What do you think?
Rate this book
Miles to Go: The Lost Years
Told by Chris Murphy, a young, down-on-his-luck, Irish-American guitarist who devoted himself to Miles Davis, first as his roadie and assistant, and then as one of his most trusted road managers, Miles to Go is a frank and intimate exploration of Davis's eccentric working life, drug habits, paranoia, depression, and subsequent recovery. It also deals with Davis's troubled relationship with his children and the controversial role Cicely Tyson played in his life. Murphy explores the dynamics that made Davis's band work so well together, placing Davis's work in a historic, literary, and musical framework. It corrects Davis's own almost self-hating autobiography, and attempts to treat with some balance the rumors about Davis being bisexual and HIV positive upon his death. Willie Nelson, Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix, and a very unlikely Mother Theresa all have walk-on parts in this engaging, intelligent, and often hilarious narrative that takes us from the small seedy jazz clubs that Davis was always at home in, to the world tours, and then finally to Davis's triumphant return with his celebrated concerts at Lincoln Center in the early ‘80s. Eight pages of black-and-white photos are included.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published December 12, 2001
3 people are currently reading
20 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
August 8, 2016
Written by one of Miles Davis's roadies "Miles to Go: The Lost Years" is written with a sense of humor and dishes some dirt from behind the scenes of this amazing Jazz Giant.
June 5, 2017
This is, hands down, one of the worst books I have ever read.
Don't let the title or the description fool you. The author hasn't written a book that is an intimate portrait of Miles Davis. He has written a self aggrandizing memoir about his life, which happened in proximity to Miles Davis... and also David Allen Coe and any number of other names that he drops here and there. You know that this book is about Chris and not about Miles because in at least 2 instances he writes entire sections of the book that have nothing to do with Miles as his life carries him away from Miles during periods of working for David Allen Coe and while he was married and living in Florida.
This is a privileged white man writing pages about himself and how he helped everyone around him, saving Finney from Miles' coked up wrath and paranoia, saving David Allen Coe and his group from being lost in the woods, teaching Miles to play the guitar and cook fish. He literally spends the entire book talking about the great things he did for other people while basically listing all of their negative traits that made them need him as a savior.
In addition to this, he constantly makes comments that show his obliviousness to race and gender issues. He generally only mentions women in instances where he is talking about hooking up / one night stands / Miles cheating on his girlfriends and wives. When he mentions going to Willie Nelson's where women were treated with respect, he says he felt like he was in prison. And repeatedly he says asinine things along the lines of "Miles wanted me to find a black owned hotel for use to stay at, and I was fine with that." Let me just lay this out for you. Miles Davis doesn't need your approval on his personal hotel choices. And the fact that you need to voice your approval is telling.
He's telling stories of how he was so okay with blacks and gays in a time when that wasn't common, patting himself on the back the whole time. But still basically treating women as disposable toys rather than as whole people.
What information is there about Miles is largely surface level and more a listing of his vices, flaws, or shortcomings than anything else.
I can summarize this book fairly succinctly:
"I have no flaws.
Miles has many flaws and I'd like to focus on those because it allows me to constantly talk about what a great person I am and how I saved him from himself, repeatedly.
Also, I will talk about other people's flaws for the same reason.
I'm cool with the gays and the blacks because I'm just a good guy, you know.
I also respect women but am only going to talk about them in regard to a) their beauty and sexual utility, b) their being famous people I knew, or c) my girlfriend Amy who I clearly cheated on while on the road and then later married. Amy later left me for another man and I was completely surprised by this but she was emotionally unstable at times anyway. I mean why else would she leave? I have no flaws, remember?
Well, actually... I did do way too many drugs for a while after the last time I left Miles. But other than that one period... I've basically spent my life as a good guy in proximity to famous people and saving everyone around me from themselves.
God, I loved Miles."
