Neal Preston: Exhilarated and Exhausted - (Hardcover)

Some of the best pictures of Rock N Roll history that I have ever seen. Bravo! And the text is very witty.

A remarkable career-spanning achievement, Neal Preston's Exhilarated and Exhausted is so much more than a document of 40+ years on the road with a staggering array musicians and artists. In addition to some of the most iconic photographs ever (Jimmy Page swigging Jack Daniels backstage, anyone? Freddie Mercury bent over almost inhumanly backwards on stage?), the reader is treated to a window into Preston's life as a rock photographer. But they're also treated to so much more. The writing in the book is disarmingly charming and hilarious, and in an instant you understand how he was able to gain the trust of his subjects and have the access he did to bring them to Technicolor life in a way we've never seen before. He shows the majesty and the humanity, the humility and the humor in every story and every photograph. Preston places the reader firmly in his shoes, and you feel like you are there -- on the plane with Led Zeppelin taking a passport photo of Jimmy Page, in the photo pit at a Who concert, so close that Roger Daltrey almost hits you with his swinging microphone, intimately backstage with Freddy Mercury as he applies his makeup for the evening's festivities, on the roof in Venice Beach as Stevie Nicks almost literally flies away during a photo shoot, and on and on and on... Exhilarated and Exhausted is a book that gives you the rush of standing shoulder to shoulder with the greatest of the great, and is something you can revisit over and over again, marveling at the powerful and poetic moments captured and showcased within the pages of this essential book. I can't recommend it highly enough -- go get a copy for yourself, and while you're at it, grab a few for your friends who you know will flip out when they see it!