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Rating: 
Summary: Nick Tosches is one of our most important writers
Review: Greetings from Bella Bella, BC and thank you for providing a forum for readers to express their admiration and awe for the writers and publishing houses who support them. I am sorry to intrude on this review station for his other book; however, I believe this may help all parties rooting for Mr.Tosches. I have re-read Nick Tosches' "Trinities" now for the third time. If you have not read this novel, wind sprint to your nearest bookstore and pick it up. Nick Tosches has unleashed hell on earth with this powerful, brutal and unapologetic story about men killing each other off to control the worldwide herion export/import business. I think Nick Tosches is a man who knows way too much and I am glad his publisher gave him the support to publish this book. I want, however, to give the publisher heck for using possibly the worst cover I have ever seen on any book. That's right! The first cover on the mass trade paperback was horrible and really revealed nothing about the true power and wisdom waiting to be told in the following pages. I am glad to see a new cover on the novel. I have no doubt this will increase sales and perhaps spur more great reviews for Mr. Tosches. I cannot find any of Nick's other books in Canada and am desperately trying to find them. Can anyone out there help me? Nick Tosches, you have written one of the most powerful books I have ever read. You managed to capture the strangest beauty in your brutal, bloody story. I do not know how you did it, but you did. Congratulations and please hurry up and come out with another great novel. Your fan, Richard Van Camp
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece!
Review: I loved this book. I read it when it was called COUNTRY: THE BIGGEST MUSIC IN AMERICA which I thought was perfect in an ironic sense then and now. This is the thinking person's guide to why C&W matters.
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece!
Review: I loved this book. I read it when it was called COUNTRY: THE BIGGEST MUSIC IN AMERICA which I thought was perfect in an ironic sense then and now. This is the thinking person's guide to why C&W matters.
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece!
Review: I loved this book. I read it when it was called COUNTRY: THE BIGGEST MUSIC IN AMERICA which I thought was perfect in an ironic sense then and now. This is the thinking person's guide to why C&W matters.
Rating:
Summary: This book belongs in every home
Review: In a reader review of Tosches' book on Emmett Miller, whose real origins are in the imaginary chapters of the first edition of this book, this book belongs in every home. The writing is this book alone is worth the price. He's a vigorous wise ass and elegant literary dynamo. If you just read the writing, and dont give a hoot about country music, you will enjoy yourself. So much of music writing is devoled to haigiagraphy and confirming ignorant common places, whereas Tosches is concerned with the dirty nasty truth, and the wild side of things. You aren't going to learn that Roy Acuff who appointed himself a great country music icon, decades after he had had a hit, began his work in music with a group called "the Bang Boys" that specialized in X rated songs. His description of a Jerry Lee Lewis recording session sometimes in the 1970s is really masterful and still rings in my mind 20 years after I first read it. Likewise, you will love Tosches' description of the dark end of Spade Cooley. Cooley torutured and murdered his wife because Cooley believed she had banged Roy Rodgers--and Cooley got into show business a double for Roy Rogers in the movies! There is so much uncovered about the real origins of rock and roll. No one can live without the first book that wasn't afraid to let you know that Hank Williams was bald! If you don't have this book in your house, buy it, or move in with someone who's got it! Dont forget his great book on Jerry Lee Lewis, Hellfire.
This man knows how to write!
Rating:
Summary: This book belongs in every home
Review: In a reader review of Tosches' book on Emmett Miller, whose real origins are in the imaginary chapters of the first edition of this book, this book belongs in every home. The writing is this book alone is worth the price. He's a vigorous wise ass and elegant literary dynamo. If you just read the writing, and dont give a hoot about country music, you will enjoy yourself. So much of music writing is devoled to haigiagraphy and confirming ignorant common places, whereas Tosches is concerned with the dirty nasty truth, and the wild side of things. You aren't going to learn that Roy Acuff who appointed himself a great country music icon, decades after he had had a hit, began his work in music with a group called "the Bang Boys" that specialized in X rated songs. His description of a Jerry Lee Lewis recording session sometimes in the 1970s is really masterful and still rings in my mind 20 years after I first read it. Likewise, you will love Tosches' description of the dark end of Spade Cooley. Cooley torutured and murdered his wife because Cooley believed she had banged Roy Rodgers--and Cooley got into show business a double for Roy Rogers in the movies! There is so much uncovered about the real origins of rock and roll. No one can live without the first book that wasn't afraid to let you know that Hank Williams was bald! If you don't have this book in your house, buy it, or move in with someone who's got it! Dont forget his great book on Jerry Lee Lewis, Hellfire.
This man knows how to write!
Rating:
Summary: American culture through the lens of popular music.
Review: This is an interesting study of the wilder side of country music, first published in 1977.
This was Nick Tosches first full length book, and has a number of themes that have run through his writings over the last 20 years. The raw vitality of popular music, whether country or blues, the social conditions and folk traditions it came from, and the veneer of respectability slapped on it as it became a bigger business.
Some of the assertions seem kind of anachronistic after 20 years, like his disdain for Johnny Cash, who has rehabilitated himself from the saccharine born-again phase he was in during the '70s (there is a mind-blowingly-bad page from a Johnny Cash Christian comic book reproduced in the book).
But the good stories are enthralling. Tosches can trace the origins of an obscure Sun records B-side back to medieval England and make it seem like a drunken rumble.
This is a fine companion book to Greil Marcus' new Invisible Empire book about Dylan's basement tapes. It covers much of the same ground in a way that is to me even more compelling.
Rating:
Summary: Irreverent Yet Loving!
Review: Tosches displays not only a historian's love for the eras he writes about, but a gossip columnist's passion for irreverence and shock. That makes this book and its companion (Unsung Heroes of Rock & Roll) completely essential reads for anyone who loves popular twentieth century music. And, it blows the lid off country's origins in a way guaranteed to outrage country's often-times "holier-than-thou" patrons. Obscure names, obscure songs, obscure facts all mesh to create a living, breathing historical time-capsule that speaks as much about the era the music was recorded in as the music itself. And the writing is dry yet never condescending, witty yet never demeaning, sincere yet unafraid to point out "the truth" no matter how ugly and undignified it may be. But you'll learn to love the heroes that pepper this book for the pioneers they were. And, when the last page is read, you'll come back to it again and again. Part of the pleasure of reading a great book is rereading it and learning much more than you did the last time you read it... Tosches manages that feat thanks to an unflinching eye for detail and a poet's way with words.
Rating:
Summary: Irreverent Yet Loving!
Review: Tosches displays not only a historian's love for the eras he writes about, but a gossip columnist's passion for irreverence and shock. That makes this book and its companion (Unsung Heroes of Rock & Roll) completely essential reads for anyone who loves popular twentieth century music. And, it blows the lid off country's origins in a way guaranteed to outrage country's often-times "holier-than-thou" patrons. Obscure names, obscure songs, obscure facts all mesh to create a living, breathing historical time-capsule that speaks as much about the era the music was recorded in as the music itself. And the writing is dry yet never condescending, witty yet never demeaning, sincere yet unafraid to point out "the truth" no matter how ugly and undignified it may be. But you'll learn to love the heroes that pepper this book for the pioneers they were. And, when the last page is read, you'll come back to it again and again. Part of the pleasure of reading a great book is rereading it and learning much more than you did the last time you read it... Tosches manages that feat thanks to an unflinching eye for detail and a poet's way with words.
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