A unique look backstage at the movers and shakers behind some of the biggest bands in pop and rock history.

For decades, British bands like The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Wham! and even the Spice Girls have dominated the music industry and made countless millions for themselves, their record companies and their managers. For behind each of those bands was a guiding hand, a Svengali, protecting, promoting, persuading and occasionally punishing, on the band’s behalf. Some of those managers became almost as famous as the bands themselves: Brian Epstein was a household name, while Malcolm McLaren, Don Arden and Peter Grant became infamous. Others like The Clash’s Bernie Rhodes and Pink Floyd’s Steve O’Rourke were happier out of the limelight, but they shared the same strange devotion to their upstart charges.

Guns, Cash and Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Managers celebrates this special breed — often flawed low-achievers and hard-nosed wheeler-dealers — who were as at home talking to drug dealers and the Mafia as they were to corporate lawyers. Four of them died young — one committed suicide; one may have been murdered.

Although times may have changed, Steve Overbury here gives us a master class in twenty-first century management.