This has actually got me thinking,for the last few years my reading matter has been exclusively books about music and indeed have spent 21 years reading the damn things and I'm not really too sure there's too many I can recommend.
Music biographies by nature are patchy,the writers are usually too far removed from their subjects or indeed too close as fans to write a whole book that holds the interest totally.
As such I tend to find music writing is at it's best when it is in essay form.
The best music writer I think is Greil Marcus,with Mystery Train being his best or most complete work/collection however it is at a level that could be considered pretentious,as Garfish once remarked on this forum he doesn't like too much analysis or depth when it comes to music writing.
As a Dylan nut it's hard to say what the definitive book/biography is- probably Shelton's No Direction Home is still far and away the best when considering his formative years,'61-66.
Paul Williams has some fantastic insight on several Dylan books but his overall style can be wearing.
Autobiographies too ain't much fun,Miles Davis is fun and astonishingly honest at times but strangely seems to skip over the music.
One I really did enjoy was Julian Cope's autiobiography-a very funny honest tale.
Also recently enjoyed Craig Werner's book on black music in America-A Change Is Gonna Come.
Another good one is Paul Zolllo's Songwriters On Songwriting a collection of interviews from Song Talk magazine.
The best in depth study of The Beatles which tackles them Marcus style (i.e in depth,social and historical context)and has a detailed analysis of every song they wrote is Revolution In The Head by Britain's best music writer Ian MacDonald.
Finally Joe Klein's biography of Woody Guthrie is supposed to be great-some fifteen years after borrowing it from a friend I must get round to reading it.............
Music biographies by nature are patchy,the writers are usually too far removed from their subjects or indeed too close as fans to write a whole book that holds the interest totally.
As such I tend to find music writing is at it's best when it is in essay form.
The best music writer I think is Greil Marcus,with Mystery Train being his best or most complete work/collection however it is at a level that could be considered pretentious,as Garfish once remarked on this forum he doesn't like too much analysis or depth when it comes to music writing.
As a Dylan nut it's hard to say what the definitive book/biography is- probably Shelton's No Direction Home is still far and away the best when considering his formative years,'61-66.
Paul Williams has some fantastic insight on several Dylan books but his overall style can be wearing.
Autobiographies too ain't much fun,Miles Davis is fun and astonishingly honest at times but strangely seems to skip over the music.
One I really did enjoy was Julian Cope's autiobiography-a very funny honest tale.
Also recently enjoyed Craig Werner's book on black music in America-A Change Is Gonna Come.
Another good one is Paul Zolllo's Songwriters On Songwriting a collection of interviews from Song Talk magazine.
The best in depth study of The Beatles which tackles them Marcus style (i.e in depth,social and historical context)and has a detailed analysis of every song they wrote is Revolution In The Head by Britain's best music writer Ian MacDonald.
Finally Joe Klein's biography of Woody Guthrie is supposed to be great-some fifteen years after borrowing it from a friend I must get round to reading it.............