The Sun & the Moon & the Rolling Stones
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The Sun & the Moon & the Rolling Stones Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Rich Cohen (Author, Narrator), Random House Audio (Publisher)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 624 ratings
Editors' pick Best Biographies & Memoirs
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A gritty, one-of-a-kind backstage account of the world’s greatest touring band, from the opinionated music journalist who was along for the ride as a young reporter for Rolling Stone in the 1990s

One of the Top Five Rock Biographies of the Year (San Francisco Chronicle)
One of the Best Books of the Year (Kirkus Reviews)

A book inspired by a lifelong appreciation of the music that borders on obsession, Rich Cohen’s fresh and galvanizing narrative history of the Rolling Stones begins with the fateful meeting of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on a train platform in 1961 - and goes on to span decades, with a focus on the golden run - from the albums Beggars Banquet (1968) to Exile on Main Street (1972) - when the Stones were at the height of their powers. Cohen is equally as good on the low points as the highs, and he puts his finger on the moments that not only defined the Stones as gifted musicians schooled in the blues, but as the avatars of so much in our modern culture. In the end, though, after the drugs and the girlfriends and the bitter disputes, there is the music - which will define, once and forever, why the Stones will always matter.

“Fabulous.... The research is meticulous.... Cohen’s own interviews even yield some new Stones lore.” (The Wall Street Journal)

“[Cohen] can catch the way a record can seem to remake the world [and] how songs make a world you can’t escape.” (Pitchfork)

“No one can tell this story, wringing new life even from the leathery faces of mummies like the Rolling Stones, like Rich Cohen.... The book beautifully details the very meaning of rock ’n’ roll.” (New York Observer)

“Masterful.... Hundreds of books have been written about this particular band and [Cohen’s] will rank among the very best of the bunch.” (Chicago Tribune)

Previous page
  1. Listening Length
    11 hours and 12 minutes
  2. Author
    Rich Cohen
  3. Narrator
    Rich Cohen
  4. Audible release date
    May 10, 2016
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Random House Audio
  7. ASIN
    B01D22EGE8
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 11 hours and 12 minutes
Author Rich Cohen
Narrator Rich Cohen
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date May 10, 2016
Publisher Random House Audio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B01D22EGE8
Best Sellers Rank #98,251 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#1,317 in Rich & Famous Biographies
#1,697 in Biographies of Celebrities & Entertainment Professionals
#2,263 in Composer & Musician Biographies

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
624 global ratings
Who sells books with missing pages?
2 Stars
Who sells books with missing pages?
I’d give zero stars if I could. This was listed as a new book, but had several torn out and unreadable pages. I’m fine with used products, but selling a book that has missing pages is really unacceptable.Wouldn’t let me post review with 1 Star btw...
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Top reviews from the United States

Steven Peterson
5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth a read--focus: the Rolling Stones
Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2016
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Do we absolutely need another book on the Rolling Stones? One would think not—given the array of publications focusing on “the greatest rock and roll band in the world.” There have been exposes, learned studies, autobiographies and biographies, video depictions of the group, and so on. And here they are in their “dotage” as a group. Three of the original Stones still play in the band (Bill Wyman retired, Ian Stewart was sacked by a manger many years ago, and Brian Jones died long ago). Still, the answer to the original rhetorical question is “yes.”

This book has a unique kind of perspective. The author covered a tour of theirs and developed relationships with members of the group and its entourage. Currently, he works with Martin Scorcese and Mick Jagger on a series—“Vinyl.” Rich Cohen’s book is well worth a read.

He does a number of standard things—a brief history of the band, relatively brief biological backgrounds on key people, a little on the music and the origin of certain songs, milestones—whether positive ( a set of four great albums in a row in the late 1960s and early 1970s) or negative (drug busts and interpersonal feuds and disagreements and Altamont).

One of the most attractive aspects of this book is humanizing the cast—whether Brian Jones or Ronnie Wood or Bill Wyman or Mick Taylor or Charlie Watts (who comes across as a decent person with whom one might want to spend the evening over a beer or two [or more])or Keith Richards or Mick Jagger. Or those who found themselves at one point or another in the Stones’ orbit, such as Marianne Faithfull or Anita Pallenberg or. . . .

It is also somewhat lugubrious. Cohen portrays the Stones as a band that can still play good music—but which has lost the ability to create powerful new music. After “Some Girls,” his view is that the band has done little quality work. A song here or there, but not a vibrant and vital work.

