| DOCS THAT ROCK, MUSIC THAT MATTERS Harvey Kubernik  Otherworld Cottage Industries, 2020, 520 pp. The hugely prolific Harvey Kubernick LA scenester and rock and pop historian extraordinaire turns his all seeing eye to the history, evolution and aesthetics of the rock and pop documentary in this his latest highly detailed and immaculately researched volume. Arriving as something of a companion piece to Hollywood Shack Job: Music In Film And On Your Screen and methodically piecing together a multitude of writings and interviews with directors, filmmakers, producers and musicians drawn from Kubernik’s vast personal archive Docs That Rock, Music That Matters offers the reader a multi-faceted, fact crammed insider view of a selection of the most significant popular music documentaries and TV shows from the ‘60s onwards. Thus Kubernik’s widescreen coverage takes us all the way from pioneering TV shows Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, Shindig!, Shebang!, Upbeat, Ready Steady Go! and Elvis ’68 Comeback Special through the work of key independent documentary filmmakers D.A Pennebaker (Don’t Look Back, Monterey Pop, Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars), Murray Lerner, (Festival, Message To Love) and the Maysles Brothers (Gimme Shelter), who |
 between them effectively set the standard and drafted the blueprint of the classic rock and pop documentary to the more recent boom in the genre which has seen the release of a succession of outstanding titles on a diverse range of subjects covering everything from the Funk Brothers Standing In The Shadows Of Motown), the Brill Building songwriters (20 Feet From Stardom) and Tower Records (All Things Must Pass) among a host of others way too many to mention here. Grahame Bent |
