the book
“I always knew Jack Sonni was a great guitar player but until I read this, I never realized he was also a terrific writer! Jack has a unique and very compelling story to tell – the guy standing outside the rock kingdom looking in who suddenly gets yanked inside and offered a crown and a seat at the King’s table.
A rock n roll Cinderella story, Jack went overnight from the sidelines to the spotlight, and learned the hard way that when it comes to wealth, fame and living inside the celebrity bubble, there really is no place like home.
This is a book for every kid who ever stood in front of the mirror with his guitar and wondered, ‘Why not me?’”
Bill Flanagan
Executive Vice President, MTV Networks
author: “Evening’s Empire,” “A&R,” “U2 at the End of the World”
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In December of 1984, after struggling for ten years as a musician in New York City, Jack Sonni got The Phone Call that lifted him, literally overnight, from the obscurity of working in a Manhattan guitar shop to the blinding spotlight of fame as a guitarist with Dire Straits, the biggest band in the world at the time.
As the “Brothers In Arms” album rocketed to the top of the worldwide charts fueled by the hit “Money For Nothing,” the young musician seemed poised to fulfill every rock star fantasy he’d ever dreamed, from recording a multi-platinum album in world renowned studios, touring the world and playing with his 
heroes – Pete Townshend, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan – to performing at Wembley Stadium in front of 80,000 people and a global television audience of 400 million for Live Aid. He became a fixture on MTV, appeared in Rolling Stone magazine and watched his love life become tabloid fodder. He went, in his own words, from “the invisible man to recognized-in-the-street, hanging-with-the-beautiful-people, open-velvet-rope famous in the blink of an eye.”
Eighteen months later, after 256 sold out shows in 25 countries, two Grammy awards, and selling 23 million copies of a ground-breaking album, the tour ended. For Jack Sonni, so did the dream.
But the story wasn’t over. By turns laugh-out-loud funny and head-shaking incredible, “Rock n Rolled” chronicles Jack’s unpremeditated survival as he ricochets from obscurity to fame and back again. His journey—before, during, and after his extraordinary fifteen minutes of fame—echoes the wide-eyed, hopeful innocence of an entire generation, dreamers who cherished hopes for something far different than the world they inherited.
Written with wit and brio rivaling Antony Bourdain’s bestseller, “Kitchen Confidential,” guitarist Jack Sonni’s “Rock n Rolled” is neither a tired tell-all detailing the escapades of a rocker bad boy nor a woe-is-me-blame-fest searching for villains at the helm of his fall from grace. It is an unflinching examination of a man whose dreams propel him past the brink of reality and then leave him stranded, and how he ultimately finds his way home.
Read an excerpt from “Rock n Rolled” here and get the free audio download of the complete Intro chapters below. Hope you dig it.
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