a list of music history + biography, focused on 60s and 70s rock and pop but with occasional other genres and scenes. suggestions welcome!
created by shaddie
last updated June, 2026
The Beatles: The Biography
Bob Spitz
Love for Sale: Pop Music in America
David Hajdu
But Will You Love Me Tomorrow?: An Oral History of the ’60s Girl Groups
Laura Flam
Laurel Canyon
Michael Walker
Love and Let Die: James Bond, The Beatles, and the British Psyche
John Higgs
Ready, Steady, Go! The Smashing Rise and Giddy Fall of Swinging London
Shawn Levy
No One Here Gets Out Alive
Jerry Hopkins
Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina
Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story
Chuck Klosterman
The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce
Fred Goodman
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991
Michael Azerrad
Testimony
Robbie Robertson
The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones
Stanley Booth
Out of the Vinyl Deeps: On Rock Music
Ellen Willis
This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band
Levon Helm
1971 Never A Dull Moment
David Hepworth
'scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky
David Henderson
John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs
Ian Leslie
A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance
Hanif Abdurraqib
Lou Reed: The King of New York
Will Hermes
Just Kids
Patti Smith
The Uncool: A Memoir
Cameron Crowe
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung
Lester Bangs
Blues People: Negro Music in White America
Amiri Baraka
Born to Run
Bruce Springsteen
Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon - and the Journey of a Generation
Sheila Weller
I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie
Pamela Des Barres
Totally Wired: The Rise and Fall of the Music Press
Paul Gorman
Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine
Joe Hagan
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk
Legs McNeil
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