Sandford, Christopher 1956–

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SANDFORD, Christopher 1956–

PERSONAL:

Born July 1, 1956, in England; son of Sefton (a British naval officer) and Mary Ann (a homemaker) Sandford; married Karen (an educator), March 20, 1999. Education: Attended Radley College and Cambridge University. Politics: "Conservative." Religion: Anglican.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Seattle, WA.

CAREER:

Journalist and writer. London Evening Globe, London, England, member of editorial staff, beginning 1977. Wrote and did periodic radio commentary on English cricket; former freelancer for several public relations agencies.

MEMBER:

Cricketers Club of London

WRITINGS:

The Cornhill Centenary Test, Garuda (London, England), 1981.

Feasting with Panthers, Carlton (New York, NY), 1983.

Arcadian, Blandford (London, England), 1985.

We Don't Do Dogs, Geneva (London, England), 1988.

Godfrey Evans, Simon & Schuster (London, England), 1990.

Tom Graveney, V. Gollancz (London, England), 1992.

Mick Jagger, Primitive Cool, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1994.

Clapton: Edge of Darkness, Da Capo (New York, NY), 1994, revised edition, 1999.

Kurt Cobain, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 1996, revised edition, 2004.

Bowie: Loving the Alien, Da Capo Press (New York, NY), 1998.

Sting: Demolition Man, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 1998.

Springsteen: Point Blank, Da Capo Press (New York, NY), 1999.

McQueen: The Biography, HarperCollinsEntertainment (London, England), 2001.

Keith Richards: Satisfaction, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2004.

McCartney, Century (London, England), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Spectator, Times (London, England), and New York Times.

Sandford's books have been translated into fourteen languages.

SIDELIGHTS:

Christopher Sandford has written on a number of topics but is best known for his biographies of rock music stars. In Kurt Cobain, for instance, he tells the story of the troubled musician's life, culminating in Cobain's suicide at age twenty-seven and the note he left behind: "The worst crime I can think of would be to rip people off by faking it … I don't have the passion anymore." To many, Cobain's suicide seemed almost like a logical end to his life and his music, which expressed the pain of aimless living and broken homes. His anguish was something to which many young people could relate. Kurt Cobain tells about the musician's horrendous childhood, about the time he threatened to kill his pregnant wife, punk rocker and actress Courtney Love, and himself, and his attempted suicide in March 1994, just a month before he actually killed himself.

Sandford interviewed friends, relatives, acquaintances, enemies, and business associates—everyone who knew Cobain, except Courtney Love. He thus could provide exhaustive details on seemingly every day of Cobain's short life. The Cobain presented here is a study in contrasts, and, as Sandford wrote: "Anyone in the performing arts is prone to the accusation of egotism and vanity, but when it comes to Cobain the stench overpowers anything that has gone before." According to Sandford, Cobain was a man filled with inner turmoil and conflicting motives, but underlying all of them was the constant fear that he would be exposed as a fake, a phony.

Among his other biographies of musicians are Sting: Demolition Man and Bowie: Loving the Alien. In the former, the author explores the life of one of the most successful musicians in rock whose career has lasted over two decades. Born Gordon Sumner, Sting formed the band the Police with drummer Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers. The group had five hit albums with their unique mix of rock, reggae, and punk. Bowie explores the complex roles, personality changes, and phases of David Bowie's long career in rock music. Sandford provides material from Bowie's middle-class upbringing, through his years of drug addiction, and to his later, cleaner life as the husband of a supermodel, painter, and elder statesman of rock.

Sandford continues his biographies of rock music legends with Keith Richards: Satisfaction, which a Kirkus Reviews critic called a "hollow if high-revved portrait of the Rolling Stones' guitarist and songwriter." The biographer explores the early years of the Rolling Stones and their almost scandalous success. He relates stories of Richards's place within the band, focusing on his songwriting abilities, his virtuoso guitar skills, his musical influences, and his innovations as a musician, guitarist, and rock star. Sandford covers the darker aspects, too, including Richards's heavy drug and alcohol use and his multiple arrests and convictions on drug-related charges. Still, Sandford is extremely sympathetic to his subject, presenting Richards in a way that showcases his talents and contributions, perhaps to the detriment of the other members of the band, who are largely ignored or, in the case of Mick Jagger and Brian Jones, denigrated. At heart, Sandford concludes, Richards's outward behavior and appearance belies an individual who longs for close family ties and domesticity. Sandford "endows his subject with the nearly superhuman powers of almost single-handedly crafting the Stones' most enduring music," observed Lloyd Janson in Library Journal.

In McCartney Sandford profiles one of the best-known rock musicians of all time, former Beatle Paul McCartney. He provides a history of the Beatles and of McCartney's association with the group, as well as thorough coverage of McCartney's work, life, and financial success after the Beatles disbanded in 1970. Sandford sees McCartney as the group's primary creative innovator, rather than John Lennon, and "comes up with plenty of evidence to support the idea that McCartney was much more of an innovator than generally credited," noted a Kirkus Reviews contributor. McCartney, for example, pioneered the idea of the concept album and was an early innovator in the use of "found sound" and other audio experimentation that gave the Beatles' music its distinctive signature sound. McCartney's dark side is not ignored, though, as Sandford details the star's repeated encounters with drugs and the copious promiscuity he engaged in before settling down with his wife, Linda. Sandford portrays McCartney as an "ambitious, disciplined artist, a hardheaded businessman," and, ultimately, as an allaround nice guy, noted a Publishers Weekly critic. However, the same reviewer also observed that Sandford's biography is "more of a comprehensive chronicle than a coherent character study." Sandford "paints an honest portrait of a man caught between his love of what was and his desire for what would be," commented Ellen Rosner Feig in Being There. Library Journal reviewer James E. Perone concluded that Sandford's biography of McCartney is "well researched and clearly written and would make an excellent addition to any collection that contains pop culture biographies."

Sandford once told CA: "Despite a few critical barbs having to do with 'hatchet jobs' and the like, I never set out to write a 'pro' or 'anti' biography of anybody. I set out to write a true biography. Much as I've enjoyed the rock business, I severed my moorings to it (but for occasional journalism) in 1999 and am relaunched in the choppy seas of film and political writing. I still do cricket articles."