cover image Like a Rolling Stone: The Strange Life of a Tribute Band

Like a Rolling Stone: The Strange Life of a Tribute Band

Steven Kurutz, . . Broadway, $23.95 (214pp) ISBN 978-0-385-51890-1

In the spring of 2005, freelance writer Kurutz began a year of hanging out with tribute bands, a type of cover group he rates “somewhere between lounge and wedding singers” that is dedicated to replicating the music, sound and appearance of a more famous act. Kurutz dates the tribute phenomenon to the 1977 Broadway play Beatlemania and explores a still thriving musical subculture by chronicling the personnel and fortunes of Sticky Fingers and the Blushing Brides, two rival Rolling Stones imitators with decades of experience. Kurutz gets an insider's view of the groups' efforts to balance their limited resources, personal lives and the road pressures of performing at casinos, frat houses and out-of-the-way bars against the real joys of playing rock and roll and pretending to be rock superstars. From exaggerated accents and remarkable libraries of bootleg tapes to descriptions of the “Keithiest” Keith Richards (Kurutz writes, “I had assumed it was impossible to recreate the withered visage of Keith Richards”), this curious debut convincingly captures the bands' histories and successes, the players' conceits and stresses. While a lack of urgency causes the narrative to stall at times, Kurutz does bring to his book energy and insight. (Apr.)