Stanley Booth

Stanley Booth (born January 5, 1942 in Waycross, Georgia) is an American music journalist. Booth has written extensively about important music figures, including Keith Richards, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, James Brown, Elvis Presley, Gram Parsons, B.B. King, and Al Green. He chronicled his travels with the Rolling Stones in several of his works.

After going to college at what was then Memphis State University (now University of Memphis) in the early 1960s, Booth began his music journalism career with articles on Memphis musicians like Furry Lewis and Otis Redding, the latter of whom Stanley witnessed writing the famous song "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" with Steve Cropper at Stax studios on the Friday before Redding's death. He was present for and wrote about the infamous 1969 Rolling Stones concert in Altamont, California, at which a concertgoer was murdered by a member of the Hells' Angels motorcycle gang. In addition to writing books, Booth has also published music articles in Rolling Stone, Esquire, GQ, and Playboy and appeared in many documentaries, not only on Southern music and the Rolling Stones, but Tom Thurman's Movies of Color and Peckinpah. Booth now lives south of Savannah with his wife, the poet Diann Blakely, and is finishing the successor to Rhythm Oil, currently entitled Blues Dues, as well as working on a memoir, Tree Full of Owls.

Selected works

• Furry's Blues, 1970
• Dance with the Devil: The Rolling Stones and Their Times, 1984
• 'The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones (note: Dance with the Devil, reprinted with minor revisions), 2000
• Rhythm Oil: A Journey Through the Music of the American South, 1991
• Keith: Till I Roll Over Dead, 1994
• Keith, 1995
• Keith: Standing in the Shadows, 1996

Articles and Essays

• "Blues Dues," by Stanley Booth (Blues For Peace)
• "Sharps and Flats: Various Artists - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: Music From and Inspired by the Motion Picture." Salon. November 21, 1997.
• "Memphis and the Beale Street Blues". Gadfly. May 1998.
• "Bobby Rush: A Blues Access Interview". Blues Access. Summer 1998.
• "Crying in the Wilderness". Gadfly. December 1998.
• "Unanointed, Unannealed". Chapter 16. January 20, 2011.
• "Bea Shall Overcome: The Unexpurgated Version". Option. May 18, 2011.

Interviews

• Interview with Booth at The Gram Parsons Project
• Interview with Booth at Perfect Sound Forever Presents Gram Parsons
• "Unpublished Interview with Writer Stanley Booth (December 2000)" at High Frequencies

External links

• Furry's Blues.- Playboy 17 #4 (1970), p. 100-02, 104, 114, 193-94 (pdf 4,5 MB)
• James Calernine on Booth
• Dwight Garner/Robert Stone, "Save These Books!"/The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones. Salon. December 4, 1997.
• Diann Blakely, "Getting Respectable." Nashville Scene. March 29, 2001.
• Dave Bry, "Very Recent History: A Dispiriting End To An Earlier Decade." The Awl. December 4, 2009.
• Michael Murray, "'(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction,' 45 Years Later." ABC News. May 6, 2010.
• Reed Johnson, "An Appreciation: Dennis Hopper was a man of his times." Los Angeles Times. June 6, 2010.
• Ethan Russell, "Music, Words & Photography: 'Exiles' in Paris -- Whole Lotta Rolling Stones." Huffington Post. September 24, 2010.
• David L. Ulin, "Book Review: 'Life by Keith Richards." Los Angeles Times. October 28, 2010.
• Zoe Heller, "Mick Without Moss." The New York Times. December 3, 2010.
• Dan Chiasson, "High on the Stones." The New York Review of Books. March 10, 2011.
• Greil Marcus, "Heart of Stone." Los Angeles Review of Books. May 5, 2011.
• "Second Read: Ted Conover on Stanley Booth's The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones". Columbia University Press blog. November 4, 2011.
• Gimme Shelter (1970) - The Criterion Collection
• Biography: The Rolling Stones
• wordIQ.com: The Rolling Stones - Definition