The Masters
Conversations with Dylan, Lennon, Jagger, Townshend, Garcia, Bono, and Springsteen
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
From New York Times bestselling author and Rolling Stone founder comes "a visit to the Mount Olympus of rock" in this remarkable collection of new and collected interviews with some of the greatest rock stars and cultural icons of our time (Kirkus Reviews).
During fifty years of publishing the “Bible of Rock and Roll,” Jann Wenner conducted a series of interviews that are now regarded among the most important historical documents of rock. Some of these conversations broke headlines—in 1970, his interview with John Lennon exposed the unvarnished tensions that led to the breakup of the Beatles. He gets up-close-and-personal with Bob Dylan, the most singular figure in music who revealed himself to Wenner more openly than to anyone else. And Mick Jagger only trusted one person to publicly interview him about his private life and his backstage account of the world's greatest rock band.
Including stunning photographs and an exclusive, never-before-seen interview with Bruce Springsteen, The Masters intimately profiles the extraordinary musicians who dominated rock and roll, from London and California to New York and L.A.. This is a primary source, cultural masterpiece, and must-have volume about the artists who changed history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
For this essential collection, Rolling Stone founder Wenner (Like a Rolling Stone) gathers together his interviews with rock legends from the past 60 years. "Rock history is full of songs about hoping it would never die," Mick Jagger told the author in 1995—a theme that runs through these conversations, as musicians excavate the sources of the music's "power and depth" and capture its legacy (as "an enormous catalyst for altering culture, society, and the country," according to Springsteen in 2023). Wenner has a knack for drawing honesty and vulnerability from his subjects, as when the Who's Pete Townshend confessed in 1968 that "I played the guitar—because of my nose," hoping to divert attention from his face. Elsewhere, Bob Dylan, whom Wenner describes as "an incandescent moral and literary figure as well as a musical genius," comments in a 2007 interview that Paul McCartney is "the only one that I am in awe of. He can do it all." Chock-full of trivia (Jerry Garcia acknowledged his dislike of The Grateful Dead's name while admitting, "I just found it to be powerful") and animated speculation about rock's essence ("Energy, anger, angst, enthusiasm, a certain spontaneity," according to Jagger), these interviews—by turns cerebral, revealing, and electric—capture some of music's biggest names from a rare and intimate vantage point. This captivates.
