BOOK: Huey Morgan’s Rebel Heroes

So while waiting for my Jurassic World time slot to come around I decided to kill some time walking around a book store. I was just browsing with ABSOLUTELY no intension of buying anything when a book cover caught my eye, an image of Huey Morgan of Fun Lovin’ Criminals fame looking his F-in Coolest!
A little older now, his hair perfectly styled with the now fashionable trickle of grey in an awesome looking leather jacket, he sits at a table that could easily be in a bar or an old style speakeasy, Bourbon in one hand (could be a whiskey, I’m not there I don’t know), cigarette in the other (not that I deem that sort of thing to be cool), exhaling a breath of smoke with a look on his face that says;
“I’ve got a F**K**G story to tell and your gonna listen”
Now that’s not enough to make you want to buy a book but it sure did get my attention. Curious, I picked it up, done the usual glance and feels before I flicked to the first chapter and read the first sentence – “Rock ‘n’ Roll died with a bang on the 5th of April 1994, when Kurt Cobain blew his head off.”
That really set a tone that Huey was going to be frank, to the point and pull no punches.

I went on to enjoy Jurassic World immensely (see The Recommended review) and after getting home, having some grub and relaxing, I picked up the book and started to read. Huey doesn’t just go straight into talking about the usual suspects. He starts off with the early blues and Jazz musicians who broke not only the musical boundaries of the time, they also crossed the divide of social, racial and sexist blockades within the mid-twenties and thirties and set music on its way to being something more than just background noise to dance too.

Chapter by chapter, the ages and music styles change but one thing that does not change is the passion and honesty that Huey portrays in covering a topic that is obviously close to his heart and shaped his own musical passions. The backbone of the book covers a lot of troubled people who make/made amazing music that we all love but rather than dwell on the troubles, it’s all about the music and social influences to which the music created an audience for their message.

There is a great chapter on the influence of African/American women in music but each chapter provides an insight into some of the circumstances that invoked some of the greatest music and musicians, while also asking will we and can we get back to that level of music ever again?

Although the book has a very positive outlook on the good, the bad and the messed up things that have happened over the years in music history, Huey can’t help himself taking the odd pop at some of the “contrived” music of today. (I just had to stick this in) “I don’t see One Direction being around in ten years. And if they are, we’re all shit out of luck.”

This book is written by a music man (although I have this image in my mind of Huey just sittin’ there telling the story and someone else writing it all down) talking about the people who influenced the people who influenced him, with the odd personal story thrown in like meeting his hero Joe Strummer and crossing paths with Barry White and Prince.

While adding a few names to my ‘must check that out list’ this book was a really enjoyable read and without a doubt  is “on the one”