"Not Fade Away: A Backstage Pass To 20 Years In Rock & Roll"
By Ben Fong-Torres
(Miller Freeman Books)
Ben Fong-Torres got his big start in the writing business when he began working for a new music magazine called Rolling Stone in 1969. As a writer for the Stone, Fong-Torres found the world opening up for him like a flower in warm summer rain. It was all about access and deadlines for Ben as he jumped from local heroes to music superstars to film celebrities with confident, journalistic fervor. A native San Franciscan, Fong-Torres was one of the staff writers who refused to move to New York City when Rolling Stone moved there in 1977. While he gamely maintained the magazine's West Coast office until its closing and continued to do fine and important work, his best days in rock journalism were prior to this sad, inevitable occurrence.
"Not Fade Away" is a collection of Fong-Torres' more memorable works from his period with Rolling Stone, as well as some profiles taken from the San Francisco Chronicle and a couple of other glossy magazines like GQ. If you actually read Rolling Stone during the seventies, you undoubtably came across a few classic stories by Mr. Ben Fong-Torres. Of course, rock journalism was still in its adolescence when he wrote insightful profiles on the likes of Sly Stone, Ike & Tina Turner, Ray Charles and Marvin Gaye but in spite of his youthful naiveté and star-struck demeanor, BF-T did an admirable job that influenced many a future rockscribe.
While hindsight allows us to see the insubstantial fluff behind his short but intimate piece on Janis Joplin in 1970, Fong-Torres always gave his readers news on the people they were interested in. His reports on San Francisco legends like Santana and the Grateful Dead were both familiar and (somewhat) investigative. Naturally, people like Annie Leibowitz made many of Ben's stories more memorable by virtue of their accompanying photographs. Ms. Leibowitz's from- behind shot of Linda Ronstadt in a short red camisole helped cement the singer's image as an inveterate sexpot, an image that Fong-Torres' drooling profile did not discourage. By inserting contemporary introductions and epilogues to his old stories, Fong-Torres provides a bit of nostalgic perspective to his work. He also discusses the murder of his brother Barry, brags/apologizes about his womanizing and generally marvels at the incredible life he once led.
Stories on the post-Beatle Beatles (George Harrison and Paul McCartney) and The Rolling Stones offered insights at the time, but ultimately serve to remind us how important it once was to write about these musicians. Besides the big rock acts, Fong-Torres interviewed film and comedy personalities like Diane Keaton (yes, he drooled again), Eddie Murphy, Steve Martin and Tom Hanks. He was also the closet pop-meister of the Stone staff as he eagerly drew assignments on Three Dog Night, Neil Diamond and The Jackson Five. To be fair, Ben Fong-Torres always did his job with dedication and professionalism. Still, this collection is merely a decent batch of celebrity journalism from days gone by. Nothing less and unfortunately, not much more.
by Mitch Myers
copyright 1999 New City Communications, Inc.