IAN HUNTER – Diary of a Rock ‘N’ Roll Star (2018 Edition)
- Posted on 21-12-2018
The living legend that is Mott the Hoople’s Ian Hunter chronicled and documented their tour of the US back in 1972 and as it turned out, his diary notes eventually turned into a literary classic that remains unsurpassed to this very day. I cannot thank the ever-awesome Omnibus Press in the UK enough for reissuing this gem of a book as it is as riveting and entertaining to read now as it was when I first read it years ago. It has lost none its power and evocative quality over the years – that is for sure.
This 2018 edition includes a warm, passionate, and heartfelt foreword penned by none other than Johnny Depp and a brilliant epilogue by Hunter himself as well as some diary notes from a tour in Japan that took place in 2015. So, this is not merely a new version of an old classic; it is a revised edition including new material. Even if you have an old version of the book lying around somewhere, you ought to invest in this new one too. Trust me, it will be the perfect Christmas present for yourself this year. There was simply nothing like “Diary of a Rock ‘N’ Roll Star” out there when it was first published, and to a certain degree, there still is not. It marked the dawn of a new era in literature on music and offered a marvelous insight into the inner working of a band and its crew on tour. Anything that you can possibly imagine involving catastrophic gigs, lousy travel plans and even lousier logistics, crappy food, uppers, downers, drinks, groupies, trying to stay in touch with friends and family back home in the UK, traffic jams, cancelled flights, sneaking into Graceland to meet Elvis Presley, constantly prowling second-hand shops for used guitars, and much more is included in the book. Hunter’s style of writing is saturated with wit, irony, and sarcasm, and his humorous perspective on his encounters with Americans, fans, managers, promoters, waiters, and his interrelationships with his fellow band mates, are incredibly rewarding to immerse oneself in as his way of storytelling makes you feel as if you were right there with him. If Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” had instead been a diary by a rock musician, Hunter’s excellent piece of literature would be it.
“Diary of a Rock ‘N’ Roll Star” is essential reading and a must-have for any fan of rock music. It changed peoples’ perspective on what it meant to be a working musician back in the 70s, and nowadays, nearly fifty years later, there is still no other piece of literature on rock ‘n’ roll out there that is as penetrating, insightful, and inspired as this one. A literary masterpiece? You bet!