The View from Otherworld Cottage: Harvey Kubernik For Author of the Year

December 15, 2014 - Roy Trakin, (ALL ACCESS), in "Trakin Care Of Businees: A Year-End of Mammoth Proportions," cites Harvey Kubernik as AUTHOR OF THE YEAR. "The indefatigable, prolific author uses his own Los Angeles background to illustrate history, whether it's the Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter scene of the '60s and early '70s or the ramp-up and aftermath of Monterey Pop. This year, he published four – count 'em – four separate books, each in its own way marking its writer as a certifiable overlooked treasure. TURN UP THE RADIO!: ROCK, POP, AND ROLL IN LOS ANGELES (Santa Monica Press), is a lavishly appointed coffee table book filled with artifacts from his own collection that makes a pretty good case that the roots of modern rock and roll culture were planted on the '50s Top 40 AM airwaves.

"IT WAS 50 YEARS AGO TODAY: THE BEATLES INVADE AMERICA AND HOLLYWOOD (Otherworld Cottage Industries) is peppered with his own reminiscences of being bitten by the Fab Four bug, and the influence of L.A. on the group. "LEONARD COHEN: EVERYBODY KNOWS (Backbeat Books/Hal Leonard) is another beautifully art-directed tome just in time for the poet maudit's 80th birthday and new album, an oral history/photo book companion to Sylvie Simmons' definitive 2012 bio, I'M YOUR MAN: THE LIFE OF LEONARD COHEN.

"Finally, Harvey and brother Ken provide the text to legendary L.A. photographer Guy Webster's BIG SHOTS (Insight Editions), providing the local color and context to this spectacular volume of iconic images, including the covers of The Doors' first album, The Mamas and the Papas' first two albums, Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence, The Rolling Stones' Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) and Flowers, The Byrds' Turn, Turn, Turn and The Notorious Byrd Brothers, Nico's The Marble Index,Captain Beefheart's Safe As Milk and Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle, not to mention pics of the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Love and Monterey Pop. The Kubernik brothers' breathless, succinct summaries capture the era's momentous cultural changes, as well as the historic dynamic reflected in Webster's portraits."

It looks like the November launch of Guy Webster's BIG SHOTS: ROCK LEGENDS AND HOLLYWOOD ICONS is off to a good start. Last week, images from it were even featured on Rolling Stone's website, and Harvey's LEONARD COHEN: EVERYBODY KNOWS has already been published in six languages and as of this date, Kubernik has signed with Palazzo Editions for a Neil Young book, due for publication in late 2015.

On December 11th, radio personality Cynthia Fox interviewed special guest Harvey Kubernik about TURN UP THE RADIO at THE SOUND LA Radio 100.3 FM debut "Backstagers" Holiday party and Town Hall Q and A. The interview, exploring the Los Angeles radio and music scene, 1956 – 1972, was enthusiastically received by "Backstagers" and celebrity guests alike, and captured on video, it will soon be posted on the http://thesoundla.com/ website.

Otherworld Cottage Industries published Harvey's first book of this year, IT WAS 50 YEARS AGO TODAY THE BEATLES INVADE AMERICA AND HOLLYWOOD, to coincide with our 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF DEMO DERBY on DVD, the crash action b/w short feature that played on thousands of screens across the nation with The Beatles HARD DAY'S NIGHT.

Then there's Harvey's Ken Scott interview, THE WAY THEY WERE MEANT TO BE HEARD: THE BEATLES IN MONO, in the September-October issue of Record Collector News, and the article, HOW NOT TO GET MONO FROM THE BEATLES, published in the 2014 Halloween issue of New York Waste Magazine written by Gary Pig Gold, one of Harvey's featured interview subjects in 50 YEARS AGO TODAY. Both articles are online.

"I suggest a daily dose of listening to the Beatles from a flute player, especially if her name is Libbie Jo Snyder," says Harvey Kubernik of the lady who had a whole chapter in his 2012 book, CANYON OF DREAMS: THE MAGIC AND MUSIC OF LAUREL CANYON. Harvey's recent interview with her centered on her new album, THE FLUTE AND VOICE OF LIBBIE JO: REFLECTIONS, and especially on the arrangements and choices of the six featured Beatles tunes. Both the interview and samples of her songs are posted online at http://libbiejo.com.

Interest in Harvey's music industry acumen, recollections and insights about the music-makers, recording engineers, DJs, and listening audiences of the day continues to grow, as Harvey continues to pursue his rigorous schedule of interviews, magazine articles and other writing endeavors.

In the current December 2014 Issue of Record Collector News Magazine (print and online editions), Harvey penned the cover story on BOB DYLAN AND THE BASEMENT TAPES COMPLETE: THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 11, released by Columbia Records/Legacy Recordings, a six disc definitive chronicle of Dylan's 1967 sessions with The Band – and in that same issue, Harvey wrote the feature article about FEAST OF FRIENDS, The Doors only self-produced film, released for the first time – along with a new book about Jim Morrison, "FRIENDS GATHERED TOGETHER by Morrison's long-time friend, Frank J. Lisciandro, offering fans a new look at the Los Angeles rocker.

Harvey also penned this month's feature article for the Cave Hollywood online site, TALES OF VINYL FROM THE DUKE OF BOYLE HEIGHTS, an interview with record collector/ producer, music historian, songwriter and author Gene Aguilera, a long-time advocate for The East L.A. Sound phenomenon.

Currently, Harvey appears in the Seeds documentary PUSHIN' TOO HARD from filmmaker Neil Norman, now playing in select theaters (see the trailer on YouTube).

Author and musicologist Kubernik was seen and heard in the 2013 BOBBY WOMACK – ACROSS 110th STREET (BBC-TV Documentary), directed by James Maycock, Matt O'Casey's 2011 documentary QUEEN – DAYS OF OUR LIVES," released on DVD and Blu-Ray by Universal Music, and has already been lensed for O'Casey's Meat Loaf BBC-TV production, scheduled for broadcast in early 2015.

And while we're on the movies, in 2015, the University Press of Mississippi will publish a Harvey Kubernik interview with Oscar-winning director and photographer D. A. Pennebaker in their book series, CONVERSATIONS WITH FILMMAKERS, edited by Dr. Keith Beattie.