Rebel Heart: An American Rock 'n' Roll Journey

Rebel Heart: An American Rock 'n' Roll Journey
by Bebe Buell, Victor Bockris

Rebel Heart: An American Rock 'n' Roll Journey
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Book Summary Information

Author: Bebe Buell, Victor Bockris
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-07-19
ISBN: 0312301553
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Book Reviews of Rebel Heart: An American Rock 'n' Roll Journey

Book Review: If you've even vaguely considered reading Rebel Heart - do
Summary: 5 Stars

Right from the fabulous incidental anecdote about a 'pimp' who approachs a teenage Bebe on the street (and turns out to be Jimi Hendrix) that begins this book, it's obvious that Rebel Heart is a page-turner full of tales that will put Bebe Buell firmly on your 'dream dinner party guests' wish list. As soon as I began Rebel Heart I knew I would be retelling these stories to friends and that this was a book I couldn't put down. It's at least as addictively entertaining as Please Kill Me (the source through which I first became a fan of Bebe's) but as an autobiography it's inevitably more cohesive and less exhausting than the oral history of PKM and has all the qualities of a good 'girlfriend' of a book to curl up with.
More than a mere collection of stories about Bebe and her rock star commrades like Mick and Keith,Todd and Steven,and even Patti Smith, Rebel Heart is a document of the impassioned alternative lifestyle the true rock and roll lover is compelled to pursue and the obstacles (from both outsiders and insiders - like the double standards of some liberated male rockers when it comes to women) that go along with that. It may have it-girl credentials, but this book also has a raw, vulnerable heart that knows loss and yearning, real heart-break and awkwardness, as doucmented by Bebe in a blistering,poignant account of her time as Elvis Costello's muse, of a kind tabloid gossip columists could never have comprehended - let alone hinted at - at the time.
Some people have characterised this book as being about sex but I don't think that's the focus at all. Sexual tension pulsates through the narrative just as it does in many a movie and in rock and roll music itself, but this biography seems to document the struggle for, and stylish execution of, true 'selfhood' that goes against the grain.
Bebe definitely transports the reader, with the kind of details and sparky writing style that quickly place you in her world. Her life experiences as a girl-about-town, a disobedient model who used the profession as a ticket out of Virginia and into Max's Kansas City (anotehr favourite incidental detail of mine is the image of a young Bebe upsetting her mother by stomping around the house singing 'we've got to get out of this place'), a rock singer and a mother. Rebel Heart has everything you hoped it would offer but far more than you could have guessed. A captivating memoir that clearly *had* to be written, Rebel Heart is also the most fun you'll have reading autobiography anywhere this side of it's sequel.

Summary of Rebel Heart: An American Rock 'n' Roll Journey

Rebel Heart is Bebe Buell's no-holds-barred account of her life at the center of the rock scene in the '70s and '80s, when rock stars were royalty. A wild child model who took New York by storm, Buell captivated a generation of rock's greatest talents. Her relationships with musicians like wunderkind Todd Rundgren, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler--father of her daughter Liv-Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page and Elvis Costello played out against a backdrop of some of the most legendary locales of the era: Max's Kansas City and CBGBs in New York, the "Riot House" in Los Angeles and Tramps in London.

Bebe's spirit informed some of the greatest songs of her time, and her book is bursting with the stories she was a part of, the fun she had, and the music she helped make.

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