Well, my two favorite books that I have read in the last couple months have also coincidentally been the ones with the best storytelling. One was a Lee Child novel (I don't know if you're familiar) which featured the lovable ex-MP Jack Reacher solving another murder/crime mystery, the other being Keith Richard's autobiography Life. Unfortunately my favorite storytelling was the Jack Reacher novel, which I happened to have left with my Grandpa in Iowa for him to read (he's also a big fan of Lee Child). So I choose a typical story from Keith Richards, who, after all the herione/cocaine/god-knows-what-else, can actually write a good novel (with some help I presume) and come across as an intellectual.
Excerpt from Keith Richard's Life, P. 270:
"It's strange, given the fact that we'd had to pull the plug on Brian in the studio three years earlier, when he was lying in a coma beside his buzzing amp, to be reminded that he was still playing on tracks early in 1969, the year of his death. Autoharp on "You Got The Silver," percussion on "Midnight Rambler." Where did that come from? A last flare from the shipwreck.
By May we were playing in his replacement, Mick Taylor, at Olympic Studios -- playing him in on "Honky Tonk Women," on which his overdub is there for posterity. No surprise to us, how good he was. Everybody was looking at me, because I was the older guitar player, but my position was I'd play with anybody. And we did the most brilliant stuff together, some of the most brilliant stuff the Stones ever did. Everything was there in his playing -- the melodic touch, a beautiful sustain and a way of reading a song. He'd get where I was going even before I did."
As you can tell from the passage, this kind of reading is music-lover material only, even more directed at the die-hard Rolling Stones fans such as myself. You gotta love the personal touch Keith adds in his writing, even if one would expect such from an autobiography. I guess what made the storytelling stand out to me was that my expectation weren't very high when I began the book. Even with his age, Keith can still bring that element of surprise out.
There's one Stones album which has two tracke with Brian Jones, two with Mick Taylor, and a couple of others without either of them. Beggars Banquet maybe? My favorite is Exile on Main Street, so maybe I have to check out Richards' bio. I did read Eric Clapton's book earlier this year. Thanks for the recommendation.
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