Rolling Stones Book:

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Exile on Main Street: The Rolling Stones (Classic Rock Album Series) Reviews:
Am I interested
2009-11-04 - Am I interested in what the author thought of the album, or what LPs his brother bought?

Told By The Voices Of Those Who Were There
2008-06-02 - "The Author:
John Perry is a British guitarist and writer who played in the seminal late '70s rock band, The Only Ones.
He is the author of The Who: Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy, also in Schirmer's Classic Rock Album series."

"..... Now, the story of how this album was made is TOLD BY THE VOICES OF THOSE WHO WERE THERE.

* Gives new insights into the sex, drugs, and rock and roll world of the Stones

* Draws on documentary evidence and interviews---most never before revealed

* Includes rare photographs of the group

* Full session information, song-by-song, and bibliography...."
[from the book of the back cover]

"Shine a Light...."
2004-03-21 - I can't really explain why but the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street" is my absolute favorite collection of music. Sometimes I wish my absolute favorite album could be something a little prettier, a little more melodic like "Pet Sounds" or "Abbey Road" or "Astral Weeks" or "The Band" or "Blood on the Tracks." And all those *are* extremely high up there.

But the bottom line is, if I were being shot into space tomorrow and could only bring one album with me, I wouldn't even have to think about it, it would be "Exile." I might consider "Kind of Blue" for a second but then I'd think, "I'm going into space, I have to have 'Shine a Light' with me!" "Exile" has been the background music for so many drives and so many sitting around evenings, so many hours of my life, and it's never gotten old, I never seem to tire of it or stop hearing new things in it.

I'm going to get to the book itself in a second but here's something I found while Googling yesterday. The late, great critic, Lester Bangs wrote this about the album: "Exile is dense enough to be compulsive: hard to hear at first, the precision and fury behind the murk ensure that you'll come back hearing more with each playing. What you hear sooner or later is two things: an institution for nonstop getdown... and a strange kind of humility and love emerging from a dazed frenzy."

That's it. He nailed it. And writer John Perry does a good job of digging behind the murk with his examination of the album. He's clearly a big time fan of the music and shares a lot of insight into it with a track-by-track analysis. Most importantly, the book also includes contemporary magazine reviews of the album that ran when it first came out. Since "Exile" is an album that almost has to grow on a listener to some extent, some of the conclusions the writers make are amusing to say the least. He also includes essays about the album and a little history.

The book isn't perfect -- Perry is interesting but he doesn't have a dead-serious critical edge, and I really wish the publishers had had access to better archive pictures and better reproduction. But this is still a good book to have if you want a better understanding of one of the greatest pieces of pop culture ever created. It even pointing out a snore (presumably Keith's) which I'd never heard before.

An x-ray of Exile
2002-04-14 - So much has been written about the Rolling Stones and their music and so much has been rubbish. Most writers have not had access to the band members and fall back on well-worn second or third-hand stories. John Perry doesn't recycle anything, he writes about what he knows, beginning with the historical background of Exile and following with a song-by-song examination of the album itself. Although he clearly has a deep love for this music, he is no star-struck fan, he sees the Stones' human flaws, but he isn't distracted by them, this is no parade of scandals as are so many books about this band. And in contrast to most rock writers, Perry actually knows and plays music, and his detailed breakdown of this great album literally note-by-note is superb. The combination of rich historical background and detailed musical analysis makes this a rare gem in the Rolling Stones library. I recommend this book highly, especially for musicians or those interested in the flesh-and-blood of what many consider one of rock's most important albums. My only complaint is that it isn't a hundred pages longer.

Highly Acute and Witty Look at Stones Debauchery
2001-06-09 - Like Perry's previous biog on the making of The Who's masterpiece 'Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy', he returns here with an interesting, witty and inciteful look at the both the state of the Stones circa the making of Exile and the wonderfully dirty rhythm and blues double album that emerged at the end of the debauched sessions in France.

Clearly previous reviewers have missed the rather large fifty page chapter entitled 'The Songs', that goes into extremely well argued and meticulously researched detail from a professional guitarists point of view of just what the album is made of.

Highly recommended.