Don't let the title or the description fool you. The author hasn't written a book that is an intimate portrait of Miles Davis. He has written a self aggrandizing memoir about his life, which happened in proximity to Miles Davis... and also David Allen Coe and any number of other names that he drops here and there. You know that this book is about Chris and not about Miles because in at least 2 instances he writes entire sections of the book that have nothing to do with Miles as his life carries him away from Miles during periods of working for David Allen Coe and while he was married and living in Florida.
This is a privileged white man writing pages about himself and how he helped everyone around him, saving Finney from Miles' coked up wrath and paranoia, saving David Allen Coe and his group from being lost in the woods, teaching Miles to play the guitar and cook fish. He literally spends the entire book talking about the great things he did for other people while basically listing all of their negative traits that made them need him as a savior.
In addition to this, he constantly makes comments that show his obliviousness to race and gender issues. He generally only mentions women in instances where he is talking about hooking up / one night stands / Miles cheating on his girlfriends and wives. When he mentions going to Willie Nelson's where women were treated with respect, he says he felt like he was in prison. And repeatedly he says asinine things along the lines of "Miles wanted me to find a black owned hotel for use to stay at, and I was fine with that." Let me just lay this out for you. Miles Davis doesn't need your approval on his personal hotel choices. And the fact that you need to voice your approval is telling.
He's telling stories of how he was so okay with blacks and gays in a time when that wasn't common, patting himself on the back the whole time. But still basically treating women as disposable toys rather than as whole people.
What information is there about Miles is largely surface level and more a listing of his vices, flaws, or shortcomings than anything else.
I can summarize this book fairly succinctly:
"I have no flaws.
Miles has many flaws and I'd like to focus on those because it allows me to constantly talk about what a great person I am and how I saved him from himself, repeatedly.
Also, I will talk about other people's flaws for the same reason.
I'm cool with the gays and the blacks because I'm just a good guy, you know.
I also respect women but am only going to talk about them in regard to a) their beauty and sexual utility, b) their being famous people I knew, or c) my girlfriend Amy who I clearly cheated on while on the road and then later married. Amy later left me for another man and I was completely surprised by this but she was emotionally unstable at times anyway. I mean why else would she leave? I have no flaws, remember?
Well, actually... I did do way too many drugs for a while after the last time I left Miles. But other than that one period... I've basically spent my life as a good guy in proximity to famous people and saving everyone around me from themselves.
God, I loved Miles."
February 21, 2022
This author is sexist and racist and I wanted to scream several times while reading this book.
May 25, 2018
I dig Miles Davis. But this book was less about Miles (who, however, plays a significant role) and more about Chris Murphy's experiences while working as a roadie with Miles in the late-seventies through the mid-eighties. It was good, but more of a fan-boy musing than a real biography. But it does paint an accurate portrait of a band's life on the road. Little sleep and a different room each night leading to an erratic lifestyle, which inevitably leads to drug abuse (cocaine in Murphy;s and Miles's cases) and affairs which lead to broken marriages.
Three-stars. But mostly since it's about Miles, my second favorite jazz musician (behind John Coltrane). And how he acted later in life.
Three-stars. But mostly since it's about Miles, my second favorite jazz musician (behind John Coltrane). And how he acted later in life.
November 23, 2018
Miles is of course a musical legend but he has received mixed reviews as a person. Murphy worked for Miles for several years and paints a more positive picture of him than he painted of himself.
I learned a lot of little things about Miles like the fact that he was only 5'4" tall. And that he boxed as a young man and was a boxing fan all of his life. He once got in a dispute with 2 policemen as a young man and put both of them in the hospital.
An interesting detail is that Miles said that his biggest regret in life was that he never got to play with Jimi Hendrix.
He was such a bad driver that his wife, the actress Cicely Tyson, refused to ride with him. He and Cicely were married in the home of Bill Cosby, who was a huge Miles fan.
He loved to tease celebrities or even sometimes refuse to meet them. But when he Ali McGraw got a chance to meet him he jokingly said: "Oh it's Katherine Ross."
