To say that John Hammond lived in interesting times would be an understatement: born into American nobility in the second decade of the last century he championed civil rights in the US for all his adult life with a decades' long association with the NAACP and through his love of American music (jazz firstly, then folk and blues). It's as a producer and "discoverer" of talent that he's probably best known however: Count Basie, Charlie Christian, Billie Holliday, Lionel Hampton, Aretha Franklin, Dylan, Cohen, Springsteen, George Benson and Stevie Ray Vaughan were among the artists and musicians whose talents he nourished and encouraged. There's a fascintating story to be told about him. Unfortunately, Dunstan Prial's book is not it.

Prial writes well and easily and he keeps the story moving along at a clip. However, he offers little more than a shallow overview of Hammond and though he continually refers to important events he rarely sheds light on them. By the end of the book while we've learned a lot about the events in Hammond's life we have learned very little about Hammond himself: he remains at a remove.

Prial has done fairly decent but not extensive research and his sources (listed at the end of the book) betray this. Too few sources are used for too much of the book. While Prial was obviously not trying to write an academic tome weighed down with footnotes and references his conversational style is too light for a subject that he thinks is very important, one that deserves an insightful and detailed book.

It's a quick but frustrating read. If you were aware of Hammond already most of what you read will be already known to you; if you've never heard of him I'm not sure why you'd want to read about him other than to learn the list of artists with whom he was involved.

I really wanted to like the book, but it's a disappointing read.

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