Who could resist Keith Richards's 2010 autobiography Life--that candid voice from the man who for 10 years was number one on a "rock star most likely to die" list? Like many, journalist and longtime Rolling Stones acolyte Rich Cohen (The Fish That Ate the Whale; Monsters) holds Keith in special reverence. The Sun & the Moon & the Rolling Stones is his history of "the world's greatest rock and roll band"; it's also a memoir of a rock 'n' roll life that began at Cohen's birth in 1968 just as the Stones were hitting the top of their game. When Rolling Stone magazine assigned him to report on the 1994 Voodoo Lounge tour, he jumped at the chance: "It was akin to my childhood dream of running off with the circus... I was at the center of the best party in the world."
The tour is background to a thoroughly researched, funny and personal story of what Cohen calls "a revolution with ten hands, four chords, and a groove... not a band--a gang, a pack of junkyard dogs." Their obsession with African-American blues created a new basis for rock where "every guitar lick should have a hint of Chuck Berry, as every martini should have a hint of vermouth." Cohen covers it all--the music, the drugs, the bickering, the tours, the busts, the women, the tax dodging, the tragedy of Altamont. However, this is also Cohen's life. He might not have the gnarly voice of Richards, but Cohen is equally entertaining--and probably more accurate. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.