Author: Dave Wilson

Publisher: Cidermill Books (January 28, 2005)

ISBN: 0974848352

Genera: Popular Music

The following review was contributed by: Jennifer Murray Somerset. Click  HERE   to view more of Jennifer's Reviews.

For those cut throat music trivia games where the definitive answer to the origin of Foghat must be known, Dave Wilson’s book is exactly what you are looking for. [For those of you who ARE curious to know how Foghat got it’s name, it was made up by singer/guitarist “Lonesome” Dave Peverett and his brother during a childhood game of Scrabble.]

Wilson has written the book to be short bits of trivia rather than long, elaborate history of as some other books on popular culture that I have seen. This makes a great coffee table book since you are not committed to twenty pages of the history that leads up to the origin. He has also divided the book up to group together inspiration from similar sources, such as all the genera’s of media, those that were given to them by producers and just outright accidents, hometowns, sports, food and drinks, spiritual connections and just because as well. Wilson has also made a point to cross reference when necessary and explain the stage names associated with the bands as well as supply a list of stage names to birth names with all of this tied to an index. It is very obvious that much care and consideration was given to the creation of this book.

David Wilson spent the first part of this books creation in the UK and the later half in California and it very much shows in the selection of musical groups. I believe it’s fairly balanced between UK and American groups and I found myself wondering who a fair number of the UK groups were. Being like most people who recognize a song but have no idea who sing it, I found myself wondering what song they were best known for and then getting totally distracted from the origin story. A song key might have been a nice addition as well to maybe assist in those moments when you were not able to connect the dots, so to speak. Over all I found the book to be rather fascinating and I think it will help me participate more in the random trivia moments that my friends tend to fall into at random points when we are together. Who knows, I might just have a slight edge in the arts and entertainment section of Trivia Pursuit after reading Dave Wilson’s book. You never know when knowing that Foghat was an attempt at winning a game of Scrabble would come in handy. A trivia game of Jeopardy proportions just might be ridding on it.