Review Fix Exclusive: Stephen Tow Talks ‘ London, Reign Over Me’

Review Fix chats with music historian and professor Stephen Tow, who discusses the inspiration behind his upcoming book, “ London, Reign Over Me.”

About the Book:

Capturing the stark contrast of bursting artistic energy with the blitzkrieg landscape leftover from World War II, London, Reign Over Me reveals why classic rock ‘n’ roll could only have been born in London. A new sound from a new generation, this music helped spark the most important cultural transformation of the twentieth century.

Review Fix: What inspired this book?

Stephen Tow: This is a bit of a long story, so you might want to grab a cup of coffee first.

I always felt like I missed out on the best era of music. To give you an idea, I was seven when the Beatles broke up. I was jealous of my sister who told me about how she and her friend Wendy grabbed a copy of Sgt. Pepper’s right when it came out and had their minds blown.

By the time I came of age, this was the late ’70s, mainstream music had gotten stale. I tell my students this: if music is like pizza, the late ’60s/early ’70s were like pizza delivered hot and fresh to your door…delicious and wonderful. Then, a few slices remain and they go in the fridge. You reheat them the next day and they’re fine, but forgettable. That was the late ’70s. I mean, come on, compare Who Are You to Who’s Next or In Through the Outdoor to Led Zeppelin II or Some Girls to Sticky Fingers. You get the picture.

When I hit college, this was the early ’80s, MTV had taken over and it all became about the presentation. That was when I discovered the ’60s. While my friends were talking about the hot girls in the latest ZZ Top video or the cool moves in a Michael Jackson video, I was discovering the Stones, Who, Hendrix, Beatles, etc. It just seemed so much more vital to me than what was popular at the time.

My senior year we had a party at my house and one of my roommates had put a comp tape in the player (for you youngins, comp tapes represented a primitive attempt at making a pre-digital playlist.) The tape had the usual mainstream slop of the mid ’80s. So I highjacked the tape player and put my own comp cassette in. On it was Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Who, Stones, Jefferson Airplane, etc. And I had no idea how people would react. Well, they dug it! Everyone was dancing. This girl next to me commented, “This music is great!” I’m like, “Well, yeah.”

A few years later, when Nirvana and Seattle blew up, that became my ’60s, since I was still young enough to appreciate it. That motivated me to write my first book as to where grunge came from. For this book, I delved back into my own roots to uncover where classic rock came from and focused on London as the center of it all.

Review Fix: What was the research process like?

Tow: That’s a big question. Lots of hours and hours and hours digging up people to interview, requesting interviews…again and again and again…preparing for the interviews, doing the interviews, listening to them over and over again, pulling quotes from them. Then there were a number of trips to London to dig through the old weeklies: Melody Maker, NME, Record Mirror and to get to know the city.

As I’ve told people, the problem with the Seattle book was finding the material. Digging up old fanzines and oddball recordings. The city had one music related newspaper, that came out once per month. In contrast, London had four newspapers, and they came out weekly.

And then the endless hours listening to music I was less familiar with. So yeah, it was an operation, but truly a labor of love.

Review Fix: Any real trials and tribulations during the writing process?

Tow: Transitional chapters. I struggle with them. I ripped the first two chapters out no problem…the beginning and early R&B boom were easy. Then I had to get from there to the eventual strands of prog rock, folk/rock, and heavy blues. It probably took about a year at least to write the third chapter, and a chunk of that time was just putting it aside for months.

Review Fix: What did you learn during the writing of the book that you didn’t expect?

Tow: I think just the overall joy of living these people had. The accepted version of British musicians is that they were super-competitive as compared to the inter-band support system Seattle had in the 1980s. I think that’s misstated. Yes, the Brits were competitive, but generally not in a cutthroat way. Mostly it was a healthy competition. They just all fed off of each other to find new ways to express their art. It’s almost like playing one on one basketball with a buddy. You each want to beat each other’s ass, but you’re getting better because of it. At the end, you have a beer together. That was London of the 1960s.

Review Fix: What are your goals for this book?

Tow: Perspective. Since we’re now half a century on from the end of the 1960s we can now appreciate that creative time for what it was. The purpose of this book is to demonstrate, both in contemporary and current interviews and other sources, the absolute joy and youthful naivete of that era.

Have you ever looked back at a time when you were young and thought, ‘Damn, why didn’t I appreciate that moment?’ This book allows you to do that. You’ll be there with Fairport Convention at the Speakeasy when Jimi Hendrix stops by and asks to jam with the band. While the singer Judy Dyble knits, the reader will witness Hendrix and Fairport’s Richard Thompson jamming together. Two of the world’s greatest guitar players making music onstage. Now you get to appreciate that. 

Review Fix: Who do you think will enjoy it the most?

Tow: Anyone who loves music for what it is. Pretty much every rock book delves into the excesses…drugs, managers stealing money, lawsuits, egos, who gets laid, bad behavior. It’s so boring, and really, who cares? My book focuses on what really matters, what lasts…and that of course is the music. People who want to know how these young people created timeless art out of thin air…art that people centuries from now will appreciate. Those folks will love the book.

Review Fix: How does your background help and hinder your creative process?

Tow: My background as a historian is both a blessing and a curse. It certainly helped me from a research standpoint in terms of determining how to attack primary sources, questions to ask, premises to make, etc. But that gave me no street cred in getting interviews. I don’t come from the usual rock music book pipeline. I never worked for Rolling Stone or Mojo. I haven’t interviewed Paul McCartney three times or had lunch with Elton John. I basically knew nobody. So I had to work…sheer persistence…to get the interviews. Month after month after month making interview requests, for years. My interview documentation Word file is about 70 pages long, to give you an idea. Fortunately, my persistence paid off for the most part and I was able to score some pretty high level interviews with people like Peter Frampton, Paul Rodgers, Peter Noone, Dave Davies, Ian Anderson, Steve Howe, and others. And somehow I got lucky and Bill Bruford agreed to write the foreword.

Review Fix: What’s next for you?

Tow: I have a couple ideas in mind, but I’m going to keep that under my hat for now.