Summer 2022

GONZO MEMOIRS WITH AN EXCELLENT ROCK AND ROLL ASSOCIATION One of 150 copies offered at $100, numbered and signed; this is copy 34, with an exceptionally fitting association, inscribed in the year of publication to The Doors manager and biographer Danny Sugerman: “For Danny Sugerman, Grateful for a fan like you. Best, Al Aronowitz, 11/30/81”. Aronowitz was one of the first professional journalists to cover rock music, developing lasting friendships, and enmities, with many of his stellar subjects, writing “in a smooth yet informal voice and frequently including himself in the story, an early proponent of the participatory style later called New Journalism” ( New York Times obituary). Fired by The New York Post in 1972, he fell on hard times, struggling with drug addiction and ending up on the streets. The present work represented an attempt to raise some funds, settle some scores, and revivify some old projects. This is notionally the third edition, following two photocopied editions totalling 23 copies, unnumbered and unsigned, distributed “for purposes central to the publication, distribution and promotion of this book”. A Rutgers journalism graduate, Aronowitz, joined The New York Post in the mid-50s. Commissioned in 1959 to produce a hatchet job on the Beats, he was instead beguiled by their sincerity, becoming close friends with Ginsberg and Kerouac, and posting a 12-part series on the movement. Kerouac biographer Gerald Nicosia identified Aronowitz as “one of the first to treat these people as serious American writers”. In the early 60s he began contributing long pieces on the pop business to the Saturday Evening Post , later providing the influential Pop Scene column for The New York Post . His greatest claim to fame was that he introduced the Beatles to Bob Dylan in 1964; “Never modest about his connections and influence, Mr Aronowitz noted that the meeting was pivotal. ‘The Beatles’ magic was in their sound, Bob’s magic was in his words. After they met, the Beatles’ words got grittier, and Bob invented folk-rock’”. In the present gathering his account of his efforts to introduce Mick – Jagger – to Miles – Davis – is worth the price of admission alone, if just for Aronowitz’s rendering of Jagger’s accent. The recipient of this copy, Danny Sugerman, was taken on by The Doors at the age of 13 to open mail and compile a scrapbook for them, and eventually became their manager. Sugerman also managed Iggy Pop for a brief period, which ended with both of them

in psychiatric hospitals as a result of their excesses, and was co-author of the Jim Morrison biography No One Gets Out Alive , also publishing his autobiography, the self-explanatorily titled Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess . Folio (282 × 207 mm). Original black morocco-textured coated cloth-covered drop-back box, front panel lettered in gilt. Colour-printed portrait title page, signed by the photographer, the author’s son, in gold fibre-tipped pen, in acetate sleeve as issued; contains 23 separate Xeroxed “chapters” stapled at the top left-hand corner. Box a little rubbed and with minor fraying at head of front joint, contents show some handling, but overall very good. £1,250 [154529] 5 ASPREY. Collection of reference works bound for Asprey. Various publishers, [c.1900–08] A very handsome set, uniformly bound for the luxury purveyors Asprey, bringing together various reference works with an Asprey “Reference Library” title page in each. 7 works, duodecimo. Later 20th-century green straight- grain morocco for Asprey, spines lettered in gilt, gilt rules to covers and turn-ins, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Bindings with minimal rubbing, lightly retouched, contents with light toning; an excellent set. £750 [153901]

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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk

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