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Eminent Hipsters
- Narrated by: Donald Fagen
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
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Publisher's summary
A witty, revealing, sharply written work of memoir and criticism by the cofounder of Steely Dan.
Musician and songwriter Donald Fagen presents a group of vivid set pieces in his entertaining debut as an author, from portraits of the cultural figures and currents that shaped him as a youth to an account of his college days and of life on the road.
Fagen begins by introducing the “eminent hipsters” that spoke to him as he was growing up in a bland New Jersey suburb in the early 1960s, among them Jean Shepherd, whose manic nightly broadcasts out of WOR-Radio “enthralled a generation of alienated young people”; Henry Mancini, whose swank, noirish soundtracks left their mark on him; and Mort Fega, the laid-back, knowledgeable all-night jazz man at WEVD who was like “the cool uncle you always wished you had". He writes of how, coming of age during the paranoid Cold War era, one of his primary doors of escape became reading science fiction, and of his invigorating trips into New York City to hear jazz. “Class of ’69” recounts Fagen’s colorful, mind-expanding years at Bard College, the progressive school north of New York City, where he first met his future musical partner Walter Becker. “With the Dukes of September” offers a cranky, hilarious account of the ups and downs of a recent cross-country tour Fagen made with Boz Scaggs and Michael McDonald, performing a program of old R&B and soul tunes as well as some of their own hits.
Acclaimed for the elaborate arrangements and jazz harmonies of his songs, Fagen proves himself a sophisticated writer with a very distinctive voice in this engaging audiobook.
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Critic reviews
"[An] excellent...and satisfying memoir. This is less about Fagen’s career than about his tastes... He writes insightfully about music, films, and books...with this remorseless, hilarious book, Fagen reveals himself as a first-class grump.... Eminent Hipsters is also a convincing testimonial to the honing effect of a lifelong devotion to the culture of misfits, weirdos and cranks." (Rolling Stone)
"Fagen is utterly charming when he describes other performers...he defends TV and film composer Henry Mancini from charges of fuddy-duddyness...his essay on Connie Boswell is the kind of top-notch, incisive cultural critique you ain’t gonna get from the likes of Keith Richards. Just like the lyrics he penned for the Dan, Fagen’s writing here is charged with a zingy, acerbic intelligence." (Slate.com)
"As you would expect from someone who has been one of the most consistently sardonic voices of rock, Fagen can write." (GQ.com )
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Life in a band-the ups, downs and truth!
- By C Christopher Taylor on 07-10-18
By: Jon Fine
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So Many Roads
- The Life and Times of the Grateful Dead
- By: David Browne
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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No longer dismissed as relics of the hippie era, a new generation has lionized the Dead for creating a culture that paved the way for social networking, free music swapping, and the uncompromising anticorporate attitude of indie rock. Now, fifty years after the band first began changing rock 'n' roll both sonically and psychically, So Many Roads paints the most vivid portrait yet of the Grateful Dead, one of the most enduring institutions in American music and culture.
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Great first book on the Dead
- By robert on 10-30-15
By: David Browne
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Small Town Talk
- Bob Dylan, The Band, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Friends in the Wild Years of Woodstock
- By: Barney Hoskyns
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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When musicians in the New York folk scene of the 1960s grew tired of city life, they decided to "get it together in the country". They headed for Woodstock - not to the site of the infamous music festival of 1969 but to the Catskills, to Bearsville, to Woodstock proper. Counterculture revolutionaries like Janis Joplin, Richie Havens, and Paul Butterfield got "back to the land", turning the once sleepy hollow into a funky Shangri-La.
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Captured the era - too many mistakes
- By Frank Canino on 04-17-16
By: Barney Hoskyns
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My Bass and Other Animals
- By: Guy Pratt
- Narrated by: Guy Pratt
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Guy Pratt came of age just as bass playing became sexy. Having dallied with punk legend Sylvain Sylvain, Pratt suddenly found himself on Top of the Pops and supporting David Bowie with smooth Australian outfit Icehouse. He became bass player to the stars, crawling from studio to bar and hotel to stadium Portakabin with the likes of Pink Floyd, Robert Palmer, Womack &Womack and Bryan Ferry. Guy has recorded with everyone from Madonna and Michael Jackson to McFly.
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Best book on Audible by a bass player!
- By Fjolnir on 03-12-12
By: Guy Pratt
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All These Things That I've Done
- My Insane, Improbable Rock Life
- By: Matt Pinfield, Mitchell Cohen
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Matt Pinfield is the ultimate music fan. He's the guy who knows every song, artist, and musical riff ever recorded, down to the most obscure band's B-side single on its vinyl-only EP import. As a child, music helped Pinfield make sense of the world. Later he would approach his music idols after concerts and explain why he loved their music. As an adult, rock music inspired his career, fueled relationships, and, at times, became a life raft.
