themselves. "There ain't no guru who can see through your eyes," he sings in "I Found Out." Cynical Idealist beautifully articulates this and the other lessons John Lennon passed along through his songs and through the example of his life.

Life


Keith Richards - 2010
    Now, at last, the man himself tells us the story of life in the crossfire hurricane.

David Bowie: Starman


Paul Trynka - 2011
    He wrote and recorded with everyone from Iggy Pop to Freddie Mercury to John Lennon, sold 136 million albums, has one of the truly great voices, and influenced bands as wide-ranging as Nirvana and Franz Ferdinand. Paul Trynka illuminates Bowie's seemingly contradictory life and his many reinventions as an artist, offering over 300 new interviews with everyone from classmates to managers to lovers. He reveals Bowie's broad influence on the entertainment world, from movie star to modern-day icon, trend-setter to musical innovator. This book will define Bowie for years to come.

Face the Music: A Life Exposed


Paul Stanley - 2014
    Face the Music is the shocking, funny, smart, inspirational story of one of rock’s most enduring icons and the group he helped create, define, and immortalize.Stanley mixes compelling personal revelations and gripping, gritty war stories that will surprise even the most steadfast member of the KISS Army. He takes us back to his childhood in the 1950s and ’60s, a traumatic time made more painful thanks to a physical deformity. Born with a condition called microtia, he grew up partially deaf, with only one ear. But this instilled in him an inner drive to succeed in the most unlikely of pursuits: music.With never-before-seen photos and images throughout, Stanley’s memoir is a fully realized and unflinching portrait of a rock star, a chronicle of the stories behind the famous anthems, the many brawls and betrayals, and all the drama and pyrotechnics on and off the stage. Raw and confessional, Stanley offers candid insights into his personal relationships, and the turbulent dynamics with his bandmates over the past four decades. And no one comes out unscathed—including Stanley himself.People say I was brave to write such a revealing book, but I wrote it because I needed to personally reflect on my own life. I know everyone will see themselves somewhere in this book, and where my story might take them is why I’m sharing it.—Paul Stanley

Relentless: The Memoir


Yngwie J. Malmsteen - 2013
    Yngwie Malmsteen's revolutionary guitar style—combining elements of classical music with the speed and volume of heavy metal—made him a staple of the 80s rock scene. Decades later, he's still a legend among guitarists, having sold 11 million albums and influenced generations of rockers since. In Relentless, Malmsteen shares his personal story, from the moment he burst onto the scene seemingly out of nowhere in the early 80s to become a household name in the annals of heavy metal. Along the way, he talks about his first bands, going solo, his songwriting and recording process, and the seedy side of the rock business.

Stick It!: My Life of Sex, Drums, and Rock 'n' Roll


Carmine Appice - 2016
    He was managed by the mob, hung with Hendrix, trashed thousands of hotel rooms, unwittingly paid for an unknown Led Zeppelin to support him on tour, taught John Bonham (as well as Fred Astaire) a thing or two about drumming, and took part in Zeppelin’s infamous deflowering of a groupie with a mud shark. After enrolling in Rod Stewart’s Sex Police, he hung out with Kojak, accidentally shared a house with Prince, became blood brothers with Ozzy Osbourne, and got fired by Sharon. He formed an all-blond hair metal band, jammed with John McEnroe and Steven Seagal, became a megastar in Japan, got married five times, slept with 4,500 groupies—and, along the way, became a rock legend by single-handedly reinventing hard rock and heavy metal drumming.             Carmine Appice has enjoyed a jaw-dropping rock-and-roll life—and here he is telling his scarcely believable story. Cowritten with Ian Gittins, the coauthor with Nikki Sixx of the New York Times bestseller The Heroin Diaries, Stick It! is one of the most extraordinary and outrageous rock-and-roll biographies of our time.

Captain Fantastic: Elton John's Stellar Trip Through the '70s


Tom Doyle - 2017
    Over the next five years, the artist formerly known as Reginald Dwight went from unheard of to unstoppable, scoring seven consecutive #1 albums and sixteen Top Ten singles in America. By the middle of the decade, he was solely responsible for 2 percent of global record sales. One in fifty albums sold in the world bore his name. Elton John's live shows became raucous theatrical extravaganzas, attended by all the glitterati of the era.But beneath the spangled bodysuits and oversized eyeglasses, Elton was a desperately shy man, conflicted about his success, his sexuality, and his narcotic indulgences. In 1975, at the height of his fame, he attempted suicide. After coming out as bisexual in a controversial Rolling Stone interview that nearly wrecked his career, and announcing his retirement from live performance in 1977 at the age of thirty, he gradually found his way back to the thing he cared about most: the music.Captain Fantastic gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at the rise, fall, and return to glory of one of the world's most mercurial performers. Rock journalist Tom Doyle's insider account of the Rocket Man's turbulent ascent is based on a series of one-on-one interviews in which Elton laid bare many previously unrevealed details of his early career. Here is an intimate exploration of Elton's working relationship with songwriting partner Bernie Taupin, whose lyrics often chronicled the ups and downs of their life together in the spotlight. Through these pages pass a parade of legends whose paths crossed with Elton's during the decade--including John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Groucho Marx, Katharine Hepburn, Princess Margaret, Elvis Presley, and an acid-damaged Brian Wilson.A fascinating portrait of the artist at the apex of his celebrity, Captain Fantastic takes us on a rollicking fame-and-drug-fueled ride aboard Elton John's rocket ship to superstardom.

Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed


Aidan Levy - 2015
    On a personal level, too, he seemed to take pleasure in insulting everyone who crossed his path. How did this Jewish boy from Long Island, an adolescent doo-wop singer, rise to the status of Godfather of Punk? And how did he maintain that status for decades?Dirty Blvd.—the first new biography of Reed since his death in 2013—digs deep to answer those questions. And along the way it shows us the tender side of his prickly personality.Born in Brooklyn, Reed was the son of an accountant and a former beauty queen, but he took the road less traveled, trading literary promise for an entry-level job as a budget-label songwriter and founding the Velvet Underground under the aegis of Andy Warhol. The cult of personality surrounding his transformation from downtown agent provocateur to Phantom of Rock and finally to patron saint of the avant-garde was legendary, but there was more to his artistic evolution than his abrasive public persona. The lives of many American rock stars have had no second act, but Reed’s did.Dirty Blvd. not only covers the highlights of Reed’s career but also explores lesser-known facets of his work, such as his first recordings with doo-wop group the Jades, his key literary influences and the impact of Judaism upon his work, and his engagement with the LGBT movement. Drawing from new interviews with many of his artistic collaborators, friends, and romantic partners, as well as from archival material, concert footage, and unreleased bootlegs of live performances, author Aidan Levy paints an intimate portrait of the notoriously uncompromising rock poet who wrote “Heroin,” “Sweet Jane,” “Walk on the Wild Side,” and “Street Hassle”—songs that transcended their genre and established Lou Reed as one of the most influential and enigmatic American artists of the past half-century.