Autobiographies: the contemporary catalogue is huge and bookstore shelves are heavy with the weight of life-stories. Ex-Presidents, actors, cooks, criminals, Nobel prize winners, preachers, poets and CEOs all write them. Rock stars write them, too – ‘marquee names’ like Tina Turner, Melissa Etheridge, Grace Slick, and Meatloaf, but also minor figures such as Dallas Taylor, the former drummer for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. And plenty of others, including – to name just a handful – Chuck Berry, Ronnie Spector, Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, both Ray and Dave Davies, Dee Dee Ramone, Martha Reeves, Eric Burdon, and John Cale.