If you want to read a book on the Rolling Stones, this is a good place to start. It humanizes the group and those associated with it, but it retains a distance from its subject, allowing Cohen to place the group, its players, and those orbiting them into perspective.
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Dplunk
4.0 out of 5 stars While not quite the "perfect storm" Rolling Stones history, this is an exceptionally good book about a very complex rock band
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2016
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I'm a very ardent Stones fan, and have been for about 40 years now. I first saw the band perform live during their 1975 US tour ( I was 20 then), and have seen dozens of their concerts since, over the decades. I was even fortunate enough to be invited to one of their occasional "private club gigs" in Toronto, in 2005. And, along the way, I've read many, if not most, of the worthy books that have been written by and about the band and it's members.

I started Mr. Cohen's book with very high hopes. He's an accomplished music journalist, an FOS (friend of the Stones, by virtue of his embedded magazine reporter time with the band in the 90s), and he has worked with Jagger, Martin Scorcese and others on the HBO series "Vinyl" (which I admittedly have not seen).

Cohen is an excellent and engaging writer, as many professional journalists are, and his prose certainly kept me entertained. I feel he did an excellent job of describing and cataloging early periods of the band, and even the pre-band times when "the boys" were quite young. Understanding these formative years is critical to understanding how the Rolling Stones came to be, where they have been, and where they are now. There are lots of books that mainly tell a sort of month-by-month history of the Stones. I looked to Cohen to spill the beans on the heart and soul of the band and of its members.

My verdict in that regard: the book succeeds here and there, but those "golden nugget" insights are spotty. For instance, I believe he does a masterful job of painting the picture of bleak, post-World War II England, and the particular reasons why kids there faced very different lives than those faced by American kids. This is why, he methodically explains, the British teens discovered the kinds of American black popular music that American teens scarcely knew existed. Yes, Elvis sang some "race music"-style tunes, but at the same time he seemed as white as he could be (his hips bothered white parents more than his genre of music).

None of this is new ground, but Cohen paints this early era canvas very vividly and convincingly. Still, there were obvious and important points he overlooked, regarding this race angle. The Stones championed black musicians by not only playing their music, but also by promoting the men (and occasionally women) themselves. In 1965, the Stones were invited to play on the American TV show "Shindig". They told the TV producers that they'd be accompanied by black bluesman Howlin' Wolf, but the show balked at that. The Stones were stunned, and said they would not do the show unless Wolf was featured, too. And, the Stones won and, that night on American nation-wide TV, there was a middle aged black man in a business suit singing the blues on the teens' "Shindig" program. Now, that's history! Or, how about July 4, 1975 in Memphis, when the surprise guest performance before the Stones took the football stadium stage was presented by 82 year old black bluesman Furry Lewis. A Memphis native, the Stones searched and found him, living in poverty and obscurity, and offered him the same big money that the several other opening acts were getting. In front of 60,000 stunned, stoned hippies and other assorted youngsters, the old man shuffled out on stage, told a few dirty jokes, and played a couple of tunes on his acoustic guitar. I was there, and that was history, too. There are numerous other, similar stories in Stones history, and they are meaningful with respect to the history of American black music. This deserved more of Cohen's attention, I feel. Perhaps I take this seriously because I'm a native Mississippian where, after all, blues music was born in our northwestern river delta. And, as Mississippian Muddy Waters sang: "The blues had a baby, and they named the baby rock-and-roll."

The birth of the relationships among Jagger, Richards and Brian Jones has been extensively covered by numerous authors, yet Cohen adds great depth and detail to these early years, and the complex personal chemistry and tensions that were afoot. How the Stones learned to write music, how Brian was fired and soon died, how the Stones chugged into their "golden years" with albums like "Let it Bleed" and "Exile on Main Street"....again, not new ground, but Cohen reports this "old news" with freshness.

I thought he was particularly thoughtful and informative in analyzing the demise of the Stones as a productive music creating unit. Here, it felt to me as if he broke some new insight ground. In short, I agree with him that "Some Girls" was the last great Stones record. Jagger and Richards have not been able to produce any albums that approach the high quality of their "glory days" in large part because their friendship died in the mid-80s or so. They each tried solo careers, but Keith knew, and Mick soon figured out, that nothing could top the Stones as a world-class career success AND a massive money maker. They have, for decades now, been an estranged couple who've stayed together for the sake of having meaningful employment, and of course for the mega-money. Again, this is not news, but I thought Cohen rolls that all out very well.

