VIA PRESS RELEASE | “These are wonderful stories across the whole range of popular music, by one of rock’s finest journalists. As history lengthens and some of these legends move on, these become increasingly precious fragments of lives lived at the sharp edge of music.” —Richard Thompson
Trouser Press Books is proud to announce Backstage & Beyond Volume 1: 45 Years of Classic Rock Chats & Rants, the first-ever anthology from award-winning music journalist Jim Sullivan, to be published in paperback and e-book on July 21. Pre-orders are available now.
With over 26 years writing for the Boston Globe and two decades more writing for national publications from Creem to Newsweek, Jim Sullivan has interviewed and reviewed countless musicians, some multiple times. Though access is often hard to come by, Sullivan was able to engage with many of these superstars on a far more intimate level than journalists usually can or do. Backstage & Beyond Volume 1 now gathers Sullivan’s writings on an array of iconic artists—21 of whom are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—whose music came to prominence in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
Over the course of 350 pages, Sullivan shares fascinating, entertaining and occasionally hair-raising profiles of Jerry Lee Lewis, Tina Turner, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Nico, Brian Eno, Neil Young, Richard Thompson, David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Warren Zevon, Pete Townshend, Ray Davies and the Kinks, Dave Davies, Ginger Baker, Leonard Cohen, Marianne Faithfull, John Fogerty, Ian Hunter and Mott the Hoople, Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music, Robert Fripp and King Crimson, Darlene Love, Alice Cooper, Peter Wolf and J. Geils Band, Joe Perry and Aerosmith, Lemmy and Motörhead, George Clinton, Tangerine Dream, Joan Baez, and Roy Orbison.
Rather than simply collect previously published articles as they originally appeared, Sullivan combed his archive to find everything he wrote about each artist, reworking the original pieces into more expansive views of these legendary musicians, chronicling their changing situations, outlooks, and experiences through the passage of time and his own unique perspective. Backstage & Beyond Volume 2—which focuses on artists spanning Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Cars, and The Clash to The Cure, The Police, Beastie Boys, Puff Daddy, and Talking Heads—will follow in October.
“My hope is that the recollections contained here trigger some memories,” writes Jim Sullivan in the book’s preface, “bring you back to where you wanted to be—backstage and beyond, as it were. And if you weren’t around then, I hope this transports you back to several golden ages of rock and roll.”
“I’ve always admired Jim’s writing and his remarkable ability to get close to artists,” says Trouser Press Books Editorial Director Ira Robbins, “even those thought to be unapproachable: Lou Reed? Nico? Jerry Lee Lewis? Wow! I’m proud to help bring Jim’s past work to as wide an audience as it deserves.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Jim Sullivan spent 26 years writing about music for the Boston Globe. His work has also appeared in USA Today, Boston Phoenix, Boston Herald, Trouser Press, Record, Creem, New Musical Express, The Guardian, Rock and Roll Globe, LA Weekly, Rock’s Back Pages, the Christian Science Monitor, Best Classic Bands, Newsweek, Playgirl, and The Forward.
ABOUT TROUSER PRESS BOOKS | Trouser Press Books, a division of Trouser Press LLC, is an independent publisher based in New York City that specializes in music journalism and literary fiction. Editorial Director Ira Robbins co-founded the legendary rock magazine Trouser Press in 1974 and now operates its website. For more information, please visit www.trouserpressbooks.com.
