ROUGH MIX by Jimmy Bowen (with Jim Jerome)

Finished Su 7/7/13

 My post on Good Reads-

 From a teenaged rock 'n' roll star in the 50's to a legendary Nashville producer in the 90's, Jimmy Bowen tells it all, and doesn't waste much time making himself appear 'well liked'. However, he never comes across as arrogant,  but only as a perceptive man who has an instinctive and comprehensive knowledge of the Music Business.

   ROUGH MIX documents the career of a musician and record producer who has played a part in nearly all facets of the music industry, and he offers his unique musical perspective in entertaining detail.  It's not a 'tell all' book about personalities, but delivers only one man's unvarnished point of view. I find the music of Las Vegas almost unlistenable, and Country-Pop is not even close to my favorite genre, but I did enjoy ROUGH MIX. In the end, it's more about the man than the music, and well worth a look.

   Bowen and some high school friends had a minor hit in the late fifties and toured with Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, and many other early icons of rock. And, when a crooked record label ended this part of his musical career, he was able to get involved in the management side of the industry. Soon, he found himself guiding the musical professions of many entertainment superstars in glitzy Las Vegas. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. were all helped by Bowen to update their sound employing his extraordinary knowledge of America's pop market. Following many smash hits for these artists, he ran a series of record labels with varying degrees of success, until he found himself in Nashville, down but not out.

   This is the part of the book that I enjoyed the most. When Jimmy Bowen arrived in Nashville in the early 70's, the country western scene was decades behind the pop market in quality of sound. Rock audiences enjoyed the benefit of top flight session musicians and state of the art recording studios, yet 'Old Guard' Nashville producers felt that because their management techniques worked in 1950, they would continue to be successful nearly twenty-five years later. Obviously they could not have been more wrong, and Bowen shows how he proved this seemingly obvious fact, and went on to become the 'Messiah of Music Row'.

 Bowen wins and loses many fortunes, countless homes, and a handful of wives, and finally seems to have found peace with his Texan soul mate, Ginger, on the Hawaiian island of Maui. And, the game of golf plays is an important factor in Bowen's 'guide to happiness'.