Unknown Legends of Rock 'n' Roll: Play Guitar with Happy Traum [With *] [With *] [With *] [With *] [With *] [With *] [With *] [With *] [With *] [With

Fun review of dozens of artists, labels, & musical trends which are known only to a small number of serious rock trivia buffs. Great for younger listeners who weren't even born when most of this music was happening. Also includes a CD of 12 songs by different artists mentioned in the book; you'd probably never get to hear them any other way. Surprising depth of personal information about many "enigmas". Highly recommended.

Having finished Irwin Chusid's "Songs in the Key of Z" it made sense to keep going with "Unknown Legends of Rock 'n' Roll". This book deals with more "accessible" people and groups, meaning that out of the 70 artists discussed, the average rock music person may have heard of at least one quarter to maybe half of them. Syd Barrett, the founder of Pink Floyd, and singer Sandy Denny are two readily familiar names. Joe Meek, the British creator of "Telstar", is also among the artists profiled. British, American, German, Dutch and Iron Curtain artists from the 1950's through the 1990's are featured in this book. The psychedelic garage bands, British acts that didn't make the invasion of the 1960's and solo acts that possessed as much talent as writers and/or performers; that for lack of the "Big Break" or the machinations of the managers and/or record companies prevented the world at large from knowing of their existence. Each performer is examined chapter by chapter; some with stories more heartbreaking than others. Unterberger made the effort to speak with as many of the performers as possible, getting them to reflect back on their struggles, accomplishments, and where it went wrong. If the performer was deceased or unavailable, he spoke with someone closely associated with the act. His prose is a first person account with extensive quotes from the artists and there are plenty of black and white photos that add to the telling. This book is very readable and informative. At the end of each chapter is "Recommended Recordings" where Unterberger lists available records and CDs for that artist. Which leads to the BIG plus already with this book: it comes with a compact disc so you are able to hear what you are reading about! At the end of the book right before the index are 2 and half pages devoted to the disc. Some of the songs have previously been unavailable. So this is a book that must be part of a rock music lover's library. Over 400 pages, lots of photos, so many stories and personalities from the last 50 years... And a Compact Disc! This is a pleasurable reference book - a real keeper!

I love books like this. Despite the fact that many of these acts would be considered failures, they obviously mean or have meant something to someone. Not everyone in this book can be considered a true unknown, but it would take a knowledgable person indeed to have heard of a few of them. One of my favorites is a fifteen year old kid named Joe Docko. Joe's band, the Mystic Tide, is one of the bands whose songs have been included on the cd that comes inside the back cover. "Frustration" is one of the great undiscovered moments in garage rock history, and Joe Docko tossed out the original masters because he didn't think anyone would care. If that isn't a tragi-comedy I don't know what is.

A friend gave me this book as he knew I was interested in this sort of thing, and I thank him every so often for doing so. As a musician and a music fanatic, I must say Rithchie Unterberger's book really opened my eyes to some incredible stuff I had never dreamed existed. I must give my profound gratitude to Mr. Unterberger again (I emailed him a couple years back) for introducing me to some criminally underrated music groups that are now among my favorites. To name a few: The Music Machine, John's Children, United States of America and Savage Republic. I remember diligently tracking these groups down after reading this book and buying their albums even though I had only heard one or no songs of theirs at all. Mr. Unterberger's writing style seemed to speak to me exclusivley, and precisley communicated to me EXACTLY what the music sounded like in his words. When I bought the albums, I wasnt very surprised by how good they were on the first listen, as I already "heard" the music based soley on his descriptions alone. That proves how good this book really is. I am a rock fan in general, from new-wave to psych to mainstream alt-rock to aggro-japanese-noise-core, and this book gave me a profound new respect for the sixties. Being a child of the eighties, I did not have the luxury of hanging out at the Factory and/or Haight Ashbury in their '60s beatle-boot heydays. So ostensibly, the only way I could have found out about these wonderful groups is through a book such as this (god knows even NPR would not play most of this stuff during their interludes). Hats off to Ritchie Unterberger for his scholarly knowldege of the TRULY great groups of the sixties.

Unterberger is a critic who really does have a deep knowledge of rock history, especially in terms of little-known artists who have had an unexpected influence on others. Don't be too concerned with who exactly is in this book, because in a world where there's ten thousand unknown bands for every successful rock star, it would be impossible to cover any representative number of "unknowns" in one book. So Unterberger has written about artists that he's familiar with, and he's especially keen on those that were noticed by other open-minded musicians, and have actually influenced the course of rock history in unexpected ways. A few surprise twists are bands that famous people were in during their developmental days, most notably Marc Bolan (T. Rex) in the unheralded psychedelic band John's Children. Also featured in the book is much needed information on artists that most astute rock fans probably have heard of, but for which there is precious little information available, such as Love and Nick Drake. So while it's clearly impossible to cover everybody, Unterberger has done a real service to the artists he includes here. This book has turned me into a real fan of both Love (a tremendous band that all serious fans of rock history should be aware of), plus the intriguing Middle Eastern troupe Aisha Kandisha's Jarring Effects. I have also found myself very interested in Savage Rose, the Music Machine, and the Deviants, but I wish I could track down some of their stuff. For that reason (among others) the CD that comes with this book is a great bonus.