EYES WIDE OPEN: When Rock And Roll Becomes Legacy Management

In the latter half of the twentieth century, rock androll slowly, gradually shifted from novelty youth music to enduringinstitution. The musicians involved in this scene had to learn the business thehard way during that time, developing their careers on the fly and making businessmistakes in public as their commercial appeal waxed and waned. The smart oneslearned to manage their own affairs once their glory days had faded and builttheir bands into legacies, creating a retirement plan when the business theysupported wouldn't offer them one.

Andy Powell is a good example of someone who followedthis circuitous path and emerged successful. He is a founding member ofWishbone Ash and ultimately became its keeper of the flame after the othermembers had left, drafting in replacements and continuing the band working bothas a touring and recording act.  In 2015,he authored a memoir with assistance from Colin Powell entitled Eyes Wide Open. If you're a WishboneAsh fan, it offers an interesting insight into both his life and personalphilosophy

Powell sticks to the core concept of the autobiographyand focuses on his life story as a musician, starting with the moments thatmade music an obsession and a professional pursuit and leading into hisaudition for the band that would become Wishbone Ash in 1969. From there, hegives his perspective on the development, success and slow fade that WishboneAsh experienced during their glory years as well the brief reunion period atthe end of the '80s and its gradual disintegration. 

That part is roughly the first half of the book. Powelldoesn't go into great detail on recording sessions - though he devote time tokey albums like Argus and New England -  or bawdy tales of post-concert shenanigans.Instead, he takes a wry and introspective approach, offering the view from hisvantage point on the band's tempestuous chemistry, member and managementchanges and the hard lessons learned by a band that came close to the top ofthe business but never quite had that sort of breakthrough. 

The second half of the book deals what happened afterPowell found himself the last original member standing in Wishbone Ash at thebeginning of the '90s. Instead of surrendering his career, he figured out waysto rebuild it in a grassroots style. This section gives fascinating insightinto what happens when a band becomes a legacy outfit with revolvingmembership, including how Powell learned to both manage and market his ownprofessional affairs. He's honest about the mistakes and disappointments heexperienced along this path but also reveals the evolving music-drivenphilosophy that kept him continuing when the ideas of fame and fortune became amemory.

There's also the matter of the big band name ownershiplawsuit.  In recent years, Powell foundhimself getting challenged by former bandmate Martin Turner, who formed his ownband using the Wishbone Ash moniker. Powell had maintained the band thecontinuously during and after Turner's departures and when negotiations betweenthe two camps broke down, there was a legal battle in 2013. Powell ultimatelyprevailed and lays out his side of the story in these pages. He's frank abouthis disappointments with Turner and the way the rest of the band sided withTurner but also offers a detailed chronicle of the complexities of how a bandand its legacy are perceived in the legal system.

It's also worth noting that the regular chronologicalchapters of the book are interspersed with sidebar chapters where Powellpursues a particular autobiographical theme. Sample subjects include experiences in hotels as a touring musician, thepleasures and perils of being friends with a fan of one's band and theall-consuming passion of collecting guitars. The most interesting is a chapterdevoted to Powell's experiences in India, both colorful and harrowing, during afew tours in the first half of the 1980's. These sidebar chapters addadditional layers of texture to the overall narrative and are often the mostfun reading in the book.

In short, EyesWide Open is a  rewarding read forWishbone Ash fans.  It is a personalchronicle rather than a band chronicle but it still provides key insights intothe twists and turns of their career, all delivered with disciplined prose andplenty of hard-won rock biz wisdom.