Rating: 
Summary: ***½. Pretty entertaining
Review: "Old Gods Almost Dead" is a pretty good read, filled with the obligatory smutty details.
The early days of the Rolling Stones are more thoroughly examined than the 80s and 90s, perhaps because of the lack of sex scandals and drug busts during the past 25 years or so, but it must be said in all fairness that "Old Gods" is not just sensationalism; Davis obviously has a certain insight into the musical side of things as well, and everything is well written and well paced, offering several interesting insights into the (supposed) history of the Stones.My only problem with this book is that I don't really trust everything Mr Davis writes. He appears to be extraordinarily well informed about what went on within the group during the 60s and 70s, but he also makes some weird claims that makes me question how much he really knows...nothing big, just minor details. I mean, he knows what was said and done at some or other party forty years ago, but he doesn't know Rod Stewart's full name, calling him "Rodney" Stewart (rather than Roderick), and he believes that Bo Diddley's legendary female lead guitarist "the Duchess" was really his (Diddley's) sister, as Bo Diddley claimed (Norma-Jean Wofford, the Duchess, was the daughter of Mr and Mrs Wofford of Pittsburgh, PA, and Diddley introduced her as his sister in order to protect her while on the road). As I said, it's just minor details. It just makes me wonder if all of these intimate details are to be trusted.
Rating:
Summary: ***1/2. Pretty entertaining
Review: "Old Gods Almost Dead" is a pretty good read, filled with the obligatory smutty details.
The early days of the Rolling Stones are more thoroughly examined than the 80s and 90s, perhaps because of the lack of sex scandals and drug busts during the past 25 years or so, but it must be said in all fairness that "Old Gods" is not just sensationalism; Davis obviously has a certain insight into the musical side of things as well, and everything is well written and well paced, offering several interesting insights into the (supposed) history of the Stones.
My only problem with this book is that I don't really trust everything Mr Davis writes. He appears to be extraordinarily well informed about what went on within the group during the 60s and 70s, but he also makes some weird claims that makes me question how much he really knows...nothing big, just minor details. I mean, he knows what was said and done at some or other party forty years ago, but he doesn't know Rod Stewart's full name, calling him "Rodney" Stewart (rather than Roderick), and he believes that Bo Diddley's legendary female lead guitarist "the Duchess" was really his (Diddley's) sister, as Bo Diddley claimed (Norma-Jean Wofford, the Duchess, was the daughter of Mr and Mrs Wofford of Pittsburgh, PA, and Diddley introduced her as his sister in order to protect her while on the road).
As I said, it's just minor details. It just makes me wonder if all of these intimate details are to be trusted.
Rating: 
Summary: It Must Be HARD to be a Rolling Stone! ...
Review: ... It Must Be HARD to be a Rolling Stone! ... That's all I can say! ... After reading this book, I'm not sure I would EVER want to end up in a touring rock band like The Rolling Stones. It's simply not WORTH all the money in the world! You got to give those guys credit: they all worked their butts off to get where they are, and this book proves it. ... It also comes very close to proving that Brian Jones really was MURDERED, as many of us in America believed all along. It shows how without the crystal-clear vision, unbending will, and immense drive and talent of Brian Jones in the first few years to make The Rollin' Stones a successful working band, they would have NEVER gotten to where they are today - and it's a sickenning crime and a terrible tragedy how Brian ended up, dead, at the botom of his own swimming pool, in his own back yard, surrounded by hostile sycophants and malevolant evil-doers!! ... This book is an absolutely FANTASTIC and FASCINATING read up to the point of Brian's murder. After that, it's a GREAT read up to the point of the departure of MICK TAYLOR. (Speaking of which, have you ever noticed how the song Can't You Hear Me Knockin' on The Rolling Stones 1971 album Sticky Fingers sounds EXACTLY like the song For Mods Only on Chico Hamilton's 1966 album The Dealer? ... What's up with THAT?! ... Maybe Ry Cooder IS right in calling The Stones bloodsucking thieves?) ... From the point when Ron Wood joins the band till the end of the book, it is significantly less interesting - and understandably so. Let's face it, The Stones' greatest albums are AFTERMATH, BEGGAR'S BANQUET, and LET IT BLEED (with Brian Jones); GET YER YA YAS OUT, STICKY FINGERS, and EXILE ON MAIN STREET (with Mick Taylor); and then SOME GIRLS , EMOTIONAL RESCUE, and TATTOO YOU (with Ron Wood). Of them all, BEGGAR'S BANQUET wears the crown - and we all know why! ... If you want to know what inspired and went into making this great music - as well as the circumstances surrounding the lives of the major players (and some of the minor players like Ian Stewart, Ry Cooder, and Gram Parsons) - then you will be satisfactorily rewarded by reading this well-detailed and well-crafted chronology of the ON-GOING carreer of "the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world." ... - The Aeolian Kid.
