'Bumping Into Geniuses' by Danny Goldberg
BOOK REVIEW
"THE WAY to get rich," Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder of Atlantic Records, once said, "is to keep walking around until you bump into a genius, and when you do, hold on and don't let go."
Danny Goldberg offers an addendum to this formula: "Of course, no genius is likely to let you hold on very long if you don't have anything to offer them."
His memoir, "Bumping Into Geniuses: My Life Inside the Rock and Roll Business," provides an insightful behind-the-scenes view of the music industry from 1969 through 2004.
"I could never have gotten anywhere in the business," Goldberg writes, "if I had not been a rock and roll fan first. . . . Rock was a way for a nerd like me to connect with regular kids while still maintaining my own identity.
"If a stud like Mick Jagger could complain that he could get 'no satisfaction,' it meant that it was okay if I didn't. If John Lennon could sing 'In My Life,' it was safe to express emotion. If a genius like Bob Dylan could feel betrayed by a friend as expressed in 'Positively 4th Street,' it meant that I was not a loser. . . . To listen to these records was like coming indoors out of the freezing cold and holding my numb fingers near the radiator, feeling at the same time both pain and relief."
The turning point came when Goldberg met Led Zeppelin in 1973. Doing public relations for them, he realized he could establish his own identity in the music industry.
This agenda affected his perception: "Like most of the people around them, I internalized defiant reverence for the band. After my first month on the road with them, I had come to feel that anyone who didn't appreciate Led Zeppelin was an idiot."
Even as Goldberg evolved from a PR guy into a rock executive, he remained a devoted fan. When he met Stevie Nicks, she was, he tells us, "at her defining moment as a rock icon, and . . . I was besotted. In the way a fan is besotted."
Their professional relationship was as symbiotic as her duet with Tom Petty on "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," which became a No. 1 hit.
When Bonnie Raitt's career was in commercial decline, Goldberg felt that "if I couldn't find a way to help get Bonnie's career on track, my own career would be meaningless." By virtue of her talent and his dedication, she won four Grammys in a single night.
