Bumping Into Geniuses: Inside the Rock and Roll Business » (Bargain)

Danny Goldberg is president of Gold Village Entertainment. He has worked in the music industry since 1969, including his years as chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Records and Mercury Records.

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

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

But there's more to this story than just Goldberg's varied career. It's also a look at the 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 and influential musicians were able to transcend it all.

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.

The New York Times - Jody Rosen

Music executives are often portrayed as exploitative philistines, but Goldberg reminds us that the recording industry was remade in the late 60s and 70s by businessman-hippies seeking not just profit but proximity to artists they admired and a role in the countercultural ferment. It is one of many insights in this 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.