Product Description 
“We have performed side-by-side on the global stage through half a century…. In Lightning Striking, Lenny Kaye has illuminated ten facets of the jewel called rock and roll from a uniquely personal and knowledgeable perspective.” 
–Patti Smith 
An insider’s take on the evolution and enduring legacy of the music that rocked the twentieth century 
Memphis, 1954. New Orleans 1957. Philadelphia 1959. Liverpool, 1962. San Francisco 1967. Detroit 1969. New York, 1975. London 1977. Los Angeles 1984 / Norway 1993. Seattle 1991. 
Rock and roll was birthed in basements and garages, radio stations and dance halls, in cities where unexpected gatherings of artists and audience changed and charged the way music is heard and celebrated, capturing lightning in a bottle. Musician and writer Lenny Kaye explores ten crossroads of time and place that define rock and roll, its unforgettable flashpoints, characters and visionaries, how each generation came to be, how it was discovered by the world. Whether describing Elvis Presley’s Memphis, the Beatles’ Liverpool, Patti Smith’s New York or Kurt Cobain’s Seattle, Lightning Striking reveals the communal energy that creates a scene, a guided tour inside style and performance, to see who’s on stage, along with the movers and shakers, the hustlers and hangers-on, and why everybody is listening. 
Grandly sweeping and minutely detailed, informed by Kaye’s acclaimed knowledge and experience as a working musician, Lightning Striking is an ear-opening insight into our shared musical and cultural history, a carpet ride of rock and roll’s most influential movements and moments. 
 Review 
“His magnum opus, a rollicking tour through rock and roll history. . . . Touching on a dizzying array of famous and obscure musicians, bars, and clubs—and injecting the narrative with his own vivid memories of playing in such legendary places as Manhattan’s CBGB—Kaye brilliantly captures the ecstasy of what it was like to be there. . . . This memorable history is electrifying.” 
 -- 
Publishers Weekly 
(starred review)\n"An idiosyncratic, impassioned paean to rock ’n’ roll. . . . [Kaye has a] depth of historical knowledge that enables him to enumerate the sightings of the very phrase 
rock ’n’ roll. . . . The author engagingly chronicles his wide travels, visiting New Orleans, London, Memphis, and many other places in search of lost and otherwise magical chords. . . . If you’re a fan of rock music of whatever flavor, you 
need this book." -- 
Kirkus Reviews 
(starred review)\n“I first knew him as a writer. Then guitarist, lifelong friend, and collaborator. We have performed side-by-side on the global stage through half a century and shared his love of the evolution of our mutual vocation. In 
Lightning Striking, Lenny Kaye has 
 illuminated ten facets of the jewel called rock and roll from a uniquely personal and knowledgeable perspective. He draws from a lifetime of inspiration and experience. A youth plugging in his first electric guitar, a fan taking the dance floor, a propelling player, a humble guardian of history, and the writer I have always known him to be.” -- Patti Smith\n“ 
Lightning Striking is a true testimonial and epic love letter to the soul saving power of rock and roll. Lenny Kaye writes with a guitar player’s rhythm and the image-strewn fevered prose of a beat poet, sharing arcane knowledge of the joy of a true believer. Read it and be inspired, as I was.” -- Bobby Gillespie\n"Guitarist Lenny Kaye writes about various you-had-to-be-there music scenes that each had a transformative impact on rock and roll. . . . Kaye’s personal reminiscences about performing with Patti Smith are among the highlights. Part history, part memoir, 
Lightning Striking is a fat, fun homage to the glory days of rock and roll and is full of vivid and revealing memories and anecdotes." -- 
Booklist 
 About the Author 
Lenny Kaye is an American guitarist, composer, record producer, and writer, and is a

Lightning Striking: Ten Transformative Moments in Rock and Roll

Biographies & Memoirs

Kaye, Lenny

Arts & Literature

Ecco

“We have performed side-by-side on the global stage through half a century…. In Lightning Striking, Lenny Kaye has illuminated ten facets of the jewel called rock and roll from a uniquely personal and knowledgeable perspective.” 
–Patti Smith 
An insider’s take on the evolution and enduring legacy of the music that rocked the twentieth century 
Memphis 1954. New Orleans 1957. Philadelphia 1959. Liverpool 1962. San Francisco 1967. Detroit 1969. New York, 1975. London 1977. Los Angeles 1984 / Norway 1993. Seattle 1991. 
Rock and roll was birthed in basements and garages, radio stations and dance halls, in cities where unexpected gatherings of artists and audience changed and charged the way music is heard and celebrated, capturing lightning in a bottle. Musician and writer Lenny Kaye explores ten crossroads of time and place that define rock and roll, its unforgettable flashpoints, characters, and visionaries; how each generation came to be; how it was discovered by the world. Whether describing Elvis Presley’s Memphis, the Beatles’ Liverpool, Patti Smith’s New York, or Kurt Cobain’s Seattle, Lightning Striking reveals the communal energy that creates a scene, a guided tour inside style and performance, to see who’s on stage, along with the movers and shakers, the hustlers and hangers-on--and why everybody is listening. 
Grandly sweeping and minutely detailed, informed by Kaye’s acclaimed knowledge and experience as a working musician, Lightning Striking is an ear-opening insight into our shared musical and cultural history, a magic carpet ride of rock and roll’s most influential movements and moments.

Humor & Entertainment

Waylon: An Autobiography

Waylon Jennings relates the story of his life as a country music star. His beginnings were poor but he became Buddy Holly's protege before sinking into drug abuse and 3 failed marriages. His success came when he met his present wife, Jessi Colter.

