OCTOBER 2012 - AudioFile
Unmatched as an icon, and second only to Elvis Presley as rock’s consummate sex symbol, Mick Jagger has a star-streaked life story that makes for a spicy read. Phil Norman—an author known for the definitive biography of Jagger’s old rivals, the Beatles—lays it out demonstrably, with all of the headline-baring details intact. Unlike Jagger’s colleague Keith Richards’ recent autobiography, this book—arriving just as the Rolling Stones celebrate their fiftieth year together—benefits from the literate structure of Norman’s prose, as well as from James Langton’s vibrant reading, in which his slightly Scottish brogue resonates with wry subtlety and mellifluous patterns. Each phase of Jagger’s storied career is dissected, revealing an immense ambition that has guided him throughout his path of unrivaled success and longevity. J.S.H. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
Drawing on research he conducted for his first Stones book, as well as on numerous interviews with Jagger's friends, former girlfriends, and musicians, music critic Norman's often plodding and exhaustively detailed though admiring biography recounts Jagger's life from his middle-class youth and first encounters with the blues and early rock to his first meetings with a young Keith Richards.From there, we read of Jagger's many tumultuous relationships with women, his lackluster attempts at acting, and his raging desire to control his and the band's image. Sympathetic to Jagger, Norman digs beneath the bad-boy posturing that Stones manager Andrew Oldham stage-managed—and that Jagger embraced—very early in his career. Along the way, the author reveals an individual shaped by a conservative upbringing and maturing into a loving and beloved father, a history and literature buff, a wine connoisseur, and a stickler for etiquette. Unfortunately, in the end this is a dull set of fan notes, largely composed of much-rehashed Stones lore, especially since there are no new interviews with Jagger himself. (Oct.)
Library Journal
Evidently, Jagger has proclaimed that he will never write a memoir, so we'll have to depend on once-removed reporting from folks like Norman, author of the best-selling John Lennon: The Life. Norman interviewed many Jagger intimates, including some who have never spoken on the record, and promises to offer a larger, more complex picture of the star. This book will be buzzing throughout 2012, the Stones' 50th-anniversary year. With a 150,000-copy first printing.
OCTOBER 2012 - AudioFile
Unmatched as an icon, and second only to Elvis Presley as rock’s consummate sex symbol, Mick Jagger has a star-streaked life story that makes for a spicy read. Phil Norman—an author known for the definitive biography of Jagger’s old rivals, the Beatles—lays it out demonstrably, with all of the headline-baring details intact. Unlike Jagger’s colleague Keith Richards’ recent autobiography, this book—arriving just as the Rolling Stones celebrate their fiftieth year together—benefits from the literate structure of Norman’s prose, as well as from James Langton’s vibrant reading, in which his slightly Scottish brogue resonates with wry subtlety and mellifluous patterns. Each phase of Jagger’s storied career is dissected, revealing an immense ambition that has guided him throughout his path of unrivaled success and longevity. J.S.H. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
The second, livelier and all-around better of two major unauthorized Jagger biographies (after Christopher Andersen's Mick) out in time for the Rolling Stones' 50th year. A British novelist, music journalist and biographer, Norman (John Lennon: The Life, 2008, etc.) has made a minicareer telling the stories of the two biggest bands in rock history, the Beatles and the Stones, in several big books. (In his introduction to this mostly sympathetic life, Norman writes, plausibly, that these two bands "constitute one single, epic story.") Whereas Andersen portrayed Sir Mick as a soulless Narcissus or Faust, Norman succeeds at least partly in getting to the middle-class, suburban man behind the myth; he offers a sort of retort to Keith Richards' Life (as well as most other Jagger biographies) in shining a slightly better light on his subject. The author convincingly debunks legends like the kinky Mars bar tableau at the Redlands drug arrest in 1967 or Jagger's coldblooded dismissal of Hells Angel violence at the Altamont festival in 1969. Without shying from uncomplimentary facts about his subject's worst behaviors--mainly his treatment of the "lesser" Stones Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts and his numerous infidelities--Norman consistently provides evidence of Jagger's better side: his bouts of generosity (particularly toward friends and lovers in need), the sensitivity that frequently drives him to tears, his mutual adoration of his children by several mothers. Tellingly, the 25 years since the Stones' silver anniversary in 1982 are compressed into the last 90 pages of the 600-page narrative--even Norman seems to lose interest in Jagger apart from the Stones. Not the definitive Jagger life, but an enjoyable, entertaining biography.
