Unique as this book is it may take some explaining should you choose to tackle it. Certainly the subject matter may not appeal to everyone considering it chronicles the story of a man who spent his entire life in pursuit of anonymity yet at the same time was everywhere and anyplace that mattered.

David Litvinoff was one of the great mythic characters of 60’s London – outrageous, possessed of a lightning wit and intellect, dangerous to know, always lurking in the shadows as the spotlight shone on his famous friends. Flitting between the worlds of music, art and crime, he extended a hidden influence that helped create the Kray twins’ legend and Lucian Freud’s reputation as a man never to be crossed; connected the Rolling Stones with London’s dark side; redirected Eric Clapton’s musical career; and shaped the plot of the classic film Performance by revealing his knowledge of the city’s underworld, a decision that put his life in danger.

Litvinoff’s determination to live without a trace means that his life has always eluded biographers, until now. This extraordinary feat of research entailed 100 interviews over five years, with everyone from Eric Clapton and Marianne Faithfull to James Fox and ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser: the result is by turns wickedly funny, appalling, revelatory and moving, and epic in its scope as it traces a rogue’s progress at the interface of bohemia and criminality from the early Fifties to the Seventies. It is also an account of Keiron Pim’s determined pursuit of Litvinoff’s ghost, which took him from London to Wales and Australia in a quest to reveal one of British pop cultures last great-untold stories. Wonderfully written and highly recommended.

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Americana: In 2015 the admirable Peter Guralnick published a well-received and much publicized biography of Sun Records founder and producer Sam Philips. The book jacket boldly states how Philips invented rock ‘n’ roll by discovering Elvis Presley, Howlin’ Wolf Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, etc.

A book that was also published the same year to little or no fanfare tells the story of a man without whom there would have been no rock ‘n’ roll to discover. A quarter of the length of Guralnick’s weighty tome, this book chronicles the life and times of revolutionary A&R man Ralph Peer who did more than just discover and record American roots music of every genre, but also went on to build the world’s largest independent publishing company.

Peer recorded what is believed to be the first country music single, Fiddlin’ John Carson’s “The Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane” and Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” regarded to be the kick start of the American Blues craze. He was the architect of the legendary Bristol sessions known as “The Big Bang Of Country Music” thus discovering (and managing) both Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family.

Along with all this, he was single-handedly responsible for popularizing Latin American music during World War II and the postwar transformation of music on the airwaves that set the stage for the dominance of R&B, country and rock ‘n’ roll. The genesis of all those artists that wound up at Sun Records found their inspiration in the music that Ralph Peer discovered and made available to the world so maybe, just maybe, Ralph Peer invented rock ‘n’ roll, not Sam Philips.

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Pop Vocals & The American Songbook: A recent Elvis Presley compilation box set was titled Artist of the Century, which if you think about is like saying the same thing about painter Thomas Kinkade. If such a grandiose title has to be bestowed then it’s Frank Sinatra who deserves that title…no contest.

This is James Kaplan’s second and final chapter in the Sinatra story and, like its predecessor (also reviewed,) pretty much makes it the definitive work. There have been several critics who have taken Kaplan to task for purloining from previous biographical sources, which I have to say, doesn’t bother me in the least. The fact is there is so much information out there and quite simply the biographer has taken what is available along with his own detective work and made the most singular and compelling two books on Sinatra’s fabulous and fascinating life.

There are so many available reads about this complex and volatile genius (he could be saint and Satan all in one day) that it is a pleasure to be able to discard the dead wood and unsatisfactory others in favor of one definite article. Like its precursor, it is impossible to put down and by the end you’ve lived his life along with him. One more example of the only biography you need on a well-mined musical legend.

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Jazz Vocals: Peggy Lee was unquestionably a deeply troubled diva who lived in a dreamlike world of her own design. She was also a vocalist of breathtaking originality, a songwriter of immense talent and a performer of mystical sensuality.  Revered by her peers, she was at times mistakenly referred to as a pop singer when in actuality her work stretched from the American songbook into swing, jazz and blues.

She dazzled everyone from Louis Armstrong to Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra to k. d. lang while living a life that was everything from comic to unpredictable and tragic. She was bizarre in ways that make her modern equivalents seem tame in comparison, and James Gavin chronicles every weird and whacky nuance in the same entertaining pattern we’ve come to expect from him. His earlier books on Chet Baker (also reviewed here) and Lena Horne are proof that he’s fast becoming one of Americas most entertaining and thorough biographers.

A fast paced entertaining read establishing Ms. Lee as one of this country’s vocal treasures and most eccentric personalities.

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Rhythm And Blues: Like the title says this book is as much a history of the emergence of contemporary songwriting and R&B composition in particular as it is a bio of the severely underrated songwriter and producer Bert Berns. New York is it’s birthplace and battleground and all the usual suspects are present. But before their dominance of the hot 100 and the hit making factory of the Brill Building there was the well spring and the roots from which all this talent was nurtured, influenced and formed, Cuban music imported from Havana.

It’s a great story inhabited by wonderfully diverse characters in all shapes and sizes, cutthroats, con men, sharks, charlatans, sinners and saints, super talented, talented, not so talented and hopeless there all here, and all wrapped around the tale of Bert Berns a man going a hundred miles an hour in order to create a legendary body of work before his malfunctioning heart gives out.

And create he did one classic after another with “Twist & Shout” and “Hang On Sloopy to “Piece Of My Heart” and “Here Comes The Night” just scratching the surface. We can also thank him in part for Van Morrison, he produced Them and Van’s breakthrough hit “Brown Eyed Girl” along with giving a leg up to a certain struggling Neil Diamond. I could go on but then you wouldn’t read the book. I suggest you do - it's like traveling on a speeding train and not wanting to get off.

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Gospel & Blues: Without peer, Gary Davis was (even if you didn’t know it) one of the greatest of American guitarists. Blind from infancy, Davis was an ordained Baptist minister who sang on the streets of Harlem during the 1940s and gave five-dollar guitar lessons in his tiny tenement apartment. Among his pupils was a cavalcade of future stars including members of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, along with virtuosos like Stefan Grossman and the eclectic David Bromberg.

A charismatic and magnetic performer, Davis traveled the world dazzling audiences with his complex rhythmic patterns and incomparable technique. With a wicked sense of humor and the prerequisite vices in tow he nonetheless pledged allegiance to his God and stayed true to his gospel roots only allowing the blues an airing on occasion.

This book restores “the Rev” to his rightful place among the more established and recognized… and what a treat it is! Davis simply comes back to life in these pages and the author should be heartily congratulated for breathing compassion, wit and joy into every page. There is so much I could say but I will simply implore you, if you care about American music and the preservation of its more obscure wonderments get this book. Loved it! Essential.

Music Industry: Surely destined to be the sole biography of Roulette Records legendary bad guy, this biography charts the rise of one of the music businesses most notorious figures. Levy maybe an unheard of commodity to outsiders, but for those in the know he was a formidable mafia-connected presence who was both intimidating and charming in equal doses. Legends of his intimidations and corrupt business practices abound here, but it’s his teenage life that absolves him from total damnation.

At the age of nineteen Levy cofounded Birdland, arguably the most feted and legendary jazz club in America. He was also responsible for building the careers and releasing some of the finest music by be-bop pioneers such as Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Bud Powell and a host of others. He should be given credit for breaking down barriers and opening doors to the first racially integrated clubs in New York City.

With the inception of pop and doo-wop, he scored countless hits building the careers of among others Frankie Lymon, Buddy Knox, Joey Dee, and during the fertile sixties Tommy James & the Shondells. Along the way, as much as he groomed and promoted, he found ways to cut corners and create his own fraudulent universe.

The book is compelling up to a point, but somewhere after the halfway mark it gets bogged down in Levy’s rapidly growing legal woes. There is so much mind numbing information attached to his demise (a deal to sell remaindered records) that you are screaming for it to end before it does.