Albert Goldman
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- For the Trotskyist and labor movement lawyer, see Albert Goldman (politician).
Albert Harry Goldman (April 15, 1927 – March 28, 1994) was an American professor and author.
Born in Dormont, Pennsylvania, Albert Goldman wrote about the culture and personalities of the American music industry both in books and as a contributor to magazines. However, he is best known for his controversial biographies on Elvis Presley and John Lennon.
In his 1981 book titled Elvis, the author repeatedly belittled the late singer over his weight problems, his diet, his choice of performing costumes, and his sexual appetites and peculiarities. He even suggests that Elvis's promiscuity masked latent homosexuality. Goldman saw himself as a purist, and is quoted as saying: "Commercial to the core, Elvis was the kind of singer dear to the heart of the music business. For him to sing a song was to sell a song. His G clef was a dollar sign." Of the more than four hundred books on Presley, none ever upset his fans as much as Goldman did. Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post called it a "nasty book, written in spectacularly execrable prose, but the view of Presley that it expressed dovetailed in many instances with my own, and in spite of itself I found things in it to admire." In 1990, Goldman published a second book, entitled Elvis: The Last 24 Hours, on the circumstances and events of Presley's death.
In his 1988 book on The Lives of John Lennon, Goldman drew the wrath of fans after being repeatedly critical of the dead music icon and alleging that Lennon had a homosexual relationship with The Beatles manager, Brian Epstein. The book contained some unsubstantiated conjecture by Goldman, including the allegation that Lennon solicited underage male prostitutes in Thailand. It was lambasted by Rolling Stone in what Goldman described as an attempt to "discredit my biography." Concerning Goldman's account of Lennon's consumption of LSD, Luc Sante, in the New York Review of Books, said: "Goldman's background research was either slovenly or nonexistent." The author replied, "What is the basis for this sweeping and defamatory assertion? Absolutely nothing save for my quoting only one book about LSD. Yet if Sante knew anything about drugs, he would recognize that the only serious problem about Lennon's consumption of LSD was one that has no literature; namely, the question of what effect this drug has upon a man who takes it every day, eating it 'like candy.' "
Not everything Goldman wrote was negative. In his book on Lenny Bruce, he rated Bruce as one of the greatest comic geniuses ever and in a Life Magazine article, he referred to Elvin Jones as "the world's greatest rhythmic drummer."
He was memorably portrayed by Phil Hartman on Saturday Night Live.
Partial bibliography:
- Ladies and gentlemen - Lenny Bruce!! (1971)
- Freakshow;: The rocksoulbluesjazzsickjewblackhumorsexpoppsych gig and other scenes from the counter-culture (1971)
- Carnival in Rio (1978)
- Grass Roots: Marijuana in America Today (1979)
- Disco (1979)
- Elvis (1981)
- The Lives of John Lennon (1988)
- Elvis: The Last 24 Hours (1990)
- Sound Bites (1992)
- Freakshow : Misadventures in the Counterculture, 1959-1971 (2001) - posthumous collection
