Rock N Roll Librarian

The Metallica Report is coming! Keep up with all things Metallica by going straight to the source for your news. This weekly report is hosted by Steffan Chirazi, long-time rock scribe and editor of the band’s online mag, So What!, and Renée Richardson, a well-known Bay Area radio personality who now oversees the band’s foundation, All Within My Hands.   Steffan and Renée will keep you in the loop...

Shelley and Christian discuss this brooding coming-of-age mystery about 18-year-old Luna's search for her biological father, which leads her to England to find Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin's legendary guitarist. Luna comes to grips with repressed memories of her mother's suicide and the music and musician she was obsessed with. Fans of Led Zeppelin, in particular, will enjoy how the author has woven t...

Praise the Lord! Shelley and Christian discuss the “Godmother of Rock and Roll”, whose obscure tale is told in the book Shout, Sister, Shout! The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe by Gayle F. Wald, 2007. Brought up in the Pentecostal church where congregants celebrated God with lively, joyful, rhythmic music using voice, trumpets, tambourines, pianos, organs, and guit...

In this episode of the Rock n Roll Librarian Shelley and Christian discuss the book So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley (2017). Roger Steffens, a respected historian and a leading Marley expert, has woven interviews of more than 75 friends, relatives, and lovers, music associates (including original Wailers Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer), into a rich testimony of the life of the re...

In this episode of the Rock n Roll librarian, Shelley and Christian chat about Go-Go’s bassist Kathy Valentine’s story of what it took to find success and find herself, in ALL I EVER WANTED: A ROCK ‘n’ ROLL MEMOIR.  The Go-Go’s became the first multi-platinum-selling, all-female band to play instruments themselves, write and perform their own songs, and have a number one album. For Valentine, the...

On this episode of the Rock n Roll Librarian, Shelley tells Christian all about the book RAGE TO SURVIVE: THE ETTA JAMES STORY.  One of the great women of American music, Etta was equally at home singing blues, R&B, and jazz, and gave us such amazing songs as “I’d Rather Go Blind”, “Tell Mama”, and “At Last”. She regales us with riveting stories of her chaotic youth in Los Angeles, her teen years...

In this episode of the Rock n Roll Librarian, Shelley and Christian discuss the life of Jim Morrison (The Doors), as told in the ground-breaking 1980 biography “No One Here Gets Out Alive”. Here is Morrison in all his complexity - singer, philosopher, poet, delinquent - the brilliant, charismatic, and obsessed seeker who rejected authority in any form, the explorer who probed "the bounds of realit...

On this episode Rock n Roll Librarian Shelley Sorenson and Rock n Roll Archaeologist Christian Swain explore a musician vital to the Stax Records and Southern Soul sounds, Booker T. Jones. As we discuss his memoir, “Time is Tight: My Life, Note By Note”, we play samples of many Stax hits and other important tracks that Booker wrote, produced, arranged and performed on, featuring Otis Redding, Will...

Happy Holidays Diggers! Open up this present early! Shelley and Christian break down the new autobiography of one of the most beautiful punkers to ever hit the CBGB’s stage, Deborah Harry. The book is called, ‘Face It: A Memoir’ and it is a deep dig, warts and all of her life and times. It’s a great book, written by the Blondie singer herself and punctuated with expected pictures and unexpected fa...

This episode Rock N Roll Librarian Shelley Sorenson and Rock N Roll Archaeologist Christian Swain go down the big muddy river and deep into the delta to discuss Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow’s new book ‘Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson’.  This time, while on our Mississippi adventure, we will play many of the few Robert Johnson recordings and couple that with samples fr...

Join the Rock N Roll Librarian Shelley Sorenson and the Rock N Roll Archaeologist Christian Swain as they discuss the definitive biography of singer-songwriter Nick Lowe, best-known for "Cruel to Be Kind" and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" Described as "Britain's greatest living songwriter," Nick Lowe has made his mark as a pioneer of pub rock, power-pop, and punk rock an...

Shelley and Christian have a great time getting into the memoir from Bruce Dickinson, the larger-than-life, multifaceted lead vocalist of Iron Maiden, one of the most successful, influential and enduring rock bands ever. Pioneers of Britain’s nascent Rock & Metal scene back in the late 1970s, Iron Maiden smashed its way to the top, thanks in no small part to the high-octane performances, operatic...