So, yes, the Stones for decades now have been a performance band but, I'd hasten to add: they are a great one. I still love em! Say what you will about their lack of new music creativity, yet bear in mind that they have recorded something north of 400 songs, and constantly tour and lay down wonderful set lists for their concert goers. And, they still "have it" when they play live (or surely enough of it). And, when they do, the Rolling Stones, even now, play their hearts out on magnificent, elaborate stage settings, and they STILL give us, the world, this: the greatest rock and roll performances in the known universe....period. Say what you will about how great the Beatles were, but note too that the Fab Four quit and let us down way back in the last century while, more than 50 years on, the Stones are still with us.

If I've a gripe with Cohen, it's that his book feels to abruptly trail off once Mick and Keith divorce, and the band changes it's basic nature. I'd call foul on that, since much went on in the late 1980s, the 1990s, and during the past 16 years, as the band toured and members embarked on different solo ventures. Kudos to Cohen to paying quite a bit of attention to drummer Charlie Watts, who is so quiet and unassuming and thus often is overlooked. But, even there, I found myself wishing that Cohen had gotten more from Charlie. We've all heard enough from and about Mick and Keith, after all. And, I don't even think Charlie's wife Shirley was mentioned in the book. If she was, there wasn't much about her. I would love to hear more from and about her. On the other hand, Cohen had a lot to say about the women of Mick and Keith, such as Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg. That's legitimate history, but surely old hat history.

And, speaking of Charlie, there was only one other trauma that ranked with the likes of these: Brian Jones' death, the Altamont concert disaster, the drug busts and addictions, the Keith-Mick divorce and the recent and tragic suicide of Jagger's girlfriend. About a dozen years ago, Charlie battled cancer, and it shocked Mick, Keith and the others like nothing else had for a very long time. They rallied to him, he recovered, and that all led to an album and a new round of tours. From around 2005 and the "Bigger Bang" tour, it has felt to me as if a new, and possibly the last, chapter in the Stones saga opened. And, Cohen's work skips all that, which I find to be a weakness.

Still, it's a very entertaining read, a positive contribution to the reputable books out there about the Stones and, in certain important aspects, it is exceptionally good and plows some new ground of information, understanding and analysis. Job well done.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Riccardo Frau
3.0 out of 5 stars nihil novi sub soli ....
Reviewed in Italy on December 15, 2016
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L'autore mostra di essere bene informato sulle vicende degli Stones, che ha seguito in tour come giornalista per diverso tempo. Dove non arriva di suo, fa ricorso ad altre biografie, senza lesinare i richiami, più o meno espressi, all'autobiografia "Life" di Keith Richards. L'opera finisce così per diventare un "ripasso" di cose già viste o sentite, con poco margine per rivelazioni sorprendenti. Tuttavia, cavalcando sapientemente la nuova ondata di popolarità delle Pietre Rotolanti, sulla scia del loro tour trionfale fino a Cuba e dell'uscita del loro ultimo disco "Blue & Lonesome", Cohen ha il merito di saper cogliere il momento giusto per riproporre cose magari in gran parte già note, ma che fa sempre piacere rileggere, per apprezzare, ancora una volta, la dimensione epocale della carriera della rock and roll band più grande di sempre.
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Sandra
5.0 out of 5 stars Just read it
Reviewed in Canada on May 30, 2016
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Huge Stones fan. After Keith's autobiography, I didn't think much else could be written that would add much but this is a truly unique book. Cohen is a lyrical, elegant writer and he's unearthed some fascinating material that added new lustre to all those legendary tales about the band. He also had rare access to Mick and Keith and managed to tease a lot of unexpected quotes out of both of them. A must read - arguably the best thing I've ever read on the Rolling Stones.
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Dave
5.0 out of 5 stars READ THIS BOOK!
Reviewed in Canada on March 27, 2017
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Not just another rock and roll biography based on a chronological listing of recording sessions and concerts. The warts are there, the criticism and praise are relevant, and the parallels to the evolution, or devolution, of rock and roll are drawn in cultural parallels that resonate. The author has spent a career writing for Rolling Stone and about the Stones. This is not a short term research project. A great read.
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Muncho
5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece of Rock literature
Reviewed in Canada on August 24, 2016
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Cohen is masterful at descrbing his idols but not so blindly that he cannot see their forthcomings.
I could not put it down and I thought I knew a lot about The Stones. .
Bravo
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JOHN CHAMPIGNY
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on July 4, 2016
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Well written, and insightful.
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