The Good Books
On Being In Love With Music
I write this missive from a rainy Sydney Sunday morning, the perfect kind of day for curling up with a good book.
I’m a singer/songwriter and I grew up in a rock’n’roll household. My family has always traded great books about music between us, memoirs, biographies, scientific studies, deep dives into subcultures, industry exposes – I love them all and find a good music book impossible to resist. I always get excited when I find books written by other obsessive music-loving kindred spirits––if I can feel the love I’m right in there with them. I especially love the behind-the-scenes stories and insights into the work and fascinations that helped forge an artist’s career.
When my own book, Lovers Dreamers Fighters came out in 2022, I was invited to compile a list of my favourite books in any genre/on any topic for this new book recommendation startup, now called Book DNA. It works really well as a ‘if you liked that, you might love this’ … it got me anyway, see below:
So, I thought I’d share what I wrote on BookDNA back in 2022 - my feelings remain true - and then update with some more, especially as I started realising that many of my favourite musical books are written by fellow Substack writers!
(from BookDNA - do check them out - they are building a wonderful author friendly platform for handpicked recommendations and trying to take on the behemoth of Goodreads - follow Ben Fox here for updates, and if you’re an author, get in touch and make some recommendations for them)
Lo Carmen’s favorite books about being in love with music
Chronicles
By Bob Dylan#1 of Chronicles series
A tender meditation on all the disparate threads, sounds, loves, conversations, and lessons that meld together to create an artist. Watching Bob trying to throw off the accolades and labels that want to pin him down like butterfly and explore whatever takes his fancy is my favorite part of this trip, weaving through all the stolen records and ghosts and signposts and colored lights beckoning.
Just Kids
By Patti Smith
Patti Smith manages to capture the purity, sacrifice, and unfettered excitement of those nascent times when you’re still becoming who you want to be, and the sweetness, power, and longevity of true friendship forged in art – as well as drawing a thrillingly gritty, vivid portrait of New York City just as it became the place we all still wish it was.
Shots
By Don Walker
Written by the revered god-daddy of Australian songcraft, Shots is a beat peek behind the curtain of what it is to be a young band on the road and on the rise, all lens flare vignettes; dry, brutal, and perfect, as cool as The Don himself. His uncanny way with words lets us bear witness to the country hall dances, Kings Cross streets, and back of the van like a poetic spy cam.
Nina Simone’s Gum
By Warren Ellis
As someone that lovingly collected fallen sequins from a theatre dressing room floor after a show as a kid, I relate hard to this story of the intense love and awe Warren Ellis has for Nina Simone, and for seeing the world through a lens of music in general. His snowballing obsession with Nina Simone’s discarded gum (which I once had the pleasure of seeing, back when it lived unceremoniously inside a plastic bag on a shelf) makes for a wild absurdist ride through true love.
Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be
This is such a fascinating insight into how three hard-working, single-minded, music-possessed country outliers worked their way in, through, and against a deeply conservative, by-the-book rule obsessed country music system that did not welcome them with open arms, and emerged 100% artistically victorious, revealing all the inspirations, letdowns, lucky breaks and collateral damage they experienced and witnessed along the way. The wider story is of course about so much more than just their personal stories, painting a portrait of how things have always been done in Nashville, and making it patently clear why it’s high time for that to change.
Now here comes the brilliant collection of musical meditations by Substack brothers and sisters (all linked, go subscribe) … its a pretty amazing list … get your shopping fingers on! Note these are official descriptions, not mine.
Game Is Her Middle Name: The Life and Times of Betty Davis
I am scary excited for this - pre-order now!
The first full biography of the funk pioneer cited as an inspiration by artists from Beyoncé to Questlove. As a girl, Betty Davis fixed her eyes on stardom and never looked back. After leaving a violent marriage to her husband Miles Davis, Betty took unprecedented control of her musical career for a Black woman working in the 1970s, performing and producing a string of defiantly feminist funk records with a screaming, sexually intense style like no one else. And then, at the crest of her powers, she fell silent. Built on decades of interviews and told through the eyes of Danielle Maggio, Davis’s close friend in her final years, Game Is Her Middle Name reveals new aspects of Davis’s life, music, and struggles. In telling her story, Maggio gives us a nuanced portrait of what happens to a pathbreaking artist when the spotlight moves on from her, and what happens when the world finally catches up.
Stranded In The Future
The new memoir from Robyn Hitchcock, out July 7, 2026
STRANDED IN THE FUTURE is a kind of dystopian self-portrait. It’s about obsession, and obsessive behavior. Spanning from 1968 to 1978, it takes in the mythology that teenagers weave around their musical heroes and their early loves: in this case, one specific hero and one specific love. The book explores the way that Hitchcock, in his own head, linked these two figures to each other, although they never actually met.