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great listen
- By nilda v. on 08-28-20
By: Matt Pinfield, and others
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Famous Father Girl
- A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein
- By: Jamie Bernstein
- Narrated by: Jamie Bernstein
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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The oldest daughter of revered composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein offers a rare look at her father on the centennial of his birth in a deeply intimate and broadly evocative memoir. The composer of On the Town and West Side Story, chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic, television star, humanitarian, friend of the powerful and influential, and the life of every party, Leonard Bernstein was an enormous celebrity during one of the headiest periods of American cultural life, as well as the most protean musician in 20th-century America.
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Can't say enough good things
- By barbara on 10-10-18
By: Jamie Bernstein
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Turn Around Bright Eyes
- A Karaoke Love Story
- By: Rob Sheffield
- Narrated by: Rob Sheffield
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Turn Around Bright Eyes picks up Sheffield’s story right after Love Is a Mix Tape. He is a young widower devastated by grief, trying to build a new life in a new town after his wife’s death. As a writer for Rolling Stone, he naturally takes solace in music. But that’s when he discovers the sublime ridiculousness of karaoke, and despite the fact that he can’t carry a tune, he begins to find his voice.
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Witty (sometimes sad) love story/Soundtrack
- By Wally Tonra on 05-07-15
By: Rob Sheffield
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Walk This Way
- Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song That Changed American Music Forever
- By: Geoff Edgers
- Narrated by: Geoff Edgers
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
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Washington Post staff writer Geoff Edgers takes a deep dive into the story behind "Walk This Way", Aerosmith and Run-DMC's legendary, groundbreaking mashup that forever changed music.
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A MUST LISTEN/READ
- By Aron Teo Lee on 05-17-19
By: Geoff Edgers
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Deal
- My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead
- By: Bill Kreutzmann, Benjy Eisen
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
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On their 50th anniversary comes a groundbreaking rock-and-roll memoir by one of the founding members of the Grateful Dead. The Grateful Dead are perhaps the most legendary American rock band of all time. For 30 years, beginning in the hippie scene of San Francisco in 1965, they were a musical institution, the original jam band that broke new ground in so many ways.
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Decent but not great
- By Monty S on 03-02-16
By: Bill Kreutzmann, and others
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Catch a Wave
- The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson
- By: Peter Ames Carlin
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In Catch a Wave, Peter Ames Carlin pulls back the curtain on Brian Wilson, one of popular music's most revered luminaries, as well as its biggest mystery. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and never-before heard studio recordings, Carlin follows the Beach Boys from their earliest days through Brian's deepening emotional problems to his triumphant re-emergence with the release of Smile, the legendarily unreleased album he had originally shelved.
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Not great
- By J. Barker on 08-08-16
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Traveling Music
- The Soundtrack to My Life and Times
- By: Neil Peart
- Narrated by: Brian Sutherland
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The music of Frank Sinatra, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, and many other artists provides the score to the reflections of a musician on the road in this memoir of Neil Peart's travels from Los Angeles to Big Bend National Park. The emotional associations and stories behind each album Peart plays guide his recollections of his childhood on Lake Ontario, the first bands that he performed with, and his travels with the band Rush. The evocative and resonant writing vividly captures the meanderings of a musical mind.
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If your a music lover you'll dig this one
- By Jason Lessenger on 09-12-15
By: Neil Peart
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Paul McCartney
- A Life
- By: Peter Ames Carlin
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of the definitive biography of former Beach Boy Brian Wilson offers new insight into the life and music of Paul McCartney, one of the world's most popular and influential musicians. Informed by new, exclusive interviews with friends, bandmates, and collaborators, the book describes McCartney's many triumphs as well as his failures, from the Beatles era through his decade with Wings and his subsequent solo career.
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Great...But
- By Diego on 05-02-10
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Keith Richards
- The Unauthorised Biography
- By: Victor Bockris
- Narrated by: Adrian Mulraney
- Length: 20 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1992, Victor Bockris' celebrated biography was the first to recognize Richards' pivotal role in the legend of the Rolling Stones. Now that book on rock's most incredible survivor has been expanded. Here are the true facts behind Richards' battles with his demons: the women, the drugs and the love-hate relationship with Jagger. His struggle with heroin and his status as the rock star most likely to die in the 1970s. His scarcely believable rebirth as a family man in the 1980s. Illuminated with revealing quotes and thoughtful insights into the man behind the band that goes on forever.
