...Joe Boyd's WHITE BICYCLES (2006), about 130 pgs in. Boyd was probly the top producer of British folk-rock acts in the late '60s/early '70s. He produced Fairport Convention's 1st 5 albums, Nick Drake's 1st 2, the Incredible String Band's 1st 1/2-dozen, + Pink Floyd's 1st single "Arnold Layne," etc. The book's a memoir about what those times were like. Should B great.
However, if U're intrested in this book, U should know that it takes awhile 4 Boyd 2 hit his stride. I suggest you start on Pg 92, at the start of Chapter 12, where Boyd Dscribes in Dtail the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Bob Dylan & his backing band were allegedly booed 4 "going electric" & playing 2 loud. Boyd was a sound mixer & backstage assistant at the festival.
Tho the scene may not B as dramatic as some have written, there's plenty of drama NEway, & Dylan's mgr Albert Grossman & folksong-collector Alan Lomax do end up wrestling just off-stage. & there's Lots More Drama....
There's some good & funny stuff in the 1st few chapters 2, as Boyd Dscribes touring around Europe w/ jazz & blues greats -- including a just-off-stage showdown w/ jazz sax legend Coleman Hawkins about Hawkins' apparently lifelong inability 2 keep 2 a schedule....
I'm hoping I'm just getting in2 the Good Stuff with this. I promise a full review when I'm done....
JUST FINISHED: Jim Garrison's ON THE TRAIL OF THE ASSASSINS (1988), a book about his investigation (as New Orleans District Attorney in the mid-'60s) in2 the Kennedy assassination. The book led 2 Oliver Stone's film JFK. Not only is the book shorter & EZer 2 follow than the movie, it's also WAY clearer & more dramatic.
This book will convince U that a team of CIA Cold Warriors, anti-Castro Cubans & others within the gov't could've teamed-up 2 kill Kennedy, leaving Lee Harvey Oswald as the fall guy.
Why was JFK's parade route thru Dallas changed on the morning of the event? How could as bad a marksman as Oswald have hit his target 5 times in 6 seconds with an archaic rifle -- with a gunsight so far out of whack he shouldn't have hit the broad side of a barn? Could a witness really have seen Jack Ruby drop-off a man with a rifle at the Grassy Knoll 30 mins B4 the parade started? & how did the New Orleans DA get sucked in2 all this?
Not all the drama's in trying 2 reconstruct a possible conspiracy: Garrison's office staff gets infiltrated by the CIA, his Kennedy files get stolen, he gets dragged in2 court 2 face charges in an attempt 2 discredit him....
Even if U're not a "fan" of conspiracy theories, it's quick & compelling reading. Everybody knows by this late date that the assassination was a gov't conspiracy NEway: The feds should release all the documentation just to confirm our worst fears....
COMING SOON: MOUNTAINS COME OUT OF THE SKY, a sorta illustrated history of progressive rock....
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2 comments:
I would imagine the title of Boyd's book comes from the Tomorrow song?
Although I don't see Boyd's name on my (JEM) copy of the album . . . .
Dylan's appearance at the '65 Folk festival, it has occurred to me, is music's version of Babe Ruth's Called Shot. There is no doubt about Who Was There and What Happened, but there is considerable disagreement over How It Happened.
R: So far, Tomorrow is only mentioned at the very start of Boyd's book, tho there is a photo of them -- Steve Howe looks like such a frowny kid! Tho Boyd's 1st production jobs were in 1966 (including the 1st Incredible String Band album), he didn't produce NE of Tomorrow's stuff, just put them on stage at his UFO "happenings." I'll report back w/ more....
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