cover image A Cure for Gravity: A Musical Pilgrimage

A Cure for Gravity: A Musical Pilgrimage

Joe Jackson. PublicAffairs, $24 (304pp) ISBN 978-1-891620-50-8

To the credit of popular 1980s British singer/composer Jackson (""Is She Really Going Out with Him?"" ""Steppin' Out""), there is little melodrama to this book--his hit recordings, beginning with Look Sharp in 1979, receive only brief mention in the final chapters. Instead, Jackson presents a portrait of the artist as a young geek, detailing the quiet undulations of his life as an intensely introspective, gifted musician growing up outside of London, studying at conservatory and touring around in much derided bar bands. We see the 14-year-old Jackson obsessing over Beethoven's Eroica symphony (""As the fanfare comes to a halt, there's a pregnant pause: What's this lunatic going to do now?""); we see him on his way to the Royal Academy of Music (""As the ferry docked, the workers poured like a sluggish plague of locusts through the Dockyard Gate, and I boarded the London train""); and we see him pouring beer on drunk women during bar fights in obscure locations. Fellow musicians, no matter their chosen genre, may see themselves in Jackson's accounts of pathetic pub gigs and unpleasant music industry dealings. Jackson is an easy, natural writer, sometimes an excellent one. He is often funny, and though a bit digressive, the book is worth reading for its style alone. (Oct.)