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Rewind, Playback
Pete Dyer is a rock star. He’s sacrificed everything to make music his life. When he’s not on stage in front of 10,000 screaming fans, he’s alone on a bus between places he’s been a hundred times before but never really seen.
But Pete never figured he’d be here alone. This was his and Jack’s dream since they were boys growing up in a small town in the North Carolina mountains. Lately, he thinks about Jack a lot and how things fell apart almost twenty years ago, how his friend was faced with an impossible choice on the eve of their first real break and how they haven’t spoken since.
Jack is a stay-at-home dad struggling to hold onto his marriage and beat the same depression that killed his father. These days his talent is confined to teaching “Satisfaction” to businessmen in the back of a music store, but his love for music has never faded.
When a young rock journalist digging into Pete’s past discovers his and Jack’s first band, she is taken in by the music, by their story and by the beautiful singer, Julie Bianca, who was at the center of both. She conspires to orchestrate a reunion that will bring the friends together after nearly twenty years of silence.
Rewind, Playback is a seat on the bus with a band of friends. On a ride that spans two decades it explores the power of friendship and the endurance of love, the cost of commercial success and what happens when we have a chance to look down the road we did not take.
But Pete never figured he’d be here alone. This was his and Jack’s dream since they were boys growing up in a small town in the North Carolina mountains. Lately, he thinks about Jack a lot and how things fell apart almost twenty years ago, how his friend was faced with an impossible choice on the eve of their first real break and how they haven’t spoken since.
Jack is a stay-at-home dad struggling to hold onto his marriage and beat the same depression that killed his father. These days his talent is confined to teaching “Satisfaction” to businessmen in the back of a music store, but his love for music has never faded.
When a young rock journalist digging into Pete’s past discovers his and Jack’s first band, she is taken in by the music, by their story and by the beautiful singer, Julie Bianca, who was at the center of both. She conspires to orchestrate a reunion that will bring the friends together after nearly twenty years of silence.
Rewind, Playback is a seat on the bus with a band of friends. On a ride that spans two decades it explores the power of friendship and the endurance of love, the cost of commercial success and what happens when we have a chance to look down the road we did not take.
250 pages, Paperback
First published September 13, 2014
2 people want to read
About the author
Ben Wakeman
2 books6 followersBen Wakeman is an independent novelist and singer-songwriter who has worked in digital technology for more than 25 years. Early in his creative career, his focus was music where he shared the stage with artists like John Mayer, Gillian Welch, Collective Soul, and Sugarland. He went on to release five independent albums. In the 2010's Wakeman turned his focus to writing fiction and published his debut novel REWIND PLAYBACK in 2014.
His second novel, THE MEMORY OF MY SHADOW was published in August 2024. The book was first released as a serial on his Substack publication, Catch & Release where he has since released a third novel HARMONY HOUSE in the same manor and is currently publishing a fourth serial novel titled DEPARTURES. Wakeman is a gifted narrator and provides audio narration for all his books.
He lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. You can follow all his writing and creative projects by subscribing for free to his publication at www.catchrelease.net.
His second novel, THE MEMORY OF MY SHADOW was published in August 2024. The book was first released as a serial on his Substack publication, Catch & Release where he has since released a third novel HARMONY HOUSE in the same manor and is currently publishing a fourth serial novel titled DEPARTURES. Wakeman is a gifted narrator and provides audio narration for all his books.
He lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. You can follow all his writing and creative projects by subscribing for free to his publication at www.catchrelease.net.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 23, 2023
Rewind, Playback feels so true to life - no melodrama here, just beautifully wrought characters and real life decisions and consequences - also, enduring friendship, and the surprising shifts that can come after we thought all was lost. Ben Wakeman writes with raw honesty about the emotions of real people (rather than hackneyed caricatures) and infuses his story with an unflinching authenticity. I loved this peek at "the man behind the music" - and the beauty of old friendship rekindled.
November 14, 2014
The intersection of art and commerce runs more than two ways. It's more like the infamous Spaghetti Junction in Ben Wakeman's hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. An accomplished musician and songwriter whose first novel is as tuneful as his Taylor guitar, I had a hard time putting this book down. Relationships, choices, consequences, the person we hope to be, the person we see in the mirror, and maybe most importantly, redemption. They're all here in Rewind, Playback. Yes, this book is about music but it's more so about life. And how we choose to live it.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews