Men of a Certain Age: My Encounters with Rock Royalty

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

From Jeff Beck to Wilko Johnson, Ray Davies to Tom Jones and Kevin Ayers to Roger Taylor, Kate Mossman has long fostered an obsession with male musicians of a certain age. Over fifteen years of music writing, she has developed an alarming overconcern with this powerful archetype, and she has finally decided to figure out what is behind it.

'The signs were there all along: a seven-year infatuation with the drummer from Queen in childhood; a lone, 5000-mile journey to see Glen Campbell in his dotage; later-life lover affairs with Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Beck. I want to investigate the pull of a nearly extinct species, those boys in grey flannel shorts, born between 1940 and 1960, who watched Yuri Gagarin float into space, built their first guitars and became the golden gods - the lunatics, nerds and prophets that made rock 'n' roll.

Men of a Certain Age is part meditation, part memoir: why is it that when I am in the presence of a male musician of a certain age, I feel something ignite inside me What is this strange connection - to feel so excited, yet so at ease Why do they get under my skin How do I get under theirs What is it that I'm identifying with And how on earth is it that in the presence of a wrinkly male rock star twice my age, I sometimes feel like I'm meeting... me'

Reviews

'Kate invariably notices something about her chosen subjects that 99 per cent of writers, who have been covering them for decades, miss entirely. This collection of her encounters with music's lifers abounds with such observations, proving once more that the thing we really want to do with rock stars is get close and have a damned good look at them' -- David Hepworth
'The greatest music writers compel you to understand the world as they are fated to understand it, along the way breathing new life to the records that shaped that world. If Kate Mossman's name is on it, then I want to read it. Simple as that' -- Pete Paphides
'My favourite writer and interviewer, bar none. Whirligig, funny, incisive, often brutally honest - always surprising - but also tender and humane. She's a genius!' -- Jude Rogers

Author Bio

Kate Mossman is a writer, presenter and broadcaster who has been writing extensively about music and musicians since she started her career working with Mark Ellen and David Hepworth at Word magazine in 2008.

She is the writer and presenter of BBC4 documentaries Girl in A Band (2016), When Pop Ruled My Life (2015) and The Women Who Wrote Rock for Radio 4.

She currently writes for Guardian, Observer and is arts editor for the New Statesman. She lives in London.

Men of a Certain Age is Kate's long-anticipated debut book.