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List Price: $24.00 | | Publisher: Da Capo Press
Salesrank: 309350
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| Our Price: $6.57 |
| Used Price: $5.57 |
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| Media: Hardcover |
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Editorial Review:
Recorded during the blazing summer of 1971 at Villa Nellcote, Keith Richards' seaside mansion in the south of France, Exile on Main St. has been hailed as one of the Rolling Stones' best albums--and one of the greatest rock records of all time. Yet its improbable creation was difficult, torturous...and at times nothing short of dangerous.
In self-imposed exile, the Stones--along with wives, girlfriends, and a crew of hangers-on unrivaled in the history of rock--spent their days smoking, snorting, and drinking whatever they could get their hands on. At night, the band descended like miners into the villa's dank basement to lay down tracks. Out of those grueling sessions came the familiar riffs and rhythms of "Rocks Off," "Tumbling Dice," "Happy," and "Sweet Virginia."
All the while, a variety of celebrities--John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Gram Parsons among them--stumbled through the villa's neverending party, as did the local drug dealers, known to one and all as "les cowboys." Villa Nellcote became the crucible in which creative strife, outsize egos, and all the usual byproducts of the Stones' legendary hedonistic excess fused into something potent, volatile, and enduring.
Here, for the first time, is the season in hell that produced Exile on Main St.
Exile on Main St.: A Season in Hell with the Rolling Stones Reviews:
There is a great story here, but it is not told well in this book. 
2009-09-14 - This story has some fascinating insight into the recording of this classic Rolling Stones album, but the writing leaves much to be desired. This book should have been edited a couple more times. Plus, the book at times is too much an attempt to reconcile other authors' accounts of this recording. The author even takes a couple of misplaced jabs at other authors in the middle of this book. Still, it is a story worth reading if you can part with a couple bucks and can tolerate mediocre writing.
Worth it if you love the Stones
2009-08-03 - It's a book that fans of the Rolling Stones will enjoy. There is some quality material to work with. The author did a good job of transporting the reader to Villa Nellcote, a crazy place to say the least. The relationships between Mick, Keith and the rest are pretty juicy, and the author wrote an excellent prologue that summarized "the players". However, the book was hurt by some cheeseball writing that came off as quite amateurish. The events covered in this book are overly melodramatized, and the prose is filled with "easter eggs" where the author mixed in lyrics and titles from Stones tunes into the prose. For instance, one sentence on page 81 of the hardcover version reads: "Born with the energy of a crossfire hurricane, Marshall is a......" which is a reference to the Stones classic Jumpin' Jack Flash. The writing is so cheesy that in one instance, the writer openly insults writers of other several other Stones books. After that page-long sequence, it was difficult to view the book as having any credibility. Still, for all of its faults, there is plenty of fact, fabrication, and theorizing to keep the avid Stones fan busy for a while. If you love the Stones and want to learn more about the band in its prime, buy the book.
The Stones we know now 
2009-06-28 - I read a couple of the reviews that weren't favorable, and they certainly have their points. Greenfield does come across as arrogant on more than one occasion, which makes him really seem like a dick when he cites incorrect facts, such as the aforementioned (in another review) "Jumpin' Jack Flash was on Sticky Fingers" passage. Anyone who is even a casual Stones fan knows this is ridiculous, and is an unforgivable mistake. All that notwithstanding, Greenfield lets you into a world where only the story of one who was there can be trusted. The myths of the Stones are given great emphasis...how they left a trail of dead behind them, etc. I also found it invaluable in showing how the Rolling Stones of the 1960s became the group we know today: the rich, jetsetting rock stars, the hard drug abuse and addiction of Keith Richards..it all started here (or slightly before, as the book points out). What others in their circle thought of Exile On Main Street, in relation to other Stones classic lps (the comparisons are generally unfavorable, with Let It Bleed of Sticky Fingers getting the nod over what is, by many critics and hardcore fans, considered thei best work). The descent into addiction, and eventual desolation, of world-class beauties Marianne Faithfull and especially Anita Pallenberg (and Madeleine D'Arcy, who met a worse fate than either). I don't want to go on and on, although I could. I gave the book 4 stars, and not 5, because of Greenfield's attitude, and factual inaccuracies. But if you love the Rolling Stones and their mythology, and how they fit in to the death of the 60s and its transformation into the "me decade" of the 70s, when the Stones became the biggest band in the world, do yourself a favor and read it!
Entertaining...if you can put up with the author
2009-06-09 - You know an author is arrogant when he hints at the end that you should buy his other book. Overall, though, I enjoyed the story. It is well researched and gives a very thorough account of the chaos surrounding the production of Exile on Main Street. It's a good read for Rolling Stones' fans.
But the author can be hard to endure. He lets you know whom he hates, repeatedly. He is clearly biased against anyone else who had written about the Stones (saying to one author: "your salad dressing is good but your book is not.") He hates Spanish Tony, the drug dealer who often stretches the truth about his part in the story, yet he constantly quotes him. He hates Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville, quoting Wikipedia entries stating that while the Stones' have sold 3 million records in the U.S. alone, Phair's album has sold only 200,000, even though the release dates are a quarter of a decade apart. He blasts the Beatles every chance he gets.
I don't care if he doesn't like these people, but I'd prefer if he'd remain neutral about it. The book does have its merits: it focuses on Keith Richards instead of Mick Jagger, which is a little different. And there is a lot of information in it. So it's a decent read, though not an amazing one.
gossips ! 
2009-03-16 - Beeing a great fan of the Stones and specially of "exile on Main St" I opened this book with a delicious expectation ... only to end up very disappointed.
If you're into gossips and "who sleeps with whom" or "who shares his spoon with whom" then go for it but if you're more into music and the way it's been recorded then please stay away from it. You'll only end up knowing how many grams of heroin Keith was injecting and that's it ... a big disppointment but maybe I was too naive ?
