Screen Gems

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"The book, which covers screen appearances from said icons, is well-researched and lovingly told, and it never feels academic or, worse, hyperbolic. The likes of Johnny Cash, Tina Turner, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, and Elvis Presley are covered, and there’s a sweet foreword by Andrew Loog Oldham." - Shindig! Magazine In his 21st and latest book, Screen Gems: Pop Music Documentaries & Rock and Roll TV Scenes, pop culture historian Harvey Kubernik – native Angeleno, child of Hollywood, and a music journalist for more than 50 years – offers a bio-regional memoir perspective as he dives deep into 24 noteworthy productions. As music documentaries enjoy what some insiders are calling the genre’s “Golden Age,” Kubernik explores films spotlighting the Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Tina Turner, the Doors, Leon Russell, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, Motown, Stax and Chess Records recording artists, Frank Zappa, David Bowie, the Seeds, Stevie Van Zandt, the Go-Go's, and Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd, as well as television programs like The Ed Sullivan Show, Ready, Steady Go!, Elvis Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite, and The Johnny Cash Show. Kubernik, who has been involved in the documentary world for decades, incorporates exclusive interviews he has conducted over the last half century with groundbreaking, influential documentarians D.A. Pennebaker, Murray Lerner, Albert Maysles, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, and Mel Stuart, alongside contemporary filmmakers like Baz Luhrmann, Andrew Solt, David Leaf, Morgan Neville, Alison Ellwood, Thom Zimny, Roddy Bogawa, Beverly Lindsay-Johnson, Jonathan Holiff, Alex Winter, Neil Norman, and Bill Teck. Providing further depth and perspective are Kubernik's interviewees Keith Richards, the Doors' Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore, Jerry Garcia, Ice Cube, Johnny Cash, Tina Turner, George Harrison, Ravi Shankar, the Supremes' Mary Wilson, David Bowie, Merry Clayton, Micky Dolenz, Phil Spector, Jack Nitzsche, Bobby Womack, Tom Petty, Steve Cropper, Wayne Jackson, the Temptations’ David Ruffin, Roger Steffens, Jon Burlingame, Eddie Kramer, Billy Cox, Smokey Robinson, the Seeds’ Daryl Hooper and Jan Savage, Andrew Loog Oldham, Howard Kaylan, Berry Gordy, Jr., Al Kooper, Kim Fowley, Jim Keltner, Marty Balin, Ice-T, Henry Diltz, the Miracles’ Bobby Rogers, Bill Graham, Ken Scott, Bob Johnston, Robbie Robertson, and many more. Kubernik's cinematic, multi-voice narrative also mixes the recollections of record producers, engineers, photographers, university professors, authors, and writers discussing the documentaries. Nearly 100 photos and artifacts illustrate Kubernik’s 378-page expedition through the documentaries and exploration of the genre’s remarkable surge in popularity in recent years. Screen Gems: Pop Music Documentaries & Rock and Roll TV Scenes opens with a foreword penned by Andrew Loog Oldham, the Rolling Stones’ 1963-1967 record producer/manager, author, and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee. The book wraps with a back cover testimonial from another Rock Hall member: DJ, author, singer-songwriter, and producer Stevie Van Zandt, also musical director of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. “Without a doubt, Screen Gems is the first book to explore the rock documentary in-depth. Once again, Harvey Kubernik couples his encyclopedic knowledge with the willingness to investigate behind the scenes and talk to the people that actually make the movies and music. If you want gossip and lightweight fantasy, go elsewhere. If you want to learn about the art form and the people that fight hard to push it forward, this is the place. " - Daniel Weizmann, novelist, Pacific Coast Highway Mystery series “There are authors who have lived it and breathed it. And there are authors who can only read and dream about it. Harvey Kubernik is a native of Los Angeles who lives with an endless goldmine of stories in his head and keyboard. Kubernik relishes diversity and has always championed the forgotten East L.A. sound and its communal R & B heritage in his writings. “In his new book Screen Gems, Kubernik touts and covers documentaries near and dear to the heart and soul of East L.A., such as 18th & Grand The Olympic Auditorium Story and Zappa. Growing up in East L.A., I admired Frank Zappa’s connection to Doo-Wop, Pachucos, and El Monte Legion Stadium. While others have chosen to ignore the Sounds of East L.A., Kubernik continues to revive his intense alliance to one of L.A.'s finest and obscure homegrown genres. It gives me great pleasure to know that all of Kubernik's rock 'n' roll life has been one big intersection with East L.A. favorite sons, such as Thee Midniters, Cannibal & the Headhunters, and the Premiers.” Gene Aguilera, East Los Angeles music historian and Boxing Hall of Fame inductee, author, Mexican American Boxing from the Golden State. Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love. Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 the duo wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble. Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. His Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll TV Scenes) is scheduled for a late summer 2025 publication date. Kubernik’s 1995 interview, Berry Gordy: A Conversation With Mr. Motown is in The Pop, Rock & Soul Reader edited by David Brackett was published in 2019 by Oxford University Press. Brackett is a Professor of Musicology in the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Canada. Harvey joined a lineup which includes LeRoi Jones, Johnny Otis, Ellen Willis, Nelson George, Nat Hentoff, Jim Delehant, David Ritz, Nelson George, Camille Paglia, Ben Fong-Torres, Jerry Wexler, Jim Delehant, Ralph J. Gleason, Greil Marcus, Cameron Crowe, Richard Cromelin, and Paul Nelson. The New York City Department of Education will publish for fall 2025 the social studies textbook Hidden Voices: Jewish Americans in United States History. Kubernik’s 1976 profile/interview with concert promoter Bill Graham on the Best Classic Bands website Bill Graham Interview on the Rock ’n’ Roll Revolution, 1976, Best Classic Bands, is included. Harvey wrote the liner notes to CD re-releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, The Essential Carole King, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special, The Ramones’ End of the Century and Big Brother & the Holding Company Captured Live at The Monterey International Pop Festival. During 2006 Kubernik spoke at the special hearings by The Library of Congress in Hollywood, California, addressing archiving practices and audiotape preservation. In 2017 he appeared at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in their Distinguished Speakers Series. Harvey spoke at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in 2023 discussing the Martin Scorsese-directed The Last Waltz. Kubernik has lectured at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television about Oscar-winner D. A. Pennebaker, examining his acclaimed documentaries on Bob Dylan, Dont Look Back, and David Bowie, Ziggy and the Spiders From Mars, for instructor Dr. David James. Show more