Notes — Bob Spitz on the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and the Art of Biography

Notes on Bob Spitz in conversation with Tyler Cowen — Conversations with Tyler (https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/bob-spitz/), 13 May 2026.

Four questions [Adler frame]

Q1 — What is it about as a whole? A veteran music-and-more biographer taking a rapid tour across the subjects he has written or lived through — the Rolling Stones (his newest book), the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen (whom he managed as a young man), Bob Dylan, Julia Child, Ronald Reagan, and the 1969 New York Knicks — and, underneath the anecdotes, a working account of how biography gets made. The through-line is craft: how Spitz enters a subject he knows nothing about, why he assembles every scrap before writing a word, and why he never rewrites.

Q2 — How is it argued? Almost entirely by anecdote and first-hand testimony rather than analysis. Spitz reasons from proximity — he was in the room (jamming with Paul McCartney in 1997, travelling Sicily with Julia Child, sharing an apartment with the young Springsteen) and treats that access as the evidentiary base. His comparative judgements (Stones vs Beatles melodies, endurance vs stability) are stated as a connoisseur’s verdicts, backed by concrete detail rather than formal criteria.

Q3 — Is it true, in whole or part? The first-hand material is as authoritative as testimony gets, though it is memory, and Spitz flags his own fallibility (‘I’m pulling this out of my memory because it was 55 years ago’). His evaluative claims — the Stones as a ‘B minus’ on melody, Exile on Main Street as overpraised, Julia Child as a great teacher but not a great cook — are matters of informed taste, not fact, and he presents them as such. One striking factual admission: he took all his Beatles research and interviews to the dump after finishing the book, so those sources are unverifiable and gone. [?]

Q4 — What of it? A transferable model of how to master an unfamiliar subject fast — enter as an ‘empty vessel’, let the material fill you, interrogate practitioners (‘explain John Bonham’s drum technique to me’), and only then write. The endurance/stability distinction (the Stones endure not because they are placid but because Mick and Keith divide labour and keep working) is a portable observation about durable partnerships. Supplies the wiki’s first substantial treatment of popular-music history and of biography as a craft.

Glossary

Crawdaddy Club — a small club in Richmond, a London suburb, where the early Rolling Stones served a roughly six-month residency, playing long hours to a growing crowd before going on the road; Spitz treats it as their apprenticeship, the Stones’ equivalent of the Beatles’ Hamburg years. [§ On the Stones’ early years]

Concept album — a record whose tracks are unified by a single theme or arc rather than being a loose collection of songs (Spitz names Sgt. Pepper’s and Abbey Road); he argues the Beatles made these and the Stones, by contrast, did not, though the Stones sequenced their albums to build energy. [§ On Rolling Stones songs and albums]

Art college (UK) — a British post-16 institution, absent in the US, that took talented but non-academic students; Spitz calls it the incubator of British rock, because pupils brought instruments and formed bands there (Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, John Lennon, later Jarvis Cocker and Florence Welch). [§ On art colleges and rock ‘n’ roll]

11-plus — the examination sat by every British child at age eleven that, in Spitz’s account, routed pupils either toward university or toward vocational school (and thence factory or clerical work); art colleges grew up as a third path for the talented but non-academic. [§ On art colleges and rock ‘n’ roll]

Scousers — the people of Liverpool, named after ‘scouse’, a stew kept simmering all week from meal scraps; Spitz, who lived there nearly two years researching the Beatles, singles out their distinctive humour and the city’s Irish and Chinese heritage. [§ On the Beatles]

Assemble-then-write method — Spitz’s practice of gathering all research and interviews before writing a single word, then writing in sequence from beginning to end and never rewriting — ‘massaging’ each sentence once as he goes rather than editing after. [§ On writing]

Key claims by section

On the Stones’ early years [§ On the Stones’ early years]

The Stones did serve an apprenticeship, though shorter than the Beatles’: roughly six months at the Crawdaddy Club (starting with six people in the room) followed by touring ‘crappy little places’.
They never intended to write songs — they saw themselves as authentic blues masters carrying Delta, Mississippi, and Chicago blues to the world; only their young manager Andrew Oldham insisted they write to compete, about two years into touring.

On the sound of the Rolling Stones [§ On the sound of the Rolling Stones]

The ‘blues plus X’ that defines the Stones is rock ‘n’ roll — they ‘hotwired the blues’, adding ferocious guitar to the sound Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley began.
They also absorbed Country and Western from the thousands of records American servicemen left in Britain after WWII, the same influence the Beatles drew on.
On melody, Spitz rates the Stones a ‘B minus’ against the Beatles’ best — their rock melodies (‘Gimme Shelter’, ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’) are spectacular but less lush and romantic.
Their Satanic Majesties Request failed because it mimicked Sgt. Pepper’s; psychedelia was not in their wheelhouse and they returned to what they did best.