God’s Own Singer: A Life of Gram Parsons
By Jason Walker ( Arcade Arcadia)
A new edition of the classic biography that takes us “as close to the heart and soul of Gram Parsons as any author could.” (Nigel Williamson, Uncut)
Gram Parsons sang like an angel and dressed like a country star. Sadly he was neither, at least not in his lifetime. But before his tragically early death he played a key role in bringing together the worlds of rock and country music. And he made groundbreaking records whose impact has only grown in the fifty-some years since he died at the age of 26.
(Note *I’m reading this now, its wonderful)
Girl To Country: A Memoir
By Amy Rigby
The follow up to Girl To City! Broken-down vehicles. Premenopausal libido. A punk rock-loving teen to share the culture shock with. I don’t think Hank done it this way. A few years after her 1996 breakthrough album Diary Of A Mod Housewife, singer/songwriter Amy Rigby is still figuring out who she is. Closing in on forty, a newly-divorced mom trying to tour, work temp jobs, and keep a car running, Amy is ready for a change. She trades her beloved NYC for Nashville, where she navigates music, men and motherhood to learn the hard way that outside validation is no substitute for self-belief.
Dylan in Cincinnati (American Made Music Series)
Dylan in Cincinnati takes a fresh approach to Bob Dylan’s performance art by asking what happens when we focus on a single city across six decades. When we think of Dylan in concert, we imagine Newport, New York, or London. But most of his shows were in places far from the spotlight―venues largely ignored by music critics and scholars. Cincinnati, a city with little fanfare in the heart of the American Midwest, becomes an ideal site for study. Its concerts and bootleg recordings tell a story of reinvention night after night, year after year.
This history requires planting a shovel in one locale and digging down, layer after layer. What emerges is a portrait of Dylan as a restless itinerant artist who never abandoned audiences in flyover states. In fact, some of his strongest performances were given there. By recovering these overlooked shows, Dylan in Cincinnati documents not only the history of one city’s concerts but also the essence of Dylan’s enduring power as a live performer.
Maybe We’ll Make It
By Margo Price
Maybe We’ll Make It is a memoir of loss, motherhood, and the search for artistic freedom in the midst of the agony experienced by so many aspiring musicians: bad gigs and long tours, rejection and sexual harassment, too much drinking and barely enough money to live on. Price, though, refused to break, and turned her lowest moments into the classic country songs that eventually comprised the debut album that launched her career. In the authentic voice hailed by Pitchfork for tackling "Steinbeck-sized issues with no-bullshit humility," Price shares the stories that became songs, and the small acts of love and camaraderie it takes to survive in a music industry that is often unkind to women. Now a Grammy-nominated “Best New Artist,” Price tells a love story of music, collaboration, and the struggle to build a career while trying to maintain her singular voice and style.
Boy On Fire
By Mark Mordue
A deeply beautiful, profound and poetic biography of the formative years of the dark prince of Australian rock 'n' roll, Boy on Fire is Nick Cave's creation story. This is a portrait of the artist as, first, a boy, and then a young man. It charts his family, friends, influences, milieu and, most of all, his music, revealing how Nick Cave shaped himself into the extraordinary artist he has become.
Lou Reed: King of New York
By Will Hermes
“The only Lou Reed bio you need to read.” --The Washington Post
A Rolling Stone best music book of 2023 One of Pitchfork‘s ten best music books of 2023 A Variety best music book of the year A Kirkus Reviews best nonfiction book of 2023. The most complete and penetrating biography of the rock master, whose stature grows every year.
Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women In Pop
By Danyel Smith
A weave of biography, criticism, and memoir, Shine Bright is Danyel Smith’s intimate history of Black women’s music as the foundational story of American pop. Smith has been writing this history for more than five years. But as a music fan, and then as an essayist, editor (Vibe, Billboard), and podcast host (Black Girl Songbook), she has been living this history since she was a latchkey kid listening to “Midnight Train to Georgia” on the family stereo.
All I Ever Wanted
Go-Go’s bassist Kathy Valentine’s story is a roller coaster of sex, drugs, and of course, music; it’s also a story of what it takes to find success and find yourself, even when it all comes crashing down.
Wild West Village: Not a Memoir (Unless I Win an Oscar, Die Tragically, or Score a Country #1)
By Lola Kirke
In this “darkly humorous” (Harper’s Bazaar) memoir-in-essays, actress and singer-songwriter Lola Kirke untangles an extraordinary upbringing in a family of eccentric, messy artists and explains how a big city girl went a little bit country.