Rating: 
Summary: so so
Review: A pretty generic Stones bio. I kind of skimmed it because a lot was quotes I'd read in magazines already. I stopped at the bits I hadn't read. If you've never read a Stones bio before, this will serve. But if you have, you'll be reading a lot of the same stuff you've already read.
Rating: 
Summary: An Unnecessary Book
Review: About once every ten years, Somebody does a "tell-all" book on the Stones. Here, for the 40th anniversary is this decades version. Not much new, more than 50% of the book is given to the less than 25% of the band's history-the Brian Jones period. Only 50 pages (about 10% of the book) are devoted to the period from Steel Wheels on. We're given a lot of drug detail and told which Stone didn't make which session because he was drunk, stoned or otherwise engaged. There's a lot of passing out during concerts and the like. There are moments of unintentional humor like Davis considering Keith to be "clean" when he finally kicks heroin for love of Patti Hanson. Off heroin, yes, but still popping pills, snorting coke, and drinking himself into an alcoholic stupor-what a guy! Or the various chance meetings with Chuck Berry-he liked them, he didn't, he remembered them, he didn't, he punched Keith out, then ran into Ron Wood and apologized thinking it was Keith. If you're a Stones fan, you've read all this before. If not, why bother?
Rating:
Summary: Stephen Davis does it AGAIN!
Review: After Hammer Of The Gods I wasn't sure Mr. Davis could ever top himself. Well, he has! This is a fantastic read and I wish it was in paperback format for the summer because it will be a little hard to lug around. I want to read it again and again. All your questions about the Stones will be answered and not in a white-washed fashion as was his Aerosmith bio "Walk This Way". I wish that had remained UNAUTHORIZED so we could have gotten some truth. Not the case with OGAD--- he really delivers!
Rating:
Summary: A well-written and thoroughly entertaining history
Review: As a long-time fan of the Stones - in spite of it all - I was reluctant to embrace this book that professed to account for the "40-year odyssey" of the Stones' career. No matter where the average listener stands in his or her musical allegiances, there's inevitably some aspect of the Stones' vast output for one to take issue with. Phrases like "Greatest Band of the Sixties," "formerly Greatest Rock and Roll band in the World," and the like are now relied upon by cynics to condemn the Stones as passe, or worse, irrelevant. I was relieved to find that this book, admittedly slightly flawed in its manner of glossing over certain facts, is all-tolled an eminently readable and sympathetic account of the Stones' history. To be honest, I was pulled in by the opening paragraph of the first page and I could not put the book down. If anything, Stephen Davis go goes to great lengths to demonstrate how the Stones - Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, primarily - have navigated stardom and contemporary music's evolution while maintaining their identity, their integrity, and remaining true to their roots. The sex, drugs, death, and other detours into the less savory aspects of rock and roll culture are documented throughout Davis's history. Given that the Stones were at the forefront of most of rock's evolution and its cultural progeny, this simply cannot be avoided. However, Davis's account of such aspects as Brian Jones's brilliance and self-destruction, Mick Taylor's involvement, Keith Richards' drug problems, and even Ron Woods' often turbulent involvement with the band is documented objectively and sympathetically. The book's accomplishment is that Davis, like his subjects, always returns to the essence of what makes the Rolling Stones the greatest rock and roll band in the world: The music.
