Hearts of Darkness: James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Cat Stevens, and the Unlikely Rise of the Singer-Songwriter

by Dave Thompson

Overview

(Book). Hearts of Darkness is the story of a generation's coming of age through the experiences of its three most atypical pop stars. James Taylor, Jackson Browne, and Cat Stevens could never have been considered your typical late-sixties songwriters self-absorbed and self-composed, all three eschewed the traditional means of delivering their songs, instead turning its process inward. The result was a body of work that stands among the most profoundly personal art ever to translate into an international language, and a sequence of songs from "Sweet Baby James" and "Carolina in My Mind," to "Jamaica Say You Will" and "These Days," to "Peace Train" and "Wild World" that remain archetypes not only of what the critics called the singer-songwriter movement, but of the human condition itself. Author Dave Thompson, himself a legend among rock biographers, takes on his subjects with his usual brio and candor, leaving no stone unturned in his quest to shine a light on the dark side of this profoundly earnest era in popular music. Penetrating, pointed, and laced with vivid insight and detail, Hearts of Darkness is the story of rock when it no longer felt the need to roll.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781458471390
Publisher:	Hal Leonard Corporation
Publication date:	02/01/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	322
Sales rank:	753,262
File size:	4 MB

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

Prologue: But Satisfaction Brought Him Back ix

1 Where the Children Play 1

2 Sweet Baby James 13

3 Before the Deluge 25

4 Fire and Rain 39

5 Wild World 57

6 Places in My Past 71

7 Nothing but Time 81

8 Another Saturday Night 97

9 You Love the Thunder 115

10 Hey Mister, That's Me! 127

11 Silent Sunlight 135

12 Night Owl 151

13 The Cat Came Back (They Thought They'd Seen the Last of It) 169

14 Shaky Town 189

15 On the Road to Find Out 205

16 Under the Falling Sky 217

17 The Blues Is Just a Bad Dream 229

Epilogue: Where Are They Now? 245

Discography 257

Acknowledgments 301

Notes 303

Bibliography 313

Index 317