"STEPPIN' OUT:" Another New eBook & A First Chance to Subscribe

I used to rue the late-night live music scenes in New York that I had missed. I used to fantasize about them as a kid: 52nd Street, Harlem After-Hours, Cafe Society, Greenwich Village folk coffee houses, on and on.

I did not realize, back in the late-1970s, that I was, in fact, living in a historic late-night music moment. Even as I wrote a book about it.

STEPPIN’OUT: A Guide to Live Music in Manhattan came out in 1980. My then-boss at Rolling Stone magazine, Susanne Weil, had the idea; I had the typewriter, essentially. Let’s go to every live music club in New York, we determined, and capture them all in words… forever, as it turns out, though at the time it just seemed like fun.

It took us about a year. Sometimes we hit the clubs separately and pooled our notes, many times we went together, staying out all night. And pooled our notes. I also interviewed a great many club owners, for the record, and did much of the writing, while Susanne edited me.

I was 22. Susanne, a bit older. In retrospect, I can’t believe our stamina, though at the time, I gave it not a thought. (To be candid, we did have some pharmacological assistance. Those were the times.)

We really wanted to do more editions, but we didn’t, and that probably was a good thing too.

I barely opened STEPPIN’ OUT, or even looked at it in the forty-plus years that followed.

But you know what? I re-opened it recently. Leafing through, it dawned on me that no one, to my knowledge, has ever done anything like STEPPIN’ OUT — not before or since. I think STEPPIN’ OUT may be the only book to cover every music club in Manhattan at any one time. A unique undertaking it was, and remains, with write-ups that still read well (I believe) and add up to a singular snapshot-in-time of a city on the skids but still teeming with live music; more clubs than you can possibly imagine. Almost all of them now gone.

We orchestrated STEPPIN’ OUT along the following chapters:
Jazz.
Cabaret/Showcase
Rock
Folk/Country & Western
Piano Bar/Lounge
International
Hotel Rooms
Dining & Dancing.
Attractive Settings with Background Music

Can you imagine? So many music spots! 179 pages-worth.

The illustrations were utterly singular too and they have delightfully held up, drawn by Anne Harris, a friend of Susanne’s, who had an extraordinarily original eye; witty and whimsical.

STEPPIN’ OUT was reissued as a brand new, first time eBook on Amazon a few days ago. You can buy it HERE.

But I also have an alternate offer to make. I’m launching a subscription Sub-Substack: Barry Singer (on The ARTS) B*A*C*K*S*T*O*R*Y. The idea is to share the backstories behind my ARTS writing, bi-weekly.

Like what? Like the original drafts for my published N.Y. Times pieces with all the good stuff restored that my Times editors cut for space. Like previously unpublished “killed” pieces of mine that got killed for no good reason at all. Unexpurgated interview transcripts and recordings with some really interesting people. Plus (and especially) annotated excerpts from my books — in-print, out-of-print and, yes, coming to print — beginning with the venerable STEPPIN’ OUT right here.

You’ll get a different backstory bi-weekly, all part of your subscription.

The STEPPIN’ OUT stuff alone should make you smile. So many forgotten nightspots. Here’s a taste:

Note the no cover/no minimum/no credit cards policy. Truly a place of the people (right under the 59th Street Bridge). And no food. Just music. Liberally lubricated with booze.

Also, dig those drop-ins! Judy and Liza?!

Watch for your free first look at Barry Singer(on The ARTS) B*A*C*K*S*T*O*R*Y coming very soon to your inbox with your invitation to become an inaugural subscriber.