Overview

"When eighteen year old Danny Goldberg wrote his first music review for Billboard, he couldn't have imagined that he would go on to enjoy one of the most varied and influential careers in the world of rock and roll. He went on to do PR for Led Zeppelin and KISS, launched Stevie Nicks' solo career, was Bonnie Raitt's manager when she won four Grammys for Nick of Time, managed the career of Nirvana, signed Warren Zevon to his label for the artist's last album, and, in between, ran Atlantic Records, Mercury Records and Warner Bros Records. In ""Bumping into Geniuses"", Goldberg shares his stories about those artists with whom he worked closely, as well as others who represent a powerful portion of the psychic real estate of the rock and roll kingdom over the last forty years, including Patti Smith, The Moody Blues, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Courtney Love, Steve Earle, and more. But there is more to this story than Goldberg's career. It's a revealing look at the music industry itself: a business that was neither the romantic vehicle for self-expression that its most naive fans imagined, nor the purely crass money machine depicted by its most cynical critics. It was complex and chaotic - a mixture of art and commerce, idealism and selfishness - and sometimes, rock's most gifted musicians were able to transcend it all. Despite the drugs, lies and shallow quests for fame and money that stalked the rock industry, it managed to produce the music that Goldberg and countless fans love. Above all, this book is Goldberg's love letter to rock and roll and to the countless musical geniuses he bumped into along the course of his extraordinary career. For anyone interested in the rock and roll industry, or simply the mores and temperaments of the musicians themselves, ""Bumping into Geniuses"" is an incredible insider's tale that only Goldberg could tell."

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9781592404834

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Reviews

A behemoth in the rock 'n' roll industry. <br> - Vanity Fair <br> Goldberg tells of his adventures in the music business with insight, humor and compassion. <br> - The Seattle Times <br> An insightful behind-the-scenes view of the music industry from 1969 through 2004...Reading Bumping Into Geniuses is like having a laminated backstage pass to the music business, intertwined with a juicy slice of countercultural history. <br> -Paul Krassner, Los Angeles Times <br> There's no doubt [Goldberg] loves the music business - lives, eats and breathes it. His new book Bumping Into Geniuses is one of the best on the subject. <br> - San Antonio Express-News <br> Danny Goldberg chronicles the phases of his career - rock journalist, record- company president, manager to musicians ranging from Kurt Cobain to Warren Zevon - with the sort of candor few record-biz execs would attempt....Admirably blunt, but also spiked with tart humor. <br> - Entertainment Weekly <br> [A] surprisingly excellent book, an engaging, droll and - incandescent artistes to the contrary - largely demystifying look at the evolution of the rock trade from Woodstock to grunge...There is an elegiac quality to Bumping Into Geniuses. - The New York Times Book Review <br> Bumping Into Geniuses is such an important text for 2008...Goldberg's book presents a time when popular music really mattered, when the authentic fed the commercial and the commercial widened the scope of the authentic. <br> - Milwaukee Express News <br> Goldberg summons up some fascinating anecdotes as he writes about these performers with much honesty and compassion, bringing it all back home. <br> - Publishers Weekly <br> A good taste of life in the music biz...It's not only the tales themselves that make Bumping Into Geniuses a great read; it's how Goldberg tells the stories. You really get the feeling that he loved every moment. He appears to have learned as much from his minor setbacks as

A behemoth in the rock 'n' roll industry. <br> - Vanity Fair <br> Goldberg tells of his adventures in the music business with insight, humor and compassion. <br> - The Seattle Times <br> An insightful behind-the-scenes view of the music industry from 1969 through 2004...Reading Bumping Into Geniuses is like having a laminated backstage pass to the music business, intertwined with a juicy slice of countercultural history. <br> -Paul Krassner, Los Angeles Times <br> There's no doubt [Goldberg] loves the music business - lives, eats and breathes it. His new book Bumping Into Geniuses is one of the best on the subject. <br> - San Antonio Express-News <br> Danny Goldberg chronicles the phases of his career - rock journalist, record- company president, manager to musicians ranging from Kurt Cobain to Warren Zevon - with the sort of candor few record-biz execs would attempt....Admirably blunt, but also spiked with tart humor. <br> - Entertainment Weekly <br> [A]

A behemoth in the rock 'n' roll industry. - Vanity Fair Goldberg tells of his adventures in the music business with insight, humor and compassion. - The Seattle Times An insightful behind-the-scenes view of the music industry from 1969 through 2004...Reading Bumping Into Geniuses is like having a laminated backstage pass to the music business, intertwined with a juicy slice of countercultural history. -Paul Krassner, Los Angeles Times There's no doubt [Goldberg] loves the music business - lives, eats and breathes it. His new book Bumping Into Geniuses is one of the best on the subject. - San Antonio Express-News Danny Goldberg chronicles the phases of his career - rock journalist, record- company president, manager to musicians ranging from Kurt Cobain to Warren Zevon - with the sort of candor few record-biz execs would attempt....Admirably blunt, but also spiked with tart humor. - Entertainment Weekly [A] surprisingly excellent book, an engaging, droll and - incandescent artistes to the contrary - largely demystifying look at the evolution of the rock trade from Woodstock to grunge...There is an elegiac quality to Bumping Into Geniuses. - The New York Times Book Review Bumping Into Geniuses is such an important text for 2008...Goldberg's book presents a time when popular music really mattered, when the authentic fed the commercial and the commercial widened the scope of the authentic. - Milwaukee Express News Goldberg summons up some fascinating anecdotes as he writes about these performers with much honesty and compassion, bringing it all back home. - Publishers Weekly A good taste of life in the music biz...It's not only the tales themselves that make Bumping Into Geniuses a great read; it's how Goldberg tells the stories. You really get the feeling that he loved every moment. He appears to have learned as much from his minor setbacks as

Author Information

Danny Goldberg has been in the music business since the 1960s as a journalist, PR person, personal manager whose clients included Nirvana and Bonnie Raitt, and as president of three major record companies: Atlantic Records, Warner Bros Records and Mercury Records. He currently runs Gold Village Entertainment and he is the author of the book How the Left Lost Teen Spirit.

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