Jennings, Waylon

WARNER BOOKS

Crosby, Vallee, Columbo. They are their own trinity. Bing is the universal dad. Rudy the misbehaving son. That leaves Russ. The holy ghost. New York, 1931: The curtain falls on the Ziegfeld Follies, a victim of the rising popularity of talking pictures; Rudy Vallee, radio’s wildly popular “Vagabond Lover,” worries that increasingly sophisticated microphones and Hollywood-minted heartthrobs will make his megaphone-amplified vocals passé; a pugnacious, hard-drinking baritone named Bing Crosby cleans up his act, preparing to take America by storm on CBS radio; and handsome twenty-three-year-old Russ Columbo, a former violinist dating a Ziegfeld girl, makes his debut on NBC radio. In an America poised to take its dominant place on the world stage, the Crooner points the way forward. With his heated core of sex appeal wrapped in well-tailored layers of cool distance and cigarette smoke, the Crooner brings something new to the country’s self-image: this is no Yankee-Doodle Dandy, but a suave and seductive figure, sophisticated as any European, flush with youthful strength and energy. It’s all there in his voice, his croon: a soft, intimate, sensual form of singing that combines jazz sensibilities with the smooth and danceable rhythms of the Big Band sound and Swing. But who would embody the new archetype? Vallee crooned too soon. That left Crosby and Columbo to duel it out over the airwaves. Hailed as “The Romeo of Radio” and “The Valentino of Song,” romantically linked to actresses Pola Negri and Carole Lombard, Columbo is all but forgotten today, his limitless promise cut short in a tragic and controversial accident as he stood on the verge of winning the stardom that Crosby, his great rival, would soon achieve. In this impressionistic tour-de-force–a musical history combining the drama of a bestselling novel and a soundtrack from the Golden Age of Broadway and Hollywood–master musician and critic Lenny Kaye trains a spotlight on Columbo while crooning a love song to an earlier America–a pitch-perfect evocation of one of the most romantic, creatively exuberant periods of our past–an era whose influence still burns brightly in the music and popular culture of today.

You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon

Villard

Crosby, Vallee, Columbo. They are their own trinity. Bing is the universal dad. Rudy the misbehaving son. That leaves Russ. The holy ghost.New York, 1931: The curtain falls on the Ziegfeld Follies, a victim of the rising popularity of talking pictures; Rudy Vallee, radio’s wildly popular “Vagabond Lover,” worries that increasingly sophisticated microphones and Hollywood-minted heartthrobs will make his megaphone-amplified vocals passé; a pugnacious, hard-drinking baritone named Bing Crosby cleans up his act, preparing to take America by storm on CBS radio; and handsome twenty-three-year-old Russ Columbo, a former violinist dating a Ziegfeld girl, makes his debut on NBC radio.In an America poised to take its dominant place on the world stage, the Crooner points the way forward. With his heated core of sex appeal wrapped in well-tailored layers of cool distance and cigarette smoke, the Crooner brings something new to the country’s self-image: this is no Yankee-Doodle Dandy, but a suave and seductive figure, sophisticated as any European, flush with youthful strength and energy. It’s all there in his voice, his croon: a soft, intimate, sensual form of singing that combines jazz sensibilities with the smooth and danceable rhythms of the Big Band sound and Swing.But who would embody the new archetype? Vallee crooned too soon. That left Crosby and Columbo to duel it out over the airwaves. Hailed as “The Romeo of Radio” and “The Valentino of Song,” romantically linked to actresses Pola Negri and Carole Lombard, Columbo is all but forgotten today, his limitless promise cut short in a tragic and controversial accident as he stood on the verge of winning the stardom that Crosby, his great rival, would soon achieve.In this impressionistic tour-de-force–a musical history combining the drama of a bestselling novel and a soundtrack from the Golden Age of Broadway and Hollywood–master musician and critic Lenny Kaye trains a spotlight on Columbo while crooning a love song to an earlier America–a pitch-perfect evocation of one of the most romantic, creatively exuberant periods of our past–an era whose influence still burns brightly in the music and popular culture of today.From the Hardcover edition.

"The guitar and the dog, in order not to be separated from man, have submitted themselves with resignation to the worst alterations of size and appearance." Andres Segovia

Dangerous Curves: The Art of the Guitar

Arts & Photography

Kuronen, Darcy

Tremblay, Carl

Music

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The Grammy Award-winning country music singer traces his life and career, from his poor childhood to his battles with drugs and bankruptcy, his abortive early marriages, his relationships with other country music figures, and his budding television career. Simultaneous.

Hachette Audio

Equal parts outlaw, renegade, and legend, Waylon Jennings enjoyed a stellar music career for four decades and this no-holds-barred autobiography reveals the story of a man who infused conservative country music traditions with the energy of rock and roll to rewrite the rules of popular music in America. It chronicles all the chapters of Jennings’s incredible life, including his beginnings as a dirt-poor son of a farm laborer; his role as Buddy Holly’s protégé; his influential friendships with such luminaries as Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and George Jones; the stunning success ushered in by his platinum 1976 anthology album, Wanted: The Outlaws;the drug habit that nearly destroyed him; and his three failed marriages and the journey that lead him to Jessi Colter, the woman who would become his wife for 25 years. With anecdotes, portraits, and little-known facts about Jennings’s fellow country music stars, this book overflows with the honesty, true humor, and down-home charisma of an authentic honky-tonk hero.

Chicago Review Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kaye, Lenny. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kaye, Lenny

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kaye, Lenny. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Lightning Striking: Ten Transformative Moments in Rock and Roll

Lightning Striking: Ten Transformative Moments in Rock and Roll

Waylon: An Autobiography

You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon

You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon

Dangerous Curves: The Art of the Guitar

Waylon: An Autobiography

Waylon: An Autobiography