One of last year's most surprising music books was Coal Black Mornings, the debut memoir of Suede lead singer, Brett Anderson. We knew that Anderson could write an evocative lyric, but didn't realise how good a prose writer he could be. That book ended with the shutters being pulled down just before Suede's sizeable commercial success, with Anderson reluctant to be drawn further on his rock star years of excess and despair. Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn (Little, Brown, £18.99) is a suitably disarming yet admirably eloquent follow-up, prefaced by the title of the first chapter: The Book I Said I Wouldn't Write. Drawing on a more confident approach, the Brit Pop years are explored through a very personal lens; no one gets away lightly from the self-revealing laceration, not least Anderson. "Lost to a vinous blend of chemical experimentation and lurid, ego-driven derangement, I would pad around the flat dressed in nothing but a kind of long, black, gold-braided Moroccan robe… a damaged, paranoid figure, wired and isolated, edgy and obsessed…" He cleans up his act and gets himself together, of course, but not always to the benefit of Suede, which in 2003 he inevitably walks away from. Brittle solo years lay ahead, but there's nothing of that here. The next book, perhaps?
There will be no next book for UK prog-rock act, Jethro Tull, whose lengthy life story unfolds definitively throughout The Ballad of Jethro Tull, by Ian Anderson (Rocket88 Books, £40). It is an official telling of the band's history, skewed somewhat by the (always) commandeering hands of founder/leader Anderson. Abundantly illustrated – hence the hefty price tag – it veers from the confessional to the whimsical; the former includes honest intra-group stories of Anderson's sometimes heavy-handedness towards musicians (his "revolving door" policy meant that 36 musicians have been, at various times, members of the band), the latter via yellowing press cuttings gathered by Anderson's mother, and a collection known to Anderson only after she died. Woven throughout, however, is a finely wrought oral history, from early days in the late 1960s as unseasoned jazz/blues hopefuls to prog-rock glory days throughout most of the following decade. A lavish book strictly for the fans, perhaps, but it is also something of a UK rock music history lesson for those less invested.
"Dedicated to the girls of the Underworld", Face It, by Debbie Harry (Harper Collins, £20), is one of the more unorthodox memoirs you'll read this year. It is also one of the best. Based around a series of exclusive-to-the-book interviews by music writer Sylvie Simmons, and liberally peppered with images (press shots and fan art through the decades, graffitied text, cartoons), Harry really lifts the lid on many areas of her life. Indeed, the level at which she delves is unusually deep, making the memoir come across as a line in the sand for any subsequent inquisitive media interviews. From her adoption to decent parents (despite this, "I don't think I was ever truly comfortable. I felt different…") and early sexual experimentation ("I really loved sex… I felt it was totally natural") to venturing from picket-fence suburbia to urban grit ("I sought out everything New York had to offer, everything underground and forbidden…") and embracing punk rock with Blondie ("to be an artistic, assertive woman in girl drag, not boy drag, was then an act of transgression…"), there are few punches pulled in a memoir that is as evocative as it is plain-speaking.
In The Beautiful Ones, by Prince (Century, £25), heartbreak drips from nearly every page. ,You would wonder what kind of book it would have been if Prince hadn't died so young. But here it is, a memoir that shouldn't work but does. Sectioned into four parts, perhaps the most interested gaze will be drawn to his 28 pages of work-in-progress, hand-written autobiographical notes, here both reprinted and transcribed. "Many artists fall down the rabbit holes of their own imagination & never return," he posits. "There have been many who decry this as self-destruction, but I prefer the term FREE WILL. Life is better lived." Another section that will be visually caressed is the previously unseen photo diary documenting the lead-up to Prince's 1978 debut album. Tonally correct and pictorially splendid, with added writing and context by Paris Review advisory editor, Dan Piepenbring (Prince's original choice of co-writer), this is legacy memoir writ large, intelligent and, above all, respectful.
Some memoirs have suffering running through them like a fissure. Take country/roots singer-songwriter Allison Moorer (and, indeed, her singer-songwriter elder sister, Shelby Lynne) as a prime example of someone whose life has been lived under the shadow of an inexplicable family tragedy: the murder-suicide of her parents when she was 14. Having spent all of her adult life avoiding media questions on the very same topic, an interview with Maya Angelou nine years ago triggered a deeper response to the event than simply suppressing it. Blood: A Memoir ($14.99, Da Capo Press) is a lyrical, contemplative Southern Gothic tale of growing up scared in rural Alabama, with an equally anxious sister, an alcoholic, physically abusive father ("he might've told mama what his intentions were that morning") and a protective mother ("she was probably trying to stop him. She always tried to stop him…"). Told via non-chronological bursts that acknowledges memory holes, unawareness about specific details, and resigned to grabbing at conjecture, there is little or no actual closure here. For Moorer (and, quite surely, her sister), "becoming wise enough to know that I'll remain at least somewhat broken and letting go of the idea that I shouldn't be" is as much as she can hope for.
The best friend and sidekick approach to writing a memoir is rarely confrontational or conflicted, and Wham! George & Me, by Andrew Ridgely (Penguin Random House, £14.99) is no exception. Most of us know the backstory, of course: the incredibly talented but languid pop songwriter and sex symbol George Michael spends all of his time in Wham! being chummy with the other guy – in this instance, Ridgley, an equally good-looking best friend who was always overshadowed (but who at least had the good sense to co-write Club Tropicana and Careless Whisper). The best sections of this slight memoir focus on the bits we don't know about – the pre-fame days, when Michael and Ridgely were goofing about, gaining each other's confidences and forging a friendship that would last for many years. What's missing, however, is any level of insight as to Michael's ambitions for (as it very quickly transpired) a life without Wham! and why Ridgely – who comes across as a decent and temperate guy – allowed himself to be cast aside as his best friend continued to have a stellar if somewhat unprolific solo career.
