"Josh Alan Friedman has chops like a wolf. The French had a phrase for his tropism for the seedy, the gutter, the outcasts: nostalgie de la boue. This book deserves wide attention." --Jerry Wexler, co-founder of Atlantic Records
"A can't-put-it-down rock 'n' roll read ... a must for any fan of good music writing and great storytelling." --William Michael Smith, Houston Press
"He dances off the page, improvises, hits all the grace notes. He knows the turfspeak of both showbiz and quality lit." --Michael Simmons, High Times
"The architects and the artists, the legends and the liars, the famously acclaimed and the anonymously unsung... each one a delectable bit of voyeurism." --PopMatters
Back in print in a new, definitive edition, this unflinching, critically acclaimed collection by BLACK CRACKER author Josh Alan Friedman gets up close and personal with some of the most important and unsung figures in 20th century blues and rock 'n' roll. From household names to the unacknowledged architects behind both the unforgettable sounds and the multi-billion-dollar industry, here are music's big winners and tragic losses; the self-made, the self-serving, and the self-destructive. Friedman captures intimate insights, unearths secret histories, and shines a light on parts of the music business most prefer not to talk about.
An antidote to antiseptic cultural mythologizing, TELL THE TRUTH UNTIL THEY BLEED is show business without the showbiz. After too many years out of circulation, TRUTH is back.