Jagger

September 19, 2011
As Spitz (Bowie: A Biography) writes: "When we think of the Rolling Stones, we think of the heart and we think of the groin. We don't dwell on the brain." In this biography, Spitz shows how Jagger's shifting personas influenced public perception, while keeping the band culturally relevant. Spitz discusses the band's appearance on the T.A.M.I. Show (when they were forced to follow James Brown), Jagger's relationships with Marianne Faithfull, Bianca Jagger, and Jerry Hall, and the tragic Altamont, but examines these moments from a cultural rather than a historical context, illustrating how these public spectacles affected his reputation and personality. The gifted and insightful Spitz wisely chooses to eschew a linear, year-by-year chronicle of minutiae, instead assuming deep reader familiarity with Jagger, the Stones, and the band's key albums. This shorthand enables him to cover tremendous ground, while re-examining Jagger as a musician and a person. However, Jagger doesn't emerge as a particularly sympathetic character. In a choice between Mick and Keith, most readers would still rather be Keith.

April 15, 2011

Move over, Keith; it's Mick's turn. But the famously reticent Jagger won't tell his own story. Instead, Vanity Fair's music blogger, who's already assayed David Bowie, talks to Jagger's friends and enemies to get the full picture. Perhaps not as big as Richards's Life, but there will be interest.

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September 15, 2011
Despite money and adulation, apparently it's not easy being Mick Jagger. As Spitz confirms at a time when Jagger's longtime collaborator and fellow Glimmer Twin Keith Richards has written an autobiography that rehashes old grudges and even disparages Jagger's penis size, Mick's solo career seems stalled, and his band's recent studio recordings are generating neither sustained sales nor enthusiasm. Jagger's fans may be avid for replies to Richards' scathing comments about Jagger, but they won't find them here. Mick wasn't a participant in this career retrospective and literary stroking. Indeed, Jagger hasn't given more than a 20-minute, by-the-numbers interview since his in-depth chat with Jann Wenner in 1995, and he shows no sign of changing that strategy. So what we have here is an able assembling of the views of otherssome intimates, some notabout Jagger and his uneasy slide into the golden years. Competently enough written, this is a pleasant read that nicely puts all the old stories in some order, referencing discarded lovers, dalliances, and other time-honored themes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)