Stephen Akey’s A Guide To My Record Collection is a book about rock and roll written by a fan, not a critic. The result is one of the most enjoyable trips through rock and roll I’ve had in a long time. Akey picks out records that he’s grown attached to in one way or another. These aren’t his choices for the best rock albums of all time so much as they represent both his eclectic taste and his sincere love for the music. Meet the Beatles and the Jefferson Airplane’s Volunteers are among the familiar titles he discusses with a fresh perspective and with a wonderful sense of humor. Some of the humor is self-deprecating, as he laughs at his own tastes.
Because he is not a critic, Akey can hear wonderful moments in the music that scribes like Dave Marsh and Robert Christgau can’t; thus, he’s able to appreciate the beauty of Beatles’s lighter songs, such as “Not A Second Time” and their cover of Meredith Willson’s “Till There Was You,” as well as the work of discredited artists like the Lovin’ Spoonful and Jethro Tull. Akey may be the only rock fan who’s had the guts to defend Jethro Tull’s 1972 progressive album Thick as a Brick publicly and do so with a straight face. Not to mention delve into a New Wave group like the B-52s with similar appreciation or discuss late-period works from Pete Townshend or Randy Newman without irony.
Akey is having fun explaining these records, and he unearths records from forgotten bands like the Remains and the Feelies, getting the reader hooked with his descriptive prose and making the reader want to go out and find these LPs. Johnny and the Hurricanes? Who are they? You’ll know after reading this book. You’ll want to know.
Warning: Watch out for typographical errors, which I stopped counting because there were so many. Former Animals frontman Eric Burdon’s name is sometimes spelled “Burden,” and at one point Akey mentions having grown up in “Connecituct.” I would urge the reader not to be distracted by the typos – or the fact that he calls Laura (or “Laua” or “Lauro”) Nyro’s 1968 album Eli and the Thirteen Confessions (it’s actually called Eli and The Thirteenth Confession) because the writing is so good. Plus, it takes guts to exalt Vince Guaraldi’s score for the TV special “A Charlie Brown Christmas” while finding Madonna “uniquely depressing” for her “sleaze and slime.” That’s not a good way to make friends – especially among professional critics – but it’s a good way to get me to recommend a book I was already being entertained by.
Akey concludes with a personal and heartwarming recollection of former Blues Project member Danny Kalb, whom he knew personally. It serves to remind us how records from rockers of many persuasions and backgrounds can touch us – and that the best rock and roll music isn’t always made by critics’ darlings or Rock and Roll Hall of Fame laureates.
Reviewed by Steven Maginnis