One Train Later - Andy Summers

Having some time off for the holidays and no travel planned gave me the perfect opportunity to read One Train Later and then obsess over early Police records. Even if you aren’t a fan of The Police (I don’t want to know if you aren’t), this book tells the tale of a seasoned musician with way more experience than I had realized. Unexpectedly, I couldn’t put it down. Some interesting points were:

Andy was more interested in contributing something new to the music scene than becoming a British blues guitarists like Eric Clapton who copied the legends of the American South. Eric and Andy traveled in the same musical circles and at one time, after Eric’s ’59 Les Paul is stolen, he hounds Andy to buy his since he has the only other ’59 Les Paul in London and he is getting ready to record with Cream for the first time. He sells it to him and the rest is history.

Hearing his description of meeting and seeing Jimi Hendrix play in his early days was fascinating.

Reading about Sting being totally hoodwinked by a Canadian keyboardist who was trying to wedge his way in as the fourth member into the now successful band was amusing.

This fall I read a book written by the drummer of Semisonic who, in the grand scheme of things, had minor success. I wondered what the inside story would be like if the band had monumental success. Well, here’s the book. While you get the impression that the band did not make a conscious decision to go out on top as they did, instead it was motivated by Sting’s call to the lute, they did just that. Could you turn on the radio in 1983 and not hear a single from Synchronicity? What’s totally refreshing in the end is that Andy is not bitter about the way it ended. As I read the book, I found myself scrutinizing the cover, looking for the name of a ghost writer. There is none that I could find, but this book is shockingly well-written. If you aren’t a reader, but want to know more, check out the Andy Summers interview on Sound Opinions. He distills the essence of the book on the air and also once again, proves what a gentleman he is by not taking the bait and dissing on one particularly famous former bandmate. –J