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Today, Nik Cohn is a well-regarded novelist and scribe of contemporary culture. But in 1968, he was a brash, 22-year-old rock critic before the term was coined and wrote this, one of the first rock history books. Published in 1970, revised in 1973, republished in 1996, and now out with yet another edition, Cohn's primer has had more lives than The Who has had farewell tours.
Unfortunately, it should have --- like Keith Moon --- been laid to rest long ago. Read in 2002, AA (and no, I'm not going to spell that title out again…) seems like a curious historical document given its very narrow frame of reference in coverage. Think of a modern I. T. analyst reading the operations manual for the first Apple computer.
Cohn himself (or at least the 22-year-old model) is not short of opinions, and many of his observations are either charmingly naïve or downright laughable: lumping in the great '50s Doo-Wop groups with momentary teen sensations; descriptions of Bob Dylan as "pretty" and Dionne Warwick as a "negress"; calling Eric Clapton's decision to sing "a mistake"; and praising Creedence Clearwater Revival while blasting Led Zeppelin, though both utilized a standard musical formula. Most curiously, he carps at a legacy for the Beatles, dismisses Paul McCartney as a "no talent" and professes with a straight face a fondness for Ringo's solo work. His love for the Rolling Stones and their integrity as performers was obviously written long before their flirtations with disco, $300 concert seats, and a stadium tour sponsored by a cosmetics company.
But by far his biggest youthful blunder --- which he even owns up to in an endnote to the 1973 edition --- was to suggest that the pop and rock industry would always be limited to the whims of young teenagers and that no meaningful adult audience would develop. He suggests that fogies in their 20s would not buy records. But the then-new presence on the scene of singer/songwriters like James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and CSNY proved him wrong, and the ensuing decades would not only see several generations of rock fans stay with their music but have just as many teens turned on by the artists of Cohn's youth as the current chart toppers.
As a native Brit, Cohn also discusses acts little known on US shores (Tommy Steele, Sandie Shaw, Screaming Lord Sutch) and, in an attempt to be as complete as possible, sums up entire performers and their music in a couple of paragraphs, sometimes managing to cover three to a single page! Read today, the information seems fluffy and brief and wanting when compared to even the most basic and hack-written rock history tomes written more recently.
Groundbreaking for the author and its subject matter at the time, today Cohn's book comes across as naïve and simple as a Chuck Berry riff or Little Richard's scream. And though those two trademarks of rock and roll have stood the test of time, Cohn's prose does not.
--- Reviewed by Bob Ruggiero
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