From journalist Peter Ames Carlin-the New York Times bestselling music biographer who chronicled the lives and careers of Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, the Beach Boys, and Paul Simon-Sonic Boom captures the rollicking story of the most successful record label in the history of rock and roll, Warner Bros Records, and the remarkable secret to its meteoric rise.
The roster of Warner Brothers Records and its subsidiary labels reads like the roster of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Prince, Van Halen, Madonna, Tom Petty, R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers, and dozens of others. But the most compelling figures in the Warner Bros. story are the sagacious Mo Ostin and the unlikely crew of hippies, eccentrics, and enlightened execs who were the first in the music business to read the generational writing on the wall in the mid-1960s. By recruiting...