On paper Steve Katz's career rivals anyone's except the 1960s' and '70's
biggest stars: the Monterey Pop Festival with the legendary Blues
Project, Woodstock with Blood, Sweat & Tears, and even producing rock's
most celebrated speed addict, Lou Reed. There were world tours, and his
résumé screams "Hall of Fame" -- it won't be long before BS&T are on
that ballot. He has three Grammies (ten nominations), three Downbeat
Reader's Poll Awards, three gold records, one platinum record, and one
quadruple platinum platter (the second Blood, Sweat & Tears album), not
to mention three gold singles with BS&T. All together, he's sold close
to 29 million records. He had affairs with famous female folk singers,
made love to Jim Morrison's girlfriend Pam when Jim was drunk and
abusive, partied with Elizabeth Taylor and Groucho Marx, dined with
Rudolf Nureyev, conversed with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tennessee
Williams, hung out with Andy Warhol, jammed with everyone from Mose
Allison to Jimi Hendrix, and was told to get a haircut by both Mickey
Spillane and Danny Thomas. But his memoir is more Portnoy's Complaint
than the lurid party-with-your-pants-down memoir that has become the
norm for rock 'n' roll books. It's an honest and personal account of a
life at the edge of the spotlight--a privileged vantage point that
earned him a bit more objectivity and earnest outrage than a lot of his
colleagues, who were too far into the scene to lay any honest witness to
it. Set during the Greenwich Village folk/rock scene, the Sixties' most
celebrated venues and concerts, and behind closed doors on international
tours and grueling studio sessions, this is the unlikely story of a rock
star as nerd, nerd as rock star, a nice Jewish boy who got to sit at the
cool kid's table and score the hot chicks.