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doesn't comapre to LIFE
- By A. Garofalo on 02-20-14
By: Victor Bockris
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What listeners say about Eminent Hipsters
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Joe Vendors
- 05-18-20
Not Just for Steely Dan Fans
Remember when you were a kid and you discovered something so secret and cool you knew no friend of yours could possibly know about it yet? That's what I am feeling as I enjoy this book, read by the author. It is hysterical.
Mr Fagen is as gifted a writer as he is as the leader and main writer in Steely Dan. Incrediblly literate and truthful. Wonderful
As I say in the heading it is Not just for Steely Dan fans!
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- John Rusiniak
- 05-12-21
Great for fans of Fagen, probably no one else
Some decent stories here, but a whole lot of "old man yells at cloud" moments. Did you know that everything sucks now? You will after reading this book!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Casper P.
- 05-26-22
Just perfect
I'm surprised how much I'm enjoying this. It seems to be a collection of essays, some are musicologically very deep critiques of artists such as the Boswell Sisters. I had never heard of these wonders before but this discovery alone is worth the credit.
Others are moors sketches and observations on life. Mostly around music though. He is a jazz fan so to me, this is heaven.
It turns out Donald is an ex-cel-lent writer which is no coincidence as he was a professional writer before. But I didn't know.
So the prose is deep, witty, insightful and goes down smooth if you know what I mean.
Totally recommend this one.
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- jlight
- 09-19-16
great book for fans
I have loved Steely Dan for decades as well as Donald Fagan. This book shed great light into more of who he is and how he thinks, something I appreciate very much. keep the writing coming Donald...but perhaps first find the cure for ATD and PTD
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- Harry
- 01-26-14
Must-listen for Steely Dan or Donald Fagen fans
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
If you've ever wondered about Donald Fagan or Steely Dan's origins, this is the book for you! The fact that it is narrated by Fagen himself is a major bonus. While some might not care for the sound of his voice or his laconic manner, I found it to be integral to enjoying the text.
Fagen was born just a few years before me, but the touchpoints of his youth resonated with me. Listening to a transistor radio, transitioning through listening to different styles of music, etc.
As a former performing musician myself, I enjoyed hearing his tales of life on the road -- the good and the bad... well, mostly the bad. But even the bad is funny the way he tells it. Any musician who aspires to be famous enough to tour for a living (or whatever reason) should certainly listen to Fagen's story before getting too excited about what awaits them on the road.
What did you like best about this story?
The scope, from youth to Steely Dan reunion tours, and told by the man himself.
Have you listened to any of Donald Fagen’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I'd only heard his music (recordings, radio, one live concert in 2013) and one radio interview. All great stuff, but don't pass over this audiobook.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
I listened while commuting. Most audiobooks are way too long to even contemplate sitting or even listening to for 10-30 hours.
Any additional comments?
Buy this audiobook!
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- Anonymous User
- 01-24-18
Great book!
Half of one of my favorite bands talks about his life and touring! Fun listen!
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- John
- 03-05-15
Great fun!!!
As a fan since forever, it was great to hear Fagen's reflections in his own voice. I laughed out loud many times, and gained a better understanding of what made one of favorite artists become who he is. Highly recommended.
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- Mitchell
- 07-28-22
Loved it.....mostly
Very slow start but I'm glad I stuck with it. I truly enjoyed it.
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- Darren Embry
- 09-26-19
Good origin story
Probably need to be a big Steely Dan fan or music history buff to find it compelling or really love...but that's me. Cheers, Donald. Glad you wrote and read this.
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- Chris Delacruz
- 03-29-21
Disappointed
As much as I love and respect the brilliant and timeless music of Steely Dan and Donald’s solo albums, he comes across incredibly sour and salty, sounding like a megalomaniacal arsehole who is bothered by everything and everyone who dares to cross his path or breath the same oxygen as him. As self-depreciating as he makes himself out to be, it’s hard to find sympathy with his plight as a touring musician who fails to understand or respect the fact that the general public that he is forced to co-exist with are the very same unconstitutional peasants that have given him his success in the first place. Repeatedly insulting his audience and bitching about hotels where rose petals aren’t being thrown as his feet only serves to make him sound like a thoroughly unpleasant human being and certainly not someone I would go pay to see anytime soon. While some of his anecdotes and observations can be at times witty and amusing, his droll and unenthusiastic delivery really hammers home the fact that the Mighty Donald Fagen would rather be somewhere else and doing something else than reading his own book for us, the undeserving peons. Incredibly, he managed to make his equally unpleasant Satan of a manager Irving Azoff sound like a sympathetic character at one point. While I will continue to love his music, it’s safe to say that I would rather spend time talking to a homeless guy at the side of the highway exit than dare to approach Donald Fsgen for fear of his curmudgeonly ass writing another book and telling his audience just how much the printed design on my t-shirt has been the source of his misery for the day.
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