It’s because of several great rock and roll books that I’m a writer today. When I wrote my own music tome, Bang Your Head, my goal was to try and write a great story along the lines of my favorite rock books that inspired me. I don’t think I came anywhere close, but I tried dammit, and now I realize writing any book, let alone a great one like the titles I’m about to mention, is far more difficult than I ever could have imagined.

When I read Fredric Dannen’s Hit Men, I was blown away that someone finally exposed the corruption of the music industry. Like Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Hit Men told one outrageous story after another, and I read it over and over. I often call it the All the President’s Men of the music business, and since its 1990 publication, nothing’s come close.

I can still remember when No One Here Gets Out Alive (written by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman) was the must read book for high school and college kids when it came out in the early eighties, not to mention it also sparked The Doors revival. I also loved Sugerman’s Wonderland Avenue, his autobiographical account of his descent into a drug abyss.

I also find it funny that Motley Crue’s The Dirt is considered the first hard rock / metal tell-all, when as far as I’m concerned that title belongs to Hammer of the Gods, the insane saga of Led Zeppelin, who set the standards for rock debauchery that many bands would later try to top. In the mid ‘90’s, Legs McNeil and Gillian Cain wrote the definitive history of punk, Please Kill Me, and in more recent memory, Charles Cross’s biography of Kurt Cobain, Heavier Than Heaven, was an incredible read that really did, as Rolling Stone put it, set “a high, new standard” for rock books.

But those books came out years ago now. These days, it’s been too long since we’ve had a great rock and roll book, and this generation needs one. The newly released autobiographies of Eric Clapton and Guns N Roses / Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash may not exactly reach the realm of greatness, but they’re both terrific reads that prove there’s still rock and roll stories worth telling.

The rise and fall of Guns N’ Roses is definitely one of those great rock and roll sagas that deserved to be told, and here it is, the good, the bad, and the very ugly. Slash’s autobiography is being touted as the first time he’s giving it up to the press, but on the contrary, Slash has always been a straight shooter in interviews, not to mention he’s one of the most down to earth people in rock and roll you’ll ever meet.

Having talked to Slash twice for my own book, I was surprised at just how candid he was, and I always knew he had a hell of a book in him if he ever decided to do it (along with his candor, he’s also got a great sense of humor and is a terrific storyteller). Having read an insane excerpt of the book online, I knew it would deliver.

I won’t reveal any of the books contents by giving away any choice anecdotes, why spoil the fun of discovering it yourself? All I can say after finishing it is if he left anything out, I’d be afraid to read it. If you’re a fan of the man’s guitar playing, a fan of GNR (and back in the day, who wasn’t?), or want to read a sex, drugs, rock and roll story on steroids, you won’t be disappointed.

If there’s really any guitar player who’s finally giving it up to the public, it’s Eric Clapton. Clapton has always been such a private man, I’m amazed he would ever write a book, but I’m glad he has the courage to finally open up his life for all to read.

Where Slash’s book is uninhibited, Clapton is more restrained. He doesn’t sensationalize his life, he recalls it in a very matter of fact tone, and there’s a lot of tragedy that hit him that would be a lot harder to get through if it wasn’t written this way. The chapter where Clapton writes about the loss of his son is especially sad to read, and as he recently told amazon.com, he could only delve so far into it. “It’s almost like I have this reservoir of sadness, which I can only dip my toe into,” he said.

Like many rock stars, Clapton delved deep into self-destructive behavior, and his story has plenty of sex, drugs, and band drama, but not without redemption at the end. As the book comes to a close, it seems that in the last ten years of his life he’s finally achieved a peace and happiness that’s long eluded him. It was certainly a hard and rocky road to get there.

Recently it was reported that Keith Richards was paid over $7 million to write his autobiography for Little Brown, which is scheduled for release in the fall of 2010. This certainly has potential to be an amazing book with a lot of scope. I’d love to read the history of rock and roll from Keef’s point of view, and how the Stones became a big part of that history. Not to mention his extra curricular activities, which could have easily killed a herd of lesser rock stars. I’m glad he’s decided to put it down on paper while there’s still time, but then again, we can’t forget the old joke about when they drop the bomb, only the cockroaches and Keef will come out of the rubble.