The Lives of Brian
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- 20,99 €
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- 20,99 €
Publisher Description
One of SPIN'S Best Music Memoirs of 2022!
Brian Johnson’s memoir from growing up in a small town to starting his own band to ultimately replacing Bon Scott, the lead singer of one of the world biggest rock acts, AC/DC. They would record their first album together, the iconic Back in Black, which would become the biggest selling rock album of all time.
Brian Johnson was born to a steelworker and WWII veteran father and an Italian mother, growing up in New Castle Upon Tyne, England, a working-class town. He was musically inclined and sang with the church choir. By the early ’70s he performed with the glam rock band Geordie, and they had a couple hits, but it was tough going. So tough that by 1976, they disbanded and Brian turned to a blue-collar life.
Then 1980 changed everything. Bon Scott, the lead singer and lyricist of the Australian rock band AC/DC died at 33. The band auditioned singers, among them Johnson, whom Scott himself had seen perform and raved about. Within days, Johnson was in a studio with the band, working with founding members Angus and Malcolm Young, Cliff Williams, and Phil Rudd, along with producer Mutt Lange.
When the album, Back in Black, was released in July—a mere three months after Johnson had joined the band—it exploded, going on to sell 50 million copies worldwide, and triggering a years-long worldwide tour. It has been declared “the biggest selling hard rock album ever made” and “the best-selling heavy-metal album in history.”
The band toured the world for a full year to support the album, changing the face of rock music—and Brian Johnson’s life—forever.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
AC/DC’s famous frontman is such a rock ’n’ roll badass, his memoir covers countless stories of chaos and debauchery before he even gets to the part where he joins the band. We loved hearing memories from Johnson’s youth—singing with his church choir, becoming a Sea Scout patrol leader, playing his first paid gig with the hilariously named Toasty Folk Trio. And we were fascinated by tales of the singer’s first fleeting brush with success as a member of ’70s glam rock band Geordie. But he took plenty of hard knocks along the way too. We got a little misty-eyed reading about the life-changing opportunity to join AC/DC following the tragic death of the group’s first singer, Bon Scott. Johnson narrates the audiobook in a thick, gravelly English accent that makes it feel like you’re sitting next to him in a pub listening to his war stories. Reflective, funny, and ultimately triumphant, The Lives of Brian is as satisfying as music memoirs get.