Text and Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll

Texts and Drugs and Rock'n'Roll considers the myriad ways in which two different artistic worlds found common ground in the final third of the 20th century. The rock musicians who came to the fore at the heart of the 1960s and a radical community of writers who had originally made their mark in the 1950s forged friendships and alliances that would challenge the traditional divide between popular music and the realm of the literary. The period would witness the two greatest musical acts of the day - the Beatles in the UK and Bob Dylan in the US - developing associations with various leading names from the Beat community: initially with its most voluble figurehead Allen Ginsberg and later with novelist William Burroughs, poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Michael McClure and others. A host of key acts who would emerge in the later 1960s and beyond - from the Doors to the Velvet Underground, David Bowie to Patti Smith, the Clash to Tom Waits, U2 to Nirvana - would follow in the footsteps of Lennon, McCartney and Dylan and demonstrate a similar inclination to acknowledge and maintain a connection to this literary community, and a number of the Beat writers would also continue to participate in this relationship with enthusiasm. In this expansive and multi-faceted study, pop scholar Simon Warner endeavours to understand why this connection was forged and how it managed to survived the vicissitudes of cultural - and sub-cultural - change at a time when society's motors accelerated at an extraordinary pace. The book includes portraits of some of significant yet less celebrated players in the Beat-rock story, such as poet David Meltzer - the first Beat to meet Dylan - Steven Taylor, Ginsberg's guitarist and Fugs member for decades, poet rocker Jim Carroll and British musician and artist Genesis P-Orridge who enjoyed a long-term association with Burroughs. There are also extended interviews with some seminal Beat characters, along with obituaries, conversations, and a series of Q&As with a string of individuals with close connections to the Beat-rock crossover.