Another Little Piece of My Heart
My Life of Rock and Revolution in the '60s
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
"A deeply felt and largely compelling portrait of an age that indelibly marked everyone who took part in it. Indispensable for understanding the culture of the '60s and the music that was at its heart." - starred review, Kirkus Reviews
In 1966, at the ripe age of 22, Richard Goldstein approached The Village Voice with a novel idea. "I want to be a rock critic," he said. "What's that?" the editor replied.
It was a logical question, since rock criticism didn't yet exist. In the weekly column he would produce for the Voice, Goldstein became the first person to write regularly in a major publication about the music that changed our lives. He believed deeply in the power of rock, and, long before it was acceptable, he championed the idea that this music was a serious art form. From his unique position in journalism, he saw the full arc of events that shaped culture and politics in the 1960s--and participated in them, too. He toured with Janis Joplin, spent a day at the Grateful Dead house in San Francisco, and dropped acid with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. He was present for Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, the student uprising at Columbia, and the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention. He was challenged to a boxing match by Norman Mailer, and took Susan Sontag to her first disco. Goldstein developed close relationships with several rock legends--Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, to name two--and their early deaths came as a wrenching shock, fueling his disillusionment as he watched the music he loved rapidly evolve from a communal rite to a vast industry--and the sense of hope for radical social upheaval fade away.
Another Little Piece of My Heart is the intimate memoir of the writer as a young man with profound ambition. It is also a sweeping personal account of a decade that no one else could provide--a deeply moving, unparalleled document of rock and revolution in America.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As a writer for the Village Voice who covered music and culture in the 1960s, author Goldstein (The Poetry of Rock, Reporting the Counterculture, and Homocons) was in the right place at the right time, as he explains in this entertaining music memoir. A shy, fat kid from the Bronx suddenly found himself hanging out with Andy Warhol and John Lennon, crashing at the Grateful Dead house in San Francisco, and spending time Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin when they were still young and naive. While anecdotes such as these are more than enough to fill a book, Goldstein uses them as set pieces to chart his rocky road to his own sense of self. Artfully integrating a number of story lines his murky grasp on his own sexuality, the vapidity of the peace movement, and the death of rock as a revolutionary force (he points a finger straight at "MacArthur Park") Goldstein takes a fluid approach that may irritate those expecting a linear tale. However, Goldstein's confessional tone gives significant warmth to the book, encouraging the reader to settle in as Goldstein recalls a tumultuous culture with humility and a healthy perspective.
