Access All Areas: A Backstage Pass Through 50 Years of Music And Culture

by Barbara Charone

First as a journalist and then a publicist at Warner Brothers Records for nearly twenty years, Barbara Charone has experienced, first-hand, the changes in the cultural landscape. Access All Areas is a personal, insightful and humorous memoir packed with stories of being on the cultural frontline, from first writing press releases on a typewriter driven by Tip Ex, then as a press officer for heavy metal bands taking the bus up to Donnington Festival with coffee, croissants and the much more popular sulfate. To taking on Madonna, an unknown girl from Detroit, and telling Smash Hits 'you don't have to run the piece if the single doesn't chart', and becoming a true pioneer in music, Charone continues to work with the biggest names in music, including Depeche Mode, Robert Plant, Foo Fighters and Mark Ronson at her agency MBCPR.

The story of how a music-loving, budding journalist from a Chicago suburb became the defining music publicist of her generation, Access All Areas is a time capsule of the last fifty years, told through the lens of music.

Genres: Music

211 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 23, 2022

Reviews

[Eleanor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Goodness me, life was easy in the 60s !

[ana 🍒 · Rating 4 out of 5]

i love music books and hearing about the people who supported all my favourite bands :)

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

...and then....and then....and then....

In a book that promises "access all areas" the one area that gets no access is Charone's own life, beyond enjoying a stunningly privileged upbringing and doing drugs here and there. This creates a distance from Charone, one that she tries to compensate for by being relentlessly upbeat and cheerful. Everything is amazing, the best, incredible, the most and so on.

A large part of the book is given over to her admiration of Keith Richards and Madonna, and there's virtually no criticism of anything or anyone (save Steven Stills, against whom she must have some vendetta, as he is the only one to be singled out for this treatment). Charone is a PR person, and so of course she isn't about to criticize anyone who might influence (or have influenced) her ability to access celebs. She downplays, for example, her spat with Rufus Wainwright, who ends up, we see, writing a blurb for the book. Lots of backstratching.

I'm sure Charone is a nice person. But more introspection and more critique would have created a better book than this glide through musical celebrity delivers.

[Sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rather jolly romp through the life and career of Barbara Charone who moved to London as a student in the 70s, first working as a music journalist/author and later in PR and artist management. Despite its title, this isn't really a "tell-all"/expose kind of book, but rather a carefully managed collection of anecdotes about a plethora of celebrities the author has worked with - from Madonna, REM and Aerosmith to Rufus Wainwright, Neil Tennant, The Rolling Stones and Andrew Lloyd Webber - along with a healthy dollop of Britsh sport and culture thrown in.

If, like me, you have an interest in the UK music and media industry of the 70s, 80s, 90s, then this book is a fun read. Written during lockdown, the book finishes with some fawning praise for Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters plus a slew of newer pop acts the author started working with in the last decade, and is no doubt keeping her own PR firm busy thanks to recent headlines! A pleasant read if you don't take it too seriously.

[Grace Jeffery · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read.

Learnt a lot about working in the music industry and more specifically PR.

Felt like you have to know who a lot of the people are in this book in order to understand the whole premise of it.

But it kept my attention and if you’re a fan of 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s music I recommend!

[Ralph · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a well written account of a fabulous life but she is very discreet