HIGH NOTE: A ROCK MEMOIR

HIGH NOTES                     RICHARD LOREN & STEPHEN ABNEY
Posted:  Jan. 23, 2015

'High Notes: A Rock Memoir, Working with Rock Legends Jefferson Airplane Through The Doors to the Grateful Dead' gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at some of rock's biggest names. It is the story of rock-and-roll itself, and how the 60s and 70s shaped the music genre, all through the eyes of former music agent and manager Richard Loren.

HUBBY'S REVIEW:
This book for me was more of a look at the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia. I was not too interested with his time with the Doors, even though I have their albums, yes I still listen to vinyl. Growing up in Southern California we got saturated with their music and I actually like some of their songs that never made it to the radio better than some of their hits. His time with Jefferson airplane was interesting and again I wish he could have gone into more detail if possible. Once you get to the Grateful Dead period the book takes off for a while and you get behind the scenes of the tours, recording sessions and then his memories of Jerry Garcia, now he was a character but also a talented musician. The whole band was I thought. I started listen to them in the early 70s just about the time when Richard Loren, started working for them and then later for Jerry. You get a little look into some of the back fighting that went on. You also see how they worked out marketing ideas such as t-shirts, books, photos, etc... When the in fighting started in the band Loren, who always had a separate office and keep separate accounts one for the band and one for Jerry’s, items. Members of the band still wanted to bring in a new person, he said fine and did not renew their contract but still had one with Jerry. I thought that to be strange that Jerry had one for the band and one just for himself. After a while when Jerry’s contract with Loren was ready to be renewed Loren decline to renew, saying he felt it was time to move on. Later on members of the band came to him to say they made a mistake by going with a different agency and that made him feel better. The sad part was when Jerry was sick he only got to see him once for a short time and after that even though Jerry wanted to see him he was not allowed in. there are parts of this book that might be a little slow for some people, but the main part of the book is when Richard Loren and Jerry Garcia were working together to keep the Grateful Dead, in peoples mind with no major hit. The “Dead Heads “bought their music and everyone could buy their t- shirts at least in California. Now you can watch their concerts on DVD’S. so overall not a bad book, if you are into this type of music and want to get a glimpse into what it was like. I got this book from net galley.