Shelley and Christian dig deep into friend of the show Meredith Ochs' latest book, Aretha: The Queen of Soul - A Life in Photographs. Since the book is filled with photos, along with three essays by Ms. Ochs, we decide to play as many disparate songs by the Diva of divas to showcase just how amazing Aretha really was during her lifetime. Aretha Franklin’s voice was legendary, unforgettable: deeply...

Shelley and Christian dive into Bruce's autobiography, 'Born to Run'. In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl’s halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That’s how this extraordinary autobiography began. Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bri...

On October 7th, 2017 Tom Petty joined the rock n roll orchestra on the other side. He was 67 years young. For rockers around the world, like Prince a few months earlier, it was a shock coupled with immense sadness. Forever on we will not have Tom around with his Heartbreakers disposing easy wisdom in song or slyly telling off adversaries with Southern charm or that kick ass band that hummed like a...

For more than fifty years, Paul Simon has spoken to us in songs about alienation, doubt, resilience, and empathy in ways that have established him as one of the most beloved artists in American pop music history. Songs like “The Sound of Silence,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Still Crazy After All These Years,” and “Graceland” have moved beyond the sales charts and into our cultural consciousnes...

This episode the Rock N Roll Librarian Shelley Sorensen and C Swain review ‘Hit So Hard’ by original drummer for the 90’s grunge band, Hole. Patty Schemel's story begins with a childhood surrounded by the AA meetings her parents hosted in the family living room. Their divorce triggered her first forays into drinking at age twelve and dovetailed with her passion for punk rock and playing the drums....

This episode Shelley and Christian review “Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell” by Professor David Yaffe. Consider this a companion to our interview with Professor Yaffe on Deeper Digs in Rock. Joni Mitchell may be the most influential female recording artist and composer of the late twentieth century. In Reckless Daughter, the music critic David Yaffe tells the remarkable, heart-wrench...

This week Shelley and Christian review 'From Cradle to Stage: Stories from the Mothers Who Rocked and Raised Rock Stars' by Virginia Hanlon Grohl with forward by Dave Grohl. Published by Seal Press, April 2017. Written by Dave Grohl’s mom (Nirvana, Foo Fighters) to answer her own questions about the experiences of other mothers who had raised rock stars, and based on interviews with women who had...

One of the four Monkees was actually a futurist. Did you know that he helped birth MTV? Did you know he put together one of the first country rock outfits of the late 1960's early '70's? How about the fact he wrote 'Different Drum' famously covered by Linda Ronstadt. Did you know that Mike Nesmith's mother invented Liquid Paper?   Shelly and Christian discuss this extremely interesting autobiograp...

As a companion piece to Rock N Roll Archaeology EP14: I'd Love to Turn You On, Shelley and Christian discuss this book on the making of The Beatles Sgt. Pepper by George Martin & William Pearson Martin, writing with freelancer Pearson, describes in detail the creative processes-both artistic and technical-that went into making one of the most acclaimed Beatles albums, the 1967 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely...

As a companion piece to Rock N Roll Archaeology EP13: Hard to Handle, Shelley and Christian discuss this all too-short of the life story of Otis Redding, written by Scott Freeman. Scott gives his take on Otis' life coming from Macon Georgia, the same town where Little Richard and James Brown were born. Otis grew up on the streets. His father was preacher and had been a sharecropper. They lived in...

Shelley and Christian discuss this captivating memoir, written over five years of reflection, where Robbie Robertson employs his unique storyteller’s voice to weave together the journey that led him to some of the most pivotal events in music history. He recounts the adventures of his half-Jewish, half-Mohawk upbringing on the Six Nations Indian Reserve and on the gritty streets of Toronto; his od...

They say there are no second acts in American lives, and third acts are almost unheard of. That's part of what makes Brian Wilson's story so astonishing. As a co-founding member of the Beach Boys in the 1960s, Wilson created some of the most groundbreaking and timeless popular music ever recorded. With intricate harmonies, symphonic structures, and wide-eyed lyrics that explored life's most transc...

This week Shelley and Christian discuss Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir. The legendary and iconic singer, songwriter, actress and activist offers a personal account of the journey that led her to become an international superstar. After leaving her childhood home at seventeen, Cyndi took on a series of jobs: racetrack hot walker, IHOP waitress, and, as she puts it, “gal Friday the thirteenth,” as she pursu...