Something To Believe In
For Andrew Stafford, music was a way up and a way out. There was just one little problem: he couldn’t play. Because those who can do and those who can’t review, he carved out a niche writing about it instead. This is the story of a self-confessed wannabe’s life: of growing up in public, of family, of falling in and out of love, and music, sweet music, everywhere. Written with enormous heart and a thumping rhythm, Something To Believe In is an uncompromising, inspiring book for anyone whose life has been saved by rock & roll.
How To Write One Song
By Jeff Tweedy | Starship Casual
One of the century's most feted singer-songwriters, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, digs deep into his own creative process to share his unique perspective about song-writing and offers a warm, accessible guide to writing your first song. How to Write One Song brings readers into this intimate process - lyrics, music and how they come together. It's equally about the importance of making creativity part of your everyday life and of experiencing the hope, inspiration and joy available to anyone who is willing to get started.
Cash On Cash
Cash on Cash offers unprecedented insight into one of the most significant American cultural figures of the twentieth century. A comprehensive collection of Johnny Cash interviews and feature stories, some widely published and others never previously transcribed, culled from the 1950s through the early days of the new millennium, Cash on Cash charts a singular evolution. From hardscrabble Arkansas poor boy to rockabilly roustabout; international fame to drug addiction and disgrace; born again Christian to gimlet-eyed chronicler of spiritual darkness; TV and movie star to Nashville reject; redemption to loss and back again, several times. Cash’s story, told in his own words, shines unfiltered light on a journey of archetypal proportions that resonates still.
This Is: Essays on Jazz
With an ear for the overlooked, Aaron Gilbreath chronicles the forgotten corners of the mid-century jazz scene. Shadowing the greats from Sonny Clark to John Coltrane, Gilbreath traces the tragedy of saxophonist Hank Mobley, unearths the story of self-exiled pianist Jutta Hipp, and pauses on the meaning of heroin for trumpeter Lee Morgan. He also revisits a few standards, like The Connection, an influential film with its own take on drugs and sobriety; the ten-year evolution of Miles Davis' "So What"; and the impact of record labels' vault archives. This Essays on Jazz celebrates the joy, genius and struggle of jazz, in essays both intimate and deeply researched.
Workshy
By Dave Graney
“Dave Graney is a genuine hipster bohemian street intellectual. A committed rock'n'roll theoretician and a contrarian outsider of he first order.
This second memoir is as entertaining, funny and well written as his previous book '1000 Australian Nights". He has a terse and semi-abstract approach to writing about the absurd reality of being a non-mainstream musical artist in Australia and Europe, and also of the succession of dispiriting and occasionally quite tolerable day jobs he has had.
The book is liberally spattered with hilarious observations of the art and culture of the recent past and many amusing personal anecdotes. There are also some arcane metaphysical ruminations on the technical minutiae of writing recording and performing his excellent songs.
Dave is the unchallengeable King of Australian rock memoirists. Buy this book now!” Reg Mombassa
Phew!
Now lucky last, though not a Substacker, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also recommend this wild ride of a musical memoir by my father Peter Head, written with MJ Cornwall:
Headonism
By Peter Head with MJ Cornwall
From his early teens, Peter Head has played 'em all. Strip joints, rodeos, clubs a glitz and seedy, sideshow alley, off the grid rude boy clubs, sharpie pubs, speedways, remote US bases, ocean-going liners and way more, with John Farnham, the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Bon Scott, the Bee Gees, Robyn Archer, Wendy Saddington, Jimmy Little, Keith Moon, John Mayall, The Angels, Jeff St John, Cold Chisel and hillsides of others. Along the way, encounters with larger than lifers from Sydney’s Mr Big Abe Saffron to SA Premier Don Dunstan, on a trip from his first bands in Adelaide, South Australia at the dawn of the 1960s to England of 1968 to the crimehubs of 7Os St. Kilda and Sydney, to north of the Tweed to the Top End and just about all of his native South Australia. It's a life lived head on, a ride you won't want to end.
I do hope you find something in here that makes you want to crack the spine and soak some words up. I’m sure I’ve missed some beauties that will drive me crazy when I remember them the second I hit publish on this, please make up for my bad memory with your own musical memoir recommendations below.
See ya next week, music lovers x
Wow!! Thanks for including my book on Dylan in Cincinnati, Lo! Much love right back at you. By the way, just last week I saw Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift in concert and they put on a great show.
There are also some cool novels about music worth checking out if you're into fiction. My top five in no particular order would be Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, Dana Spiotta's Stone Arabia, Elisa Albert's Human Blues, Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, and Don DeLillo's Great Jones Street.
Thank you and bless your heart x