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Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968
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About Astral Weeks: A Secret History Of 1968
Product Description A mind-expanding dive into a lost chapter of 1968, featuring the famous and forgotten: Van Morrison, folkie-turned-cult-leader Mel Lyman, Timothy Leary, James Brown, and many more Van Morrison's Astral Weeks is an iconic rock album shrouded in legend, a masterpiece that has touched generations of listeners and influenced everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Martin Scorsese. In his first book, acclaimed musician and journalist Ryan H. Walsh unearths the album's fascinating backstory--along with the untold secrets of the time and place that birthed it: Boston 1968. On the 50th anniversary of that tumultuous year, Walsh's book follows a criss-crossing cast of musicians and visionaries, artists and hippie entrepreneurs, from a young Tufts English professor who walks into a job as a host for TV's wildest show (one episode required two sets, each tuned to a different channel) to the mystically inclined owner of radio station WBCN, who believed he was the reincarnation of a scientist from Atlantis. Most penetratingly powerful of all is Mel Lyman, the folk-music star who decided he was God, then controlled the lives of his many followers via acid, astrology, and an underground newspaper called Avatar. A mesmerizing group of boldface names pops to life in Astral Weeks: James Brown quells tensions the night after Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated; the real-life crimes of the Boston Strangler come to the movie screen via Tony Curtis; Howard Zinn testifies for Avatar in the courtroom. From life-changing concerts and chilling crimes, to acid experiments and film shoots, Astral Weeks is the secret, wild history of a unique time and place. One of LitHub's 15 Books You Should Read This March Review “One of the finest books written about Boston. . . . Walsh weaves the stories of luminaries who had crucial experiences in Boston—Morrison, Lou Reed, Timothy Leary, James Brown—around the forgotten and often astonishing history of the city when it was old, weird, and grimy.”— Boston Magazine “ Astral Weeks unearths the time and place behind the music. . . . A book full of discoveries. . . . A fantastic chronicle.”— Rolling Stone “Many a writer has aimed to unlock the mystery of Van Morrison’s abstract, early masterpiece, Astral Weeks. But no one before Ryan Walsh thought to center the investigation in the time and place of the album’s inspiration: Boston’s teeming music scene in 1968. . . . The result must be read to be believed.”— Billboard “Ryan H. Walsh’s new book, Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, takes up Morrison’s sui-generis masterpiece and unearths the largely forgotten context from which it emerged. . . . In documenting the milieu out of which the album came, Walsh also argues for Boston as an underappreciated hub of late-sixties radicalism, artistic invention, and social experimentation. The result is a complex, inquisitive, and satisfying book that illuminates and explicates the origins of Astral Weeks without diminishing the album’s otherworldly aura.”— Jon Michaud, NewYorker.com “Wonderfully oddball.”— Janet Maslin, The New York Times Book Review “ Astral Weeks is a brilliant, beautiful tribute to a long-lost era of free-form radio, communal living, underground newspapers, burgeoning musical scenes in their pristine form before being captured by the ‘star making machinery,’ and the birth of a visionary album by a 22-year-old Irish singer/songwriter that remains terrifying in its untouched beauty. . . . This book is a masterful end result of research, patience, and love for a time and sensibility sorely missing today.”— PopMatters “Walsh describes Boston as ‘the true birthplace of American hallucinogenic culture.’ By the end of his colorful, highly illuminating history of the city's late-60s freak scene, it’s hard to argue. . . . Astral Weeks is a book worthy of the name.”— Uncut “A ‘secret history’ of a proud old city caught in the throes of cultural hysteria. . . . Walsh’s book recr
