Description
About Will Hodgkinson
About Lawrence
Lawrence is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is known as the frontman in the indie pop bands Felt, Denim, and Mozart Estate. Lawrence is the subject of Lawrence of Belgravia, a documentary by filmmaker Paul Kelly, which debuted at the London Film Festival in 2011.
About Street-Level Superstar: A Year With Lawrence
‘Will has finally written his masterpiece. I’m glad I could be of assistance’ LAWRENCE
‘Essential reading’ JARVIS COCKER
**** MOJO
‘One of the best music books I’ve ever clapped eyes on’ MARC RILEY
’10/10 – An extraordinarily empathetic study’ UNCUT
‘Magnificent’ SPECTATOR
Guardian Book of the Day
A Foyles Top Ten Read for September
Lawrence is the greatest pop star who never made it, his dreams of glory thwarted over the past five decades by bad luck and self-sabotage. At sixty-one, he set off on a new mission: to escape poverty, obscurity and the humiliation of kids at the bus stop laughing at him by writing a smash hit.
But what is the cost of a dream? In 1980, Lawrence formed Felt, who released ten albums and ten singles in ten years before splitting up. In 1991, he reinvented himself with novelty-pop outfit Denim. Signed to EMI, riding the wave of Britpop, in 1997, Denim’s song ‘Summer Smash’ became Radio 1’s Single of the Week and looked like a sure-fire hit.
Then Princess Diana was killed in a car crash. All copies were melted down. Crushing depression, addiction and homelessness followed…
but in the face of it all, Lawrence never gave up. In Street-Level Superstar, bestselling author and journalist Will Hodgkinson follows Lawrence as he rebuilds his life. He gets mistaken for an old lady by an amorous pensioner, is reduced to dragging sacks of 2p coins to his local bank and wanders through London’s distant suburbs in search of lyrical inspiration.
As they walk together down rain-soaked streets, Will tells the story of Britain’s most eccentric cult star. Will he write the greatest song the world has ever known before the year is out? And was it worth sacrificing everything – family, relationships, health, sanity – for art?