For years Miles was known for his aloofness on stage usually refusing to face the audience while he played. But after a lot of illness and not playing for several years when he made his comeback he was much more interested in winning audiences.
Once in the middle of a concert they had a power failure. And Miles continued playing solo and captivated the audience.
The author also shares a couple of interesting stories of his own. As a young man he was a cab driver in NY and one night he picked up 4 guys who happened to be U2 and they had just played their first gig in NYC. They ended up talking to him for a long time about music and left the meter running.
Another time as a young man he went to a club to see a particular group and they didn't show up. Their were only a couple of dozen people there and an artist showed up and played and called himself Jimi James. But he was actually Jimi Hendrix.
(Note: I'm stingy with stars. For me 2 stars means a good book or a B. 3 = Very good or a B+; 4 = Outstanding or an A {only about 5% of the books I read merit this}; 5 = All time favorites or an A+ {one of these may come along every 400-500 books})
I learned a lot of little things about Miles like the fact that he was only 5'4" tall. And that he boxed as a young man and was a boxing fan all of his life. He once got in a dispute with 2 policemen as a young man and put both of them in the hospital.
An interesting detail is that Miles said that his biggest regret in life was that he never got to play with Jimi Hendrix.
He was such a bad driver that his wife, the actress Cicely Tyson, refused to ride with him. He and Cicely were married in the home of Bill Cosby, who was a huge Miles fan.
He loved to tease celebrities or even sometimes refuse to meet them. But when he Ali McGraw got a chance to meet him he jokingly said: "Oh it's Katherine Ross."
For years Miles was known for his aloofness on stage usually refusing to face the audience while he played. But after a lot of illness and not playing for several years when he made his comeback he was much more interested in winning audiences.
Once in the middle of a concert they had a power failure. And Miles continued playing solo and captivated the audience.
The author also shares a couple of interesting stories of his own. As a young man he was a cab driver in NY and one night he picked up 4 guys who happened to be U2 and they had just played their first gig in NYC. They ended up talking to him for a long time about music and left the meter running.
Another time as a young man he went to a club to see a particular group and they didn't show up. Their were only a couple of dozen people there and an artist showed up and played and called himself Jimi James. But he was actually Jimi Hendrix.
(Note: I'm stingy with stars. For me 2 stars means a good book or a B. 3 = Very good or a B+; 4 = Outstanding or an A {only about 5% of the books I read merit this}; 5 = All time favorites or an A+ {one of these may come along every 400-500 books})
April 1, 2023
I picked up this audiobook with hopes of learning more about the life of Miles Davis, in a part not so well-documented of his career, covering some of his most controversial eras between the 70's and 80's, but the author wastes so much time telling stories of his own life, sometimes putting the main star as a glorified background to his private stories.
Even though some parts are interesting, since they involve one of the biggest musicians that ever lived, the book feels like a missed opportunity to learn more about some of the most important years of Miles' life, when he was suffering from depression, exploring unpopular musical boundaries and, at the end, find peace with his place in the world of music.
If you come only for Miles, keep in mind that this is mostly a book about life on the road, with some random stories about Miles from a person that spend years with Miles, but could not fill a small book only with the artist's stories. Maybe they were not so close as Chris Murphy claims through the book?
Even though some parts are interesting, since they involve one of the biggest musicians that ever lived, the book feels like a missed opportunity to learn more about some of the most important years of Miles' life, when he was suffering from depression, exploring unpopular musical boundaries and, at the end, find peace with his place in the world of music.
If you come only for Miles, keep in mind that this is mostly a book about life on the road, with some random stories about Miles from a person that spend years with Miles, but could not fill a small book only with the artist's stories. Maybe they were not so close as Chris Murphy claims through the book?
