Rock 'n' roll's strangest moments: extraordinary tales from over fifty years of rock music history

Rock music, since its pre-history in blues, country music and 40s and early 50s 
pop, through to the well-publicised excesses of touring bands of today, has left 
a legacy of thousands of weird and wonderful stories in its wake. 

We’ve all read about the Who’s Keith Moon driving a Rolls Royce into a hotel 
swimming pool, but far more bizarre tales of on-the-road mayhem have never 
been widely told. Likewise, Svengali-like managers have manipulated starstruck 
musicians since rock began, though hanging your well-known client from 
a third floor window was a less usual way of ensuring their loyalty. And just 
where was the stalled hotel lift in which all four Beatles, according to legend, 
were turned on to marijuana? 

There are the unsung heroes of rock – pioneering eccentrics who helped make 
the music what it is and ended up as mere footnotes in the history books. Men 
such as UK producer Joe Meek who created seminal classics from a bed-sit 
above a cleaners on the Holloway Road, and the New York DJ who originally 
coined the phrase ‘rock 'n’roll’ and died in alcoholic poverty. 

Not to mention the stories behind the stars: when Debbie Harry was a 'Playboy' 
Bunny, Paul Simon wrote ‘Homeward Bound’ on Widnes railway station in 
Lancashire, and the Gallagher brothers (so they claim) were petty thieves.