Working Musicians: Defining Moments from the Road, the Studio, and the Stage

by Bruce Pollock

Drawing on the experiences and wisdom of more than one hundred artists in the fields of rock, jazz, and hip-hop music, this informative study captures the world of the professional musician as seen through the eyes of such notables as Bruce Springsteen, Carole King, Keith Richards, Paul Simon, Kool Mo Dee, and Harry Connick, Jr., among others. Original.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

416 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2002

Reviews

[Bob Malone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m kind of an unreliable reviewer for this, as I am one of the working musicians who’s writing is in this book. But these stories from various musicians really do get a across the job part of us getting to do what we love for a living.🎹

[Peter Geyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always admired musicians, and possibly wanted to be one, but didn't have the discipline, or talent possibly, although I never tested that out. It's all about music I hear, which includes songs I hear in my head, a lifelong experience; I don't need to see the musicians, although that can be a bonus, and it's good to see people you admire in the flesh. I'm not interested in whether they put on a show, or make videos, it's simply the playing and singing.

And they lose credibility for if they turn to acting, a craft I've never been able to respect. I don't understand the point of it I suppose, but I also don't know why they're listened to on politics and other topics, something I could apply to musicians as well. I was really disappointed when Eric Burdon, lead singer of the Animals, said in the late 1960s that he wanted to be an actor, and didn't really understand why the Beatles put out movies in which they acted. I was too young in a way for Elvis, but I couldn't see why he went to acting, or performed in Las Vegas, as that seemed opposed to what his music seemed to be saying. Then again, the Grammies have a status now that they never had when I was a teenager and young adult, because of their corporate nature and lack of understanding of what was then popular.

So a book entitled Working Musicians has its appeal, although I did select it in part because it was cheapish and it brought the cost of the postage down in a proportional sense. The author, Bruce Pollock, is someone I've never heard of, and in selecting this on Goodreads it seems he has several volumes on the same topic. This book is a substantially sized paperback, in which comments from a wide range of musicians, some of whom are familiar, others not are presented under 12 categories, such as starting out, first performance or album, the studio, technology, songwriting and so on. The pieces are brief, sometimes under two pages, and the level of interest varies, not according to whether you know the person, or their band.

For many, music is a calling, a means of expression, a battle against people from record companies who know little about music. Some have had success and lost it, some are household names of a kind, others probably have no real success or play in a particular milieu. Some are entertainers. Names like Phil Everly, Jerry Garcia and Lou Reed have particular views about music and who plays it; the Band's Robbie Robertson tells a story about being asked by his friend Van Morrison to come up on stage and play a particular song, only for the song to be a quite different one; Carol Kaye speaks about working with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and the respect for his preparation and music; John lee Hooker gives an insight into his composition Boom Boom, a blues staple, as well as a tendency to be late for gigs; Donald Fagen explains that Steely Dan songs are just that; Liu Sola, a Chinese artist unknown to me, speaks evocatively of the feelings she experienced in hearing the Blues (Little Walter) for the first time and bemoans her culture's repression of emotional expression, notwithstanding her responses to music felt similar to mine, as I don't jump up and down or yell and scream, in public at any rate. Frank Zappa presents his unique view of music, which is unrelated to mine; Richard Thompson speaks articulately about his approach to music;

Robby Krieger talks about his musical relationship with Jim Morrison in the Doors, commenting that he found it difficult to actually play any other music and had to relearn; Roger McGuinn explains his presumptions about The Beatles (who he characterises as a gang) regarding the use of various folk-related tunings, only to find that they had no knowledge of these things, just played, and Emil Richards, completely unknown to me, describes his experience of standing on stage next to Frank Sinatra at his peak.

There are others of interest, but these come to mind. It's hard to rate this book, because there's a bit of dross, where you can't wait to finish the pages you're on and go to the next one. Others may find my dross interesting, and my interest to be their dross. So somewhere between 3 and 4. It's better than the run-of-the-mill book on music, which isn't saying much, but that might be a guide. It's not a fan book, a hagiography if you like; it just presents thev views and experiences of a variety of musicians.