Stories behind the music
Five music memoirs to look out for in the coming months.
FESTIVAL season might be coming to an end, but some of the biggest names in music will help you get into the swing of fall with these highly anticipated memoirs, out in the coming months.
Year Of The Monkey by Patti Smith
In Year Of The Monkey, out now, Smith takes readers on a year of wandering across the coast of Santa Cruz in California and the West, penning music and taking hazy Polaroids along the way.
The award-winning author initiated her solitary journey at the start of 2016, following a run of New Year concerts at the Fillmore in San Francisco.
A difficult period ensued, marked by the loss of friends Sandy Pearlman and Sam Shepard, as well as the rise of populism in the political landscape of America.
Throughout the Year Of The Monkey, Smith constantly plays with the boundary between reverie and memory, imagining for instance what American poet Allen Ginsberg would have thought of the current political climate.
High School by Tegan and Sara Quin
High School, out now, is a coming-of-age memoir from Canadian musicians and twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin, chronicling how their teenage years paved the path to their notoriety.
Indeed, the sisters signed their first demo deal with Polygram on September 19, 1998, as they were celebrating their 18th birthday.
“Mom faxed it when she got to work that morning and that afternoon Sara and I went to a hair salon and shaved our heads,” Tegan recalls in the memoir.
High School, which is written by the sisters in alternating chapters, is divided in three sections that narrate their school years filled with rave parties, prank calls, crushes on girls and self-discovery.
The book arrives ahead of Tegan and Sara’s next studio album, Hey, I’m Just Like You, which features re-recorded versions of songs that the duo wrote in high school.
Face It by Debbie Harry
In this new autobiography, out on Oct 1, Blondie’s frontwoman Debbie Harry offers an inside look into her multifaceted career, including her band’s creative and commercial journey.
It includes several anecdotes unknown by most Blondie fans, such as Harry’s encounter with actresses Rita Hayworth and Penny Singleton backstage at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles.
Face It also delves into darker episodes of the artist’s life, such as her struggle with drug addiction, her sexual assault and her attempted abduction by serial killer Ted Bundy.
The memoir notably blends first-person essays with interviews conducted by journalist Sylvie Simmons, also featuring illustrations and never-before-seen photographs by Harry.
In an interview to Rolling Stone, the musician admitted that Face It might be the first installment in a series of memoirs, pointing out that she has “many more stories to tell”.
Wham! George Michael, And Me by Andrew Ridgeley
In this memoir, out on Oct 8, Andrew Ridgeley details for the first time his experience as half of the 1980s iconic duo Wham! alongside his childhood friend George Michael.
The musician takes readers behind the scenes of his relationship with Michael, whom he met in the mid-1970s at Bushey Meads School in Hertfordshire.
The pair briefly performed in a ska group known as the Executive, before forming Wham! in 1981.
Five years later, Ridgeley and Michael announced the end of Wham! in front of more than 70,000 tearful fans at Wembley Stadium in London.
A successful solo career followed for Michael, while his childhood friend tried his hand at Formula Three racing and acting.
“Andrew’s memoir covers in wonderful detail those years, up until that last iconic concert: the scrapes, the laughs, the relationships, the good, and the bad. It’s a unique and one-and-only time to remember that era, that band, and those boys,” publisher Dutton said in a statement.
The Beautiful Ones by Prince
Prince announced his first-ever memoir a few weeks before his unexpected death in April 2016, leaving behind more than 50 handwritten pages.
Three years later, the unfinished autobiography, titled The Beautiful Ones, is finally hitting bookstores across the world on Oct 29.
The Beautiful Ones, which is divided in four parts, spans his childhood in Minnesota to his final days as one of the most successful musicians in pop history.
Publisher Random House has described the memoir as “the deeply personal account of how Prince Rogers Nelson became the Prince we know,” teasing that it narrates “the real-time story of a kid absorbing the world around him and creating a persona ... before the hits and the fame that would come to define him”.
The Beautiful Ones also features Prince’s unfinished manuscript, behind-the-scenes photos, as well as scrapbooks and lyrics, including his original treatment for his 1984 hit, Purple Rain.
It includes an introduction by New Yorker writer Dan Piepenbring, who was originally chosen to co-write the autobiography.