The 20 best memoirs written by musicians

At Paste magazine Dan Holmes tagged the twenty best memoirs written by musicians, including:

Just Kids by Patti Smith

Lyrical and moving, Just Kids is the account of Smith’s formative friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who died in 1989. Smith maintains a narrow focus that strengthens her narrative, giving us an indelible portrait of two young artists working to divine their futures while surviving in 1970s Manhattan. Lush with a romanticism tempered slightly by time and grief, Smith’s memoir makes a fervent tribute to her old friend and to an iteration of New York that’s fading ever-faster into myth.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue