Cerphe's Up
A Musical Life with Bruce Springsteen, Little Feat, Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, CSNY, and Many More
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $22.99
-
- $22.99
Publisher Description
Cerphe’s Up is an incisive musical memoir by Cerphe Colwell, a renowned rock radio broadcaster for more than forty-five years in Washington, DC. Cerphe shares his life as a rock radio insider in rich detail and previously unpublished photographs. His story includes promotion and friendship with a young unknown Bruce Springsteen; his years at radio station WHFS 102.3 as it blossomed in a new freeform format; candid interviews with Little Feat’s Lowell George, Tom Waits, Nils Lofgren, Stevie Nicks, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Steven Van Zandt, Robert Plant, Danny Kortchmar, Seldom Scene’s John Duffey, and many others; hanging out with George Harrison, the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, John Entwistle, Jackson Browne, and many more; testifying on Capitol Hill with friend Frank Zappa during the “Porn Rock” hearings; and managing the radio syndication of both G. Gordon Liddy and Howard Stern. Player listings and selected performances at legendary DC music clubs Childe Harold and Cellar Door are also chronicled.
Cerphe’s Up is both historically significant and a fun, revealing ride with some of the greatest rock-and-roll highfliers of the twentieth century. Cerphe’s Up belongs on the reading list of every rock fan, musician, and serious music scholar.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Colwell's memoir provides the distinctive perspective of a rock personality, but it ultimately fails to provide a full portrait of its author. Colwell focuses on the influence of rock music on his life, sharing his viewpoint of major events such as testifying along with Frank Zappa at the Parents Music Resource Center Senate hearings on obscenity in music. The book profiles several artists, including Bruce Springsteen, whom Colwell met after Springsteen's first show in Washington, D.C., in 1973, and George Harrison, whom he met at a press party in 1976. It also contains interesting factoids gleaned from Colwell's proximity to the D.C. press world. However, the memoir too often focuses on telling stories the reader probably already knows, and though Colwell interjects personal anecdotes in the midst of these straightforward profiles, he often relies on quotes from reviews or articles written at the time instead of his own voice. When he puts himself into the story, as when he discusses the introductions he used to do for Bruce Springsteen at live shows or his time at D.C., radio station WHFS 102.3, the narrative comes alive. The rest of the time, the overall arc of the memoir fails to emerge.
