The Haight, songwriter Bert Berns, and more from culture critic Joel Selvin

Show #96, Hour 2 | Guest: Joel Selvin, former Senior Pop Culture Writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. | Show Summary: Joel Selvin’s written and curated an indispensable gallery of legendary photographer Jim Marshall’s Sixties-era San Francisco photography. The counter-culture movement of the 1960s is one of the most endlessly examined moments of the twentieth century. Widely regarded as the cradle of revolution, San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury grew from a small neighborhood to a worldwide phenomenon—a concept that extends far beyond the boundaries of the intersection itself. Jim Marshall visually chronicled this area as perhaps no one else did. Renowned for his portraits of some of the greatest musicians of the era, Marshall covered Haight-Ashbury with the same unique eye that allowed him to amass a staggering archive of music photography and Grammy recognition for his work. In this one-of-a-kind book, the full extent of Marshall’s Haight-Ashbury photography is stunningly displayed. Written by bestselling music journalist Selvin, the story behind each of these incomparable images is disclosed through a revealing narrative, lending the images a fascinating context and perspective. Zhere Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues is both a definitive account of the New York rhythm and blues world of the early ‘60s, and the harrowing, ultimately tragic story of songwriter and record producer Bert Berns, whose meteoric career was fueled by his pending doom. His heart damaged by rheumatic fever as a youth, doctors told Berns he would not live to see twenty-one. Although his name is little remembered today, Berns worked alongside all the greats of the era – Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler, Burt Bacharach, Phil Spector, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, anyone who was anyone in New York rhythm and blues. In seven quick years, he went from nobody to the top of the pops – producer of monumental r&b classics, songwriter of “Twist and Shout,” “My Girl Sloopy” and others. His fury to succeed led Berns to use his Mafia associations to muscle Atlantic Records out of a partnership and intimidate new talents like Neil Diamond and Van Morrison he signed to his record label, only to drop dead of a long expected fatal heart attack, just when he was seeing his grandest plans and life’s ambitions frustrated and foiled.