Becoming Elektra

The True Story of Jac Holzman's Visionary Record Label (Revised & Expanded Edition)

Mick Houghton

• Publisher: Jawbone Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781911036043
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music History & Criticism

Becoming Elektra tells the incredible true story of the pioneering Elektra Records label and its farsighted founder, Jac Holzman, who built a small folk imprint into a home for some of the most groundbreaking, important, and enduring music of the rock era.

Placing the Elektra label in a broader context, the book presents a gripping narrative of musical and cultural history that reads like an inventory of all that is exciting and innovative about the 60s and 70s: The Doors, Love's Forever Changes, Tim Buckley's Goodbye & Hello, The Stooges, The MC5's Kick Out The Jams, Queen and Queen II, The Incredible String Band, Carly Simon's No Secrets, and many, many more.

First published in 2010, Becoming Elektra was praised as 'eyeopening' ( Q ) and a 'dazzling narrative' ( The Sun ), and for 'perfectly encapsulating the enigmatic, unpredictable spirit' of the label ( Record Collector ). This fully revised and expanded edition includes a brand new foreword by John Densmore of The Doors and draws on extensive new interviews with a wide range of Elektra alumni, including Tom Paley, Judy Henske, Johnny Echols, Jean Ritchie, and Bernie Krause, as well as further conversations with Holzman himself. It also adds two new chapters: a look at Elektra in Britain in the 60s and a reappraisal of the label's 70s output.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Foreword by John Densmore
• Introduction by Mick Houghton
• 1 Da Capo
• 2 New Songs
• 3 O Love Is Teasin’
• 4 Folk Song & Ballad
• 5 Dueling Banjos
• 6 When Maidens Lost Their Heads
• 7 Spirituals & Blues
• 8 Those Were The Days
• 9 Folk Songs From Just About Everywhere
• 10 Where I’m Bound
• 11 High Flying Bird
• 12 All The News That’s Fit To Sing
• 13 Blues, Rags & Hollers
• 14 Quality Recordings At The Price Of A Quality Paperback
• 15 East-West
• 16 Maybe The People Should Be The Times
• 17 Extracts From A Continuous Performance
• 18 Take A Journey To The Bright Midnight
• 19 Happy Sad
• 20 Accept No Substitute
• 21 Down On The Street
• 22 Anticipation
• 23 Goodbye & Hello
• Afterword by Jac Holzman
• Appendix 1: A 70s Miscellany
• Appendix 2: Elektra 1973–2016
• Appendix 3: Discography by Andy Finney
• Illustrations
• Bibliography & Sources
• About The Author