Saturday, October 08, 2011

I Couldn't Finish It

Jerry Blavat was an iconic figure in 1960s radio in Philadelphia and around the country. The "Geator with the Heator" was a BIG NAME. His involvement in the growth of rock and roll radio was incredible. But...

One of the things I remembered about those days, colored by years, was that I never really cared for Blavat. Nothing personal. I just felt he was always over the top. I didn't know the word for it at the time. Today I would call it "narcissism."

But I still picked up his autobiography which was recently released. You Only Rock Once is his story. And it is HIS story, make no mistake about it. It was interesting, sort of. It was difficult to read, bogged down in Blavat's own high opinion he has of himself. I got about 150 pages into it's 350+ pages and couldn't continue.

"Was it about me?" I wondered. "Is that why I couldn't finish it? Old tapes playing?"

So I did a quick search for a review and found one on Kirkus Review. There I found the last two sentences that said the same thing:

...his narcissism, combined with his generally plodding prose style, saps much of the youthful energy of the early chapters.
Blavat has an excellent perspective on four decades of the music industry, though his remembrances too often drift into self-hagiography.
--Link

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