Blood, Sweat, and My Rock 'n' Roll Years

On paper Steve Katzs career rivals anyones except the 1960s and 70s biggest stars: the Monterey Pop Festival with the legendary Blues Project, Woodstock with Blood, Sweat & Tears, and even producing rocks most celebrated speed addict, Lou Reed. There were world tours, and his rsum screams Hall of Fame it wont be long before BS&T are on that ballot. He has three Grammies (ten nominations), three Downbeat Readers Poll Awards, three gold records, one platinum record, and one quadruple platinum platter (the second Blood, Sweat & Tears album), not to mention three gold singles with BS&T. All together, hes sold close to 29 million records. He had affairs with famous female folk singers, made love to Jim Morrisons girlfriend Pam when Jim was drunk and abusive, partied with Elizabeth Taylor and Groucho Marx, dined with Rudolf Nureyev, conversed with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tennessee Williams, hung out with Andy Warhol, jammed with everyone from Mose Allison to Jimi Hendrix, and was told to get a haircut by both Mickey Spillane and Danny Thomas. But his memoir is more Portnoys Complaint than the lurid party-with-your-pants-down memoir that has become the norm for rock n roll books. Its an honest and personal account of a life at the edge of the spotlighta privileged vantage point that earned him a bit more objectivity and earnest outrage than a lot of his colleagues, who were too far into the scene to lay any honest witness to it. Set during the Greenwich Village folk/rock scene, the Sixties most celebrated venues and concerts, and behind closed doors on international tours and grueling studio sessions, this is the unlikely story of a rock star as nerd, nerd as rock star, a nice Jewish boy who got to sit at the cool kids table and score the hot chicks.