Rating:
Summary: Better Than An Authorized Biography
Review: Authorized or not (and this one is not), you won't find a better set of stories and facts about the band, not even in their own books and interviews. Why? Well, because author Stephen Davis is a professional journalist, an excellent wordsmith (although he sometimes waxes a bit too poetic), and most importantly, a great critical analyst capable of giving unbiased information from a wide range of sources so that you can make your own judgment. You see, the problem with nearly all the Stones' books is the limited scope of the author, their own strong biases or the time period or limited access they were granted. Davis overcomes this problem by thorough research (I suspect he may have a research team although he doesn't say), by getting to seminal sources in an attempt to avoid the biases of non-first hand information, and by actually checking and correlating documented sources. Now, about the book itself: What a title! Davis has the greatest book titles I've ever seen. I would buy and read it just on that alone, but perhaps I should talk a bit about what's actually IN the book, so here goes: Part One on the formation of the band is the best and most coherent story of all the famous events (and I've read most of the accounts by other authors, including the Stones themselves). Davis has the chronology and the details down extremely well. It is obvious that Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies brought it all together, but a good understanding of how Brian met Korner and ended up as Elmo Lewis backed by Charlie Watts the night Mick, Keith, and Dick Taylor first saw him is really a first in the Stones literature. The Blue Boys tapes that Mick, Keith, and Taylor did in 1962 are explained (as well as Mick's 50,000 pound auction bid to retain control of them in May of 1995 after they were rediscovered in a Dartford attic), the incredible discord between the individual Stones is very well related (with lots of specific incidents), details of what happened before and after many of the famous shows, the personal relationships, screw ups, and conflicts gives an insight that the Stones themselves have tried to avoid repeatedly. The image that emerges is one that is best typified by Keith's oft-repeated story of the Dartford Station train incident in October of 1960, when he met Mick with the albums under his arm. Keith sometimes waxes poetic about how they made a deal just like Robert Johnson at the crossroads and about how the Band will survive regardless of what else happens. And you can't fault Keith or anyone else on this one....because he's right.....the Band still exists......chaotic history and all....what is remarkable is that they survived.....and you will not understand what that means until you see the story from Davis' perspective....in this book. I honestly can say that without reading this one, you cannot claim to know what the Stones are still all about, Old Gods or not. Oh, and just to prove that Davis is not perfect, I did find one fact he could have checked a bit more. Karnbach and Bernson, in their great documentary work "It's Only Rock And Roll: The Ultimate Guide To The Rolling Stones", state that they did talk to Mick Avory about the drummer situation before Charlie joined. Mick said he sat in at the Bricklayer's Arms when the band was first forming but did not play the first Marque Jazz Club date on July 12, 1962.
Rating:
Summary: Flawed, but underrated on this page.
Review: For anyone interested in this book, and Stones fans should be, I encourage you to take a look at a library or bookstore before taking these bad reviews too seriously. It is well-written and highly readable. There is plenty of discussion of the music and the business side; it is not a merely a catalog of sexual and drug excess. On the other hand, a book about the Stones without sex and drugs really wouldn't be a book about the Stones.
I agree that the first half was stronger and also that much less attention was devoted to the many years since Brian Jones' death.
On the other hand, this latter period included phases like Keith's 10-year heroin habit, and up to 5 years between albums and tours (not sure what the author should have written there, except more sex and drugs). I have not read other Stones boooks so can't compare, but do recommend this one (probably only 3.5 stars, but had to round up to offset some of the other reviews).
Take a look (then buy from Amazon!)
Rating:
Summary: Old Gods Far From Dead
Review: Great book for a Stones fan, would have liked it if the went into more detail on the Voodoo & Bridges sessions/tours. Get it today if you are looking for a Stones Book.
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