THE LONGEST PRESS RELEASE

BOOKS

THE LONGEST PRESS RELEASE

John Morthlond

by

CLIVE: INSIDE THE RECORD BUSINESS Clive Davis with James Willwerth (Morrow)

But not too far inside — and because Clive Davis's long-awaited book on the music biz delivers so much less than it promises, it comes off instead like one long press release bio of the man, except it's even more self-serving than that.

There's no doubt he earned the right to toot his own horn a bit. He entered the music industry at a time when MOR dominated the charts as well as his own company. As president of CBS at -the time the rock market exploded, he was right on top of things: signing many of the right new acts, successfully raiding other labels for the rest, and guiding Columbia straight to the top of the rock pile. Likewise,, his firing does seem to be a capricious act.

Credit where credit is due, and all that. It still doesn't mean he can write a book.

This on£ has two main thrusts. One is to explain certain mechanics of the music biz — breaking singles, for example — and the other is to tell anecdotes about some of the artists he worked with.

Yet his discussions of how the music biz operates are remarkably superficial, with most of the information to be gleaned from them located squarely between the lines. For one who doesn't know the first thing about these matters, there jnay be some interest; for

anyone with even minimal knowledge, it's bound to be terribly frustrating.

The same is true of his anecdotes, for the most part. You would think a record company president who has a reputation for being close to his artists could come up with something interesting to say about a Bob Dylan, or Sly Stone, or Janis Joplin, of Paul Simoii. You would think he could tell a story that might offer some insight to these

people, how they work and think. But except for a bit about Janis suggesting they hit the sack to cement the new contract and another bit about Sly promenading poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he really doesn't.

Part of the problem is undoubtedly his refusal to have a nasty word about anyone ... or even what might be construed as a nasty word. Hence, he can't mention drugs when he talks about Janis's death. He will describe a confrontation with an. artist or another businessperson and then stress how unfortunate it was, but certainly he still holds the highest respect for So-and-So. It's simply an attitude that doesn't jibe with the realities he's discussing.

And that's why the book comes off as such a puff job, ultimately. The image that emerges is this white knight who loves everybody and never makes a foolish move and is the biggest success hi? industry has ever seen. The latter part of that description may be true, but the rest is a tough nut to swallow whole.

Yet you can't really expect him to talk realistically about his firing when there is still the possibility of, legal proceedings. Just like you can't expect him to say too much about people — artists and executives — that he must still deal with in his new company. The real book from inside the music business will come from someone (maybe Clive, at some point) who has left that business. But this one hardly even offers a reasonable introduction. Lillian Roxon died before she got to add any of the much needed corrections to her pioneering Rock Encyclopedia, but nonetheless the idea had been planted, and it was only a matter of time until people started picking up on it. The definitive approach to popular music archivism remains to be found, but these two volumes illustrate the state of the art.

John Morthland

ROCK ON: THE ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ROCK 'N' ROLL Norm N. Nite (Crowell)

THE COUNTRY MUSIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Melvin Shestack (Crowell)

The Country Music Encyclopedia advertises itself as "The most thorough, innovative, and ambitious book ever written on country music, its roots, and its people," which sentence may contain more bullshit than the corral at the Grand National Rodeo. Thorough it ain't — dozens of pre-1955 performers are. omitted. Ambitious it certainly ain't, since most of the entries are merely direct cops from the pages' of Country Music Magazine and other journals, introduced with one or two sentences from Shestack. As for innovative, are we supposed to think it's innovative because Waylon Jennings and Kinky Friedman each get twice as much space as George Jones? Or because the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is included and Commander Cody isn't? There are better books on country music, both expository (Bill C. Malone's Country Music USA) and encyclopedic (Linell Gentry's History and Encyclopedia of Country, Western and Gospel Music), and both are available from Heather Enterprises, 3285 S. Wadsworth Blvd., Denver, Colo. 80223.

On the other hand, the field of oldies has long needed some order to the collector-created chaos that reigns, and

Cleveland deejay Norm N. Nite has provided us with one in Rock On. Nite's criteria for inclusion is strange, but it would seem that anybody who had a hit from about 1950 to the mid-60s somewhere is eligible for a mention, and if the artist is still putting out hits, they're listed right up to early 1974. Plenty of superb photos, complete personnel listings including birth dates when available, and amazingly concise data. Even one-shot, bottom-of-the-charts and local obscurities are included. For instance, in one short listing, I discovered that Berry Gordy's brother Bob recorded a song in November "58 for the Carlton label,

"Everyone Was There," under the name Bob Kayli, and that today he heads Jobete Music, Motown's publishing wing, named for Berry's daughters, Joann, Be tty, and Terry, and appeared in Lady Sings the Blues as a dope-pusher. Fascinating.

What's needed now is something that copes with the rest of the sixties, the British invasion and heavy metal, and I'm sure that somewhere out in fandom somebody's working on one right now.

Ed Ward