On Rolling Stones songs and albums [§ On Rolling Stones songs and albums]

The Stones were not a concept-album band as the later Beatles were, but they sequenced albums to build energy and, Spitz thinks, worked even harder than the Beatles on studio production.
His pick for their best is the Beggars Banquet / Let It Bleed pair — ‘the hot spot’ of their career.
He agrees with Cowen (and with Mick Jagger) that Exile on Main Street is overrated and sloppy; Jagger dislikes it partly because he barely participated, being newly married and flying the world while the band recorded in French exile.
Most underrated song: he offers ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’, lost in the wake of ‘Satisfaction’; Cowen adds ‘Have You Seen Your Mother’ and ‘Dear Doctor’.
Hackney Diamonds surprised him — a fabulous blues album made when the band members were around 79.

On Charlie Watts and Brian Jones [§ On Charlie Watts and Brian Jones]

Charlie Watts, a jazz drummer at heart, loved being a Stone and never wanted out; a straight-laced, beautifully dressed man (Savile Row, Arabian stallions, a car collection he never drove, having no licence).
Brian Jones founded and named the band and was a musical savant who could play any instrument, but once his ego and inability to write songs took hold he stopped contributing — captured in a 1968 exchange where Mick asks him ‘what can you play?‘

On art colleges and rock ‘n’ roll [§ On art colleges and rock ‘n’ roll]

British rock ‘n’ roll was ‘born in art colleges’ — a repository for talented, non-academic young people created by the 11-plus system’s binary sorting.
Pupils brought instruments and formed bands in the cloakrooms; the movement produced Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, John Lennon, and later Jarvis Cocker and Florence Welch, and still generates new music.

On stability [§ On stability]

Spitz rejects ‘stable’ for the Stones — ‘enduring’ is the right word; the foundation was rocked repeatedly (Brian’s death, drug busts, Mick–Keith estrangements).
Their endurance rests on the Mick–Keith rapport and, crucially, a division of labour: Mick the showman-manager, Keith the musician, neither interfering with the other.
Contrast with the Beatles, who stopped performing in 1966, lost their audience connection, and let Lennon–McCartney competition pull them apart.
The Mick–Keith bond survived Mick’s 1980s solo deal (which enraged Keith, who dubbed Mick ‘Brenda’) because Mick forgave and the personal bond held — Mick was best man at Keith’s wedding at the height of their feud.

On Mick Jagger and economics [§ On Mick Jagger and economics]

Spitz cannot source Mick’s stated admiration for Hayek, but notes Mick was a scholarship student at the London School of Economics for two and a half years with good grades.
Since Andrew Oldham left in 1967 the Stones have had no manager but Mick himself — he has negotiated their recording, publishing, and tour contracts, designed stages, and invested the band’s money. [?source — Spitz’s characterisation, not documented here]

On today’s popular music [§ On today’s popular music]

Popular music has lost cultural influence because, in Spitz’s view, ‘there are no more musicians’ — today’s acts are performers who let producers push the buttons and do not master instruments.
Guitarists have fallen from favour for the same reason; he names Taylor Swift as a wonderful performer he would nonetheless like to teach more than four guitar chords. [?] (a taste claim, likely to provoke)
He deliberately declines to begrudge younger listeners their music, as his parents gave him room for the Beatles and Elvis.
His first job out of college was on The Partridge Family, which he calls a television show carried largely by uncredited studio musicians and singers (a pair of twin brothers did most of the singing).

On the Beatles [§ On the Beatles]

What we should still ask Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr: to come clean about the often-fraught relationships, and Ringo about his sickly, hospital-bound, barely-schooled youth (polio and other illnesses).
Mick Jagger’s stamina (dancing a two-block proscenium for two and a half hours at 82) traces to lifelong exercise — his father was ‘the Jack LaLanne of the United Kingdom’, a TV fitness presenter who drilled the young Mick.
Keith Richards is a ‘medical miracle’ whose eventual affliction is arthritis, not the drugs, drink, or smoking he abused his body with.
Living in Liverpool nearly two years, Spitz learned the city is beautiful (built by the shipwrights’ fine woods), has the West’s original Chinese food and community, and gave its largely-Irish ‘Scousers’ a unique humour.
On whether the Beatles’ split served the world: perhaps yes — most acts run out of steam after four or five albums and start duplicating themselves; the Beatles gave everything (a ~230-song catalogue he ranks with Rodgers and Hammerstein) and stopped, and the split let George come into his own.
His 1997 jam with McCartney (for a New York Times Magazine assignment after Paul’s knighthood) took place in a tiny Hastings cottage; McCartney sat him down among the Abbey Road instruments and Elvis’s bassist’s bass, and played Beatles songs — ‘frightening’.

