Greatest Hits

Laura Barnett

Drugs, groupies, creative differences, breakups and breakdowns - it's all laid bare in this fictional biography of a reclusive singer/songwriter. Cass Wheeler is all my favourite female artists rolled into one: ambitious and gutsy but with a childlike vulnerability. I can neither hold a tune or a guitar, but this book let me live the Rock 'n' Roll lifestyle. A companion CD by musician Kathryn Williams makes this a truly unique experience.

Extract

She had told Larry that she had in mind one single day - an ordinary day, a day like any other - in which to listen to her music and make her choices. There was a simplicity, a crisp efficiency, about the plan that appealed to her. No fuss, no ceremony, just a portion of time allocated to the act of listening. Old friends, musicians, journalists, comrades-in-arms. She would play the new songs to them for the first time: make her new music known, as she must again make herself known to them, after so many years of isolation.

Parallels