Trips; rock life in the sixties

By Ellen Sander

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684127520
• ISBN13: 9780684127521
• Release Date: January 1973
• Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

All confirmed Woodstockers must own this rare volume!

Above all else, Ellen Sander was a sixties band/performer groupie. She spent many a night in Greenwich Village hanging out with the likes of Bob Dylan and similar personalities when those folks were just getting started. It will become immediately clear to the reader that Sander was indeed in close contact with these revolutionary rock musicians and she has a LOT of new stuff to tell us about them in her book. It's equally clear that she was a walking repository of facts concerning their respective recordings. There's a great commentary about The Byrds demo recording on page 69 and another about the "Summer of Love" on page 89. This 1973 title also features a superb discography in the back of the book down to and including performers such as Van Dyke Parks! There is only one problem with this book -- it's too dang short! I could read Sander's stories about these folks for days on end. But it is what it is. I was lucky to snag my copy at a junk store, hardcovers practically unhinged and all deposited in a plastic bag to keep it from falling apart -- it cost me five bucks and I still consider that I made a steal. This is not a common book so if you get the chance to obtain a copy, I'd advise you to do so. My highest reccommendation for Classic Rock fans.

How it Really Was...

Sander was one of the earliest New York rock critics. In this book (with foreward by Terry Southern) she traces the history of the music through the lens of her own experience growing up with it. Her profiles of rock artists of the time stand up better than most of what was written in those excessive days, and her insider's depiction of the New York folk scene in the early '60s is among the best I've seen. Her remarks on the later hippie era are sane and well-observed, free of excessive nostalgia, yet quite successful in recapturing why things happened and what they meant to those involved. This truly deserves to be republished and ought to be in your library (used copies are fairly easy to come by).