But I finally got ahold of Gary, and he told me if I could find him a certain 45 by a guy named Wild Bill Emerson he’d talk to me. Everybody told me that he was a lost cause and it would never happen. Gary was living a reclusive, drug-addled life in a Florida trailer with blacked-out windows. What moment changed your life the most? What´s been the highlights in your life and career so far?Ĭhanged my life the most? Well, when I was just starting out I wanted to write about a honky-tonk singer named Gary Stewart. I’m certainly no cheerleader for the cause. I have a love/hate affair with all of it.

How has the Rock n’ Roll Counterculture influenced your views of the world and the journeys you’ve taken? It was music that led me to what I do for a living, for better or worse. The people I’ve written about have taught me everything I’ve needed to know. I try to stay away from the music industry-and everybody else. What do you learn about yourself from the music industry and people of? How important was music in your life? McDonough currently lives in the Pacific Northwest where he divides his time between writing and 3D photography (his hobby). Soul Survivor, the author's biography of singer Al Green, published in 2017. McDonough assisted musician John Fogerty with his 2015 autobiography Fortunate Son and that same year the director Nicolas Winding Refn published a book of exploitation movie posters largely based on McDonough's collection. Russell, who had also optioned the author's Russ Meyer biography, but neither movie ever materialized.

In 2010 McDonough's biography of Tammy Wynette was published and the book was optioned by director David O. In addition to the aforementioned biographies, McDonough has authored profiles on Jimmy Scott, Gary Stewart, Hubert Selby, Jr., the Ormond family and Link Wray, and over the span of his career he has written for a number of publications including: The Village Voice, Film Comment, and Variety.

Other reviewers decry the inclusion of his personal experience/reactions often found in his books as a sort of biographical treason. Time's Richard Corliss declared his first published work The Ghastly One 'a masterpiece' and John Waters has repeatedly named it one of his favorite books (this was actually McDonough's second effort the first, Shakey: The Biography of Neil Young, had been held up by a lawsuit over the claim that Young had tried to prevent publication). For this reason, he was described by The Times as 'a literary Terminator'. He is noted by critics for his remarkably exhaustive accounts and for his tendency to avoid romanticizing his subjects' lives. He is perhaps best known for his biographies of Russ Meyer, Andy Milligan and Neil Young. Jimmy McDonough is a biographer and journalist. But music can also be used to sell you a car or a candidate.

Shakey by Jimmy McDonough