2023: book twenty-four. #2023books #noxp #nonfiction #hardback #bookstodon #biography #thebeatles #bobspitz #music

I'm finally reading Bob Spitz's Led Zeppelin biography and it is, to put it charitably, not as successful as his Beatles bio. Aside from getting some major dates and details wrong, as I flip through the endnotes, it appears that he never sought out an interview with Jimmy Page. And while this is a somewhat smarter version of the infamous HAMMER OF THE GODS, Spitz comes across as a man scouring people who were dropped along the way for dirty laundry. Look, there's no gainsaying the fact that Led Zeppelin engaged in some creepy and abusive behavior. But the difference between a journalist and a tawdry biographer is that the former will ALWAYS go out of his way to get the primary sources on record. I'm beginning to think that Spitz is more of a Kitty Kelley/Albert Goldman type who cares more about scandal and controversy than nuts and bolts scholarship. What a missed opportunity!

#bobspitz #ledzeppelin #journalism #biography