Bumping Into Geniuses: My Life Inside the Rock and Roll Business Hardcover - 2008

by Danny Goldberg

A giant of the music industry grants an all-access pass to theworld of rock and roll, with mesmerizing stories of thirty-five years spentworking with legends from Led Zeppelin, to Stevie Nicks, to Nirvana.

Danny Goldberg has been a hugely influential figure in the world ofrock and roll. He did PR for Led Zeppelin; he managed the career ofNirvana; he ran Atlantic Records, Mercury Records, and Warner Bros.Records; he launched Stevie Nicks's solo career. In Bumping intoGeniuses, Goldberg shares his stories about performers who representa broad and powerful portion of the psychic real estate of the rock androll kingdom: Patti Smith, Warren Zevon, Bruce Springsteen, KISS, KurtCobain and Nirvana, Hole, Stevie Nicks, Bonnie Raitt, Steve Earle, LedZeppelin, and more.

But there's more to this story than just Goldberg's varied career. It'salso a look at the industry itself: a business that was neither the romanticvehicle for self-expression that its most naive fans imagined, nor thepurely crass money machine depicted by its most cynical critics. It wascomplex and chaotic a mixture of art and commerce, idealism andselfishness and sometimes, rock's most gifted and influentialmusicians were able to transcend it all.

For anyone interested in the rock and roll industry, or simply the moresand temperaments of the musicians themselves, Bumping into Geniusesis an incredible insider's tale that only Goldberg could tell.