On Led Zeppelin [§ On Led Zeppelin]

Spitz knew nothing of Led Zeppelin when commissioned (he owned none of their records among 20,000 vinyl albums, could barely name a song beyond ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and ‘Stairway to Heaven’) because he had been on the road with Springsteen and Elton John while the band rose.
He treated the ignorance as an asset — an ‘empty vessel’, studying the music ‘as if I were taking a foreign language’, interrogating musicians (including Jimmy Page’s boyhood neighbour Jeff Beck) about Bonham’s and Page’s technique — and fell in love with the catalogue.
‘Stairway to Heaven’ is ‘completely rated as it should be’ — mockable yet, on close listening, remarkable.

On Bruce Springsteen [§ On Bruce Springsteen]

Spitz saw Springsteen’s work ethic up close: at 21 he, Mike Appel, and Jim Cretecos quit their jobs the day after Springsteen auditioned, and Springsteen wrote many early songs while staying in Spitz’s apartment.
Springsteen is exacting and demanding in rehearsal — timing and sound must match exactly what is in his head — yet an unfailingly kind gentleman.
What Springsteen maximises is not income (astronomical though it is) but ‘his open heart’ — Spitz recounts him personally driving stranded young fans home from stadium gigs and introducing himself to their parents.
His live versions stay as tight as studio ones through a master performer’s discipline; his greatest achievement is Born to Run, with ‘Thunder Road’ as his masterpiece.

On Bob Dylan [§ On Bob Dylan]

Dylan skipped his Nobel because ‘Bob Dylan doesn’t do anything anyone expects of him’ — he has never shown up for any prize.
Spitz, his biographer 40 years ago, does not know how Dylan spends his days beyond reading and studying (still Talmud), and wishes he could write him again.

On Julia Child [§ On Julia Child]

The ‘little secret’: Child was a great cooking teacher but not a great cook — guests (John Updike, Corby Kummer among them) sometimes fell ill from her heavy butter and cream.
She changed how Americans cook and eat, how supermarkets position food, and helped birth the US wine industry, all by demanding it on television.
Travelling with her in Sicily: 6’3”, she halved every dish with a knife and then ate both halves; she marched into restaurant kitchens to check that women were being integrated, and she loved McDonald’s as much as haute cuisine. She revered but never cooked Chinese food.

On the Knicks [§ On the Knicks]

Another subject he knew nothing of: commissioned young to write on the 1969 Knicks, he learned basketball from the era’s greats (Oscar Robertson, Jerry West) and became a lifelong fan.
Dave DeBusschere coached the Detroit Pistons at 24 while still playing because the team could not afford a coach and he alone had rapport with the players.
The Knicks gelled under Red Holzman’s single rule — ‘see the open man’ — a selflessness Spitz contrasts with today’s stats-obsessed, ball-hungry players.

On Ronald Reagan [§ On Ronald Reagan]

Reagan was not senile in his second term but ‘wearing down’ — too old, napping publicly; the real decline came after a July 4th post-office riding accident and head injury.
The early Reagan was a leftist and patriotic Democrat (his father ran the local Democratic headquarters), not a communist.
What shifted him rightward was money: having wrongly withheld his WWII taxes believing soldiers were exempt, he was dunned by the IRS, grew obsessed with taxes and economics, and moved to the Republicans.
There was ‘a lot of Ronald Reagan under that surface’ — genuine engagement with lawmaking and foreign affairs beneath the charm; grandfatherly late in life, but always a remote father.

On Robert Caro [§ On Robert Caro]

Caro is ‘the biographer’s biographer’, the figure Spitz looks up to; a thoughtful correspondent who works around the clock, which Spitz has learned not to do.
Caro stays out of public life because he is ‘too busy writing’; he is stopped ‘like a rock star’ when out, and readers press him to finish the last LBJ volume.
On Thelma & Louise, Spitz defers to his wife Becky Aikman (the family’s ‘real writer’), who reads it as one of the first feminist films — an outlaw movie with a deliberately ambiguous, Sopranos-like ending.

On writing [§ On writing]

Being married to another writer (Becky Aikman) means writing back-to-back in one room, editing each other nightly, and ‘living our books’.
Spitz writes prolifically because he cannot believe anyone lets him do it and will continue ‘until they tell me I can’t’; he rejects writer’s block — when stuck, walk away and return.
Writing is ‘like doing a crossword puzzle’ — a daily problem solved by turning every angle, with the subconscious working overnight.
His method: assemble everything first, then write in sequence start to finish, and never rewrite — he ‘massages’ each sentence once. The Beatles manuscript arrived at 2,800 pages, was cut (over two rounds) to 964, but ‘not a word’ was rewritten.
Regret: after the Beatles, exhausted, broke, and divorced, he took all his research and interviews to the dump — ‘the most foolish mistake I’ve ever made’, so a ‘director’s cut’ of the cut Beatles stories is impossible. [?]
Next project: John Lennon’s ‘second act’, the decade from the Beatles’ breakup to his death, drawing on Lennon’s never-before-seen archives, scrapbooks, journals, and diaries.