My February and March Reads

Yes, I have definitely got behind on blogging about books! Oh well, here’s a flavour of what I’ve been reading with links to two books I have reviewed separately.

A book I started in January and finished in February was the brilliant The Golden Age of Children’s TV by Tim Worthington.

My quintet of music books

I spent pretty much the whole of the next two calendar months just reading music books, and they covered pretty much every era of music.

The Closest Thing to Crazy by Mike Batt

I have mentioned more than a few times how much I love Mike Batt’s music, from The Wombles to Barbara Dickson and Summertime Special to Katie Melua. His autobiography is every bit as incredible and as varied as his musical life. One of life’s iconoclasts, he has never been more than one right move away from runaway success or one wrong move away total disaster. The rollercoaster life he has lived has included both of those extremes in equal measure. Just reading it was a white knuckle ride so living it must have been exhilarating and scary in equal measure. The genius of his song writing has always rescued him when, often, self-imposed disaster has hit him. This is a vibrant, honest and frequently very funny autobiography from one of music’s true originals. Definitely a book I can recommend unreservedly.

Whatever Happened to Slade? by Daryl Easlea

My next book covered in incredible detail the rise, fall and rise again of one of the most influential groups of the 1970s. Slade’s journey from obscurity to stardom via two changes of name and two changes of image could not happen anymore. They gigged continuously, found local success then national success, but refused to move away from their Black Country roots. Like Mike Batt, their story is a rollercoaster but not a self imposed one. Their manager Chas Chandler was responsible for their breakthrough and the all conquering imperial period they enjoyed, but his decision to chase US success that was never going to happen took them away from the UK at their height and killed their chart career stone dead for 5 years or more. Their return to success in the early 80s was entirely down to their brilliance as a live act, as recounted in one of the best sections of a brilliant book. In 1980, they appeared at the Reading Festival, as a late replacement for Ozzy Osbourne’s Blizzard of Oz, as hasbeens who no one wanted to see. By the end of their set they had blown away every other band that weekend. It’s a book with all the detail of the most exhaustive website, but it’s written by Daryl Easlea who is a massive fan which gives the book a narrative drive that makes it one of the best books about a band ever written.

Reach for the Stars by Michael Cragg

We move forward to the mid 1990s for Michael Cragg’s book about pop’s massive period of chart domination which saw any number of bands coming through with only one aim, to entertain. The title is, of course, from S Club 7’s Reach, one of my favourite songs. They feature quite heavily as do the Spice Girls, Sugababes, Blue, Five and many others. Presented in the first person for the most part, Cragg has used interviews from the time and more recent catch ups to present the history of a time where fun was the name of the game but where the artists who made sure we were having fun paid a huge price mentally, physically and emotionally. Reading about their struggles made it a very bittersweet and very honest read. It’s definitely One in a Million!

The Sound of Being Human by Jude Rogers

After reading the previous three I went back to a book that I loved first time round. Guess what? I loved it just as much second time round! Here’s my review of it from April 2023 The Sound of Being Human by Jude Rogers

O Sing Unto the Lord by Andrew Gant

Another music book, but one as different as you could imagine from the previous four. A scholarly book with a welcome appearance of the author’s sardonic humour throughout, this book by Andrew Gant reflects on the history of English Church music from a social, cultural, political and historical point of view. He draws the characters involved extremely well throughout, turning them into flesh and blood individuals in the way that a historical novelist would. His recreation of times past kept me fascinated throughout because of his insights and his incredible breadth of knowledge. If you are interested in music and want to learn about the dangerous times through which some of the composers lived, you will find this as much of a page turner as Wolf Hall.