July 2, 2017
I wanted to read a biography about Miles and stumbled on this. It turned out to be just as much about Chris as Miles, but I was not disappointed anyway. There are lots of amusing anecdotes here that I enjoyed, although many of them seem to be way too detailed to be completely credible, considering the amount of alcohol and coke that was purportedly involved in Chris' and Miles' journey together. Chris does a good job of portraying Miles' personality, but other than that it's mostly about life on tour and Chris' experience as a roadie with one of music's greatest personas.
I don't know exactly what it is I find so likable about this book. I guess it's the personal style of writing. I normally don't like novels but this is not written as one, but rather like old-buddy-gossiping. Skip the appendices though, they are terrible.
I don't know exactly what it is I find so likable about this book. I guess it's the personal style of writing. I normally don't like novels but this is not written as one, but rather like old-buddy-gossiping. Skip the appendices though, they are terrible.
December 31, 2017
A loving biography of a period in Miles Davis' life written from the perspective of a man who became his road manager and close friend, who happens to be a musician as well. The story that Chris Murphy tells feels real. The descriptions of Davis' music and some albums in particular are really great. I don't know enough about music, but love to listen to it. I was happy to be able to hear some of these albums while listening to this story as well.
May 5, 2021
Some people didn't care for this book. I thought it was an interesting view and I felt myself caring about the writer's life and accomplishments. Some people call him a braggart, but I think Murphy was brutally honest a out himself at times. He was also portrayed people he admittedly wasn't crazy about in a fair and balanced light.
I don't understand the criticism of him being integral to many events. Did you want to read a book wear nothing happens?
I don't understand the criticism of him being integral to many events. Did you want to read a book wear nothing happens?
December 13, 2023
Again, I am FOOLED into reading a memoir of someone I could not care less about - respectfully.
There were some cool anecdotes at times, but it just felt so weird throughout. Such emphasis on this character rather than Miles.
Also this is gonna come off a little pearl-clutchy, but the rampant sexism/racial emphasis put me off. The drug abuse was aight but along the same lines. I get that it is telling the truth of the time, but not what I am into rn.
DNF at ~40%
There were some cool anecdotes at times, but it just felt so weird throughout. Such emphasis on this character rather than Miles.
Also this is gonna come off a little pearl-clutchy, but the rampant sexism/racial emphasis put me off. The drug abuse was aight but along the same lines. I get that it is telling the truth of the time, but not what I am into rn.
DNF at ~40%
August 6, 2020
This is a fascinating look at a portion of the life of Miles Davis as understood by one of the men who coordinated his tours over several years. I did not find either of them particularly sympathetic, but the portrait makes compelling reading. Who copy edited this book? A few stories are repeated and that should have been fixed.
February 7, 2017
When Murphy indicates the Miles covered Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" on a tour in 1981, two years before she recorded it, there are signs that the memory is fogged or the fact checking cursory. There is too much name-dropping and the descriptions of the music and at times Miles place in culture too simplistic. The Appendix devote to comparing Hemingway and Davis was skipped after trying to make significance out of the fact that The Sun also Rises and Sketches of Spain both happened to be about Spain. Just the type of skimming of the surface that makes the book less than essential read for anyone looking into that aspect of Davis' life. Murphy's arguments that Miles' Autobiography painted a harsh, inaccurate self-portrait are intriguing, but it is best to look to other sources for insight into this question. The book's strength is when he gets into giving an account of Miles' personality and the occasional anecdote but less than essential reading on "The Chief."
August 20, 2015
A personal look at Miles from the end of his early to mid 70s sprawling electro-funk-rock through his period of depression and reclusion and into his early 80s return to the stage. Murphy likes and understands Miles' music of these periods and he is an intelligent man, but this is essentially an insider's personal narrative with quite a bit of Murphy's own life included that fills out what would otherwise be a slim volume. Nevertheless, it contains some valuable insights and gives a picture of a problematic and great artist in a period rarely written about.
February 3, 2017
A very interesting subject, but by the end of the book I was really bored with the author.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews