When eighteen year old Danny Goldberg wrote his first
music review for Billboard, he couldn't have imagined
that he would go on to enjoy one of the most varied and
influential careers in the world of rock and roll. He
went on to do PR for Led Zeppelin and KISS, launched
Stevie Nicks' solo career, was Bonnie Raitt's manager
when she won four Grammys for Nick of Time, managed the
career of Nirvana, signed Warren Zevon to his label for
the artist's last album, and, in between, ran Atlantic
Records, Mercury Records and Warner Bros Records. In
''Bumping into Geniuses'', Goldberg shares his stories
about those artists with whom he worked closely, as well
as others who represent a powerful portion of the
psychic real estate of the rock and roll kingdom over
the last forty years, including Patti Smith, The Moody
Blues, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Courtney Love,
Steve Earle, and more. But there is more to this story
than Goldberg's career. It's a revealing look at the
music industry itself: a business that was neither the
romantic vehicle for self-expression that its most naive
fans imagined, nor the purely crass money machine
depicted by its most cynical critics.It was complex and
chaotic - a mixture of art and commerce, idealism and
selfishness - and sometimes, rock's most gifted
musicians were able to transcend it all. Despite the
drugs, lies and shallow quests for fame and money that
stalked the rock industry, it managed to produce the
music that Goldberg and countless fans love. Above all,
this book is Goldberg's love letter to rock and roll and
to the countless musical geniuses he bumped into along
the course of his extraordinary career. For anyone
interested in the rock and roll industry, or simply the
mores and temperaments of the musicians themselves,
''Bumping into Geniuses'' is an incredible insider's
tale that only Goldberg could tell. |
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