Taxonomy is a bitch. Especially if the subject you’re trying to slot into a classification is Ian Whitcomb, whose chief achievement in most folks’ minds is the relentlessly rockin’,  sublimely over-the-top Brit Invasion hit “You Turn Me On” (1965). There’s also Whitcomb the author (of the ’60s memoir Rock Odyssey and After the Ball: Pop Music from Rag to Rock and a dozen other books), disc jockey, scholar and journalist, songwriter/ukulele-ist and raconteur. In today’s parlance, Whitcomb is a “legacy brand”: a longstanding, (self-invented) character as well as a living, breathing resident alien residing, since 1979, in L.A.

Which makes this book’s subtitle somewhat misleading: The exile was voluntary, the syndrome strictly Stockholm. He identifies fully with the California that’s captured him, the Lotusland whose people and pathways are the source material for this collection of journal and (since 1996) blog entries.  I’ll come right out and say it: It’s a hell of a fun read, whether you already know the brand or not. You’ll know it thoroughly by the time you finish this engaging klatch of observations, opinions (many politically incorrect) and digressions. They cover everything from Whitcomb’s teen-star stint (including his deflowering in Seattle) to his face-to-faces with Johnny Carson, Tennessee Williams and Phil Spector (an especially poignant incident at Spector’s recent trial), as well as harrowing accounts of getting lost in a desert snowstorm, stumbling into a robbery in progress, and his feud with an insane Altadena neighbor. The latter involves restraining orders, attempted dog poisoning and the guy next door’s threats to mount a machine gun on his roof to mow down Ian and wife Regina. Bonus features: set-to’s with Harvey Weinstein, Mick Jagger and Nick Tosches.

Throughout, the kid/character stays in the picture, usually stage center, but his ego (it’s more a desperate drive to entertain; as they say, he’d open for a refrigerator) is always leavened by keen self-awareness and just as much self-deprecation. “I spend too much time looking up mentions of me on Google,” he confesses. “Going in too deep can lead to a sharp comeuppance. E.g: Last night I’d got as far as the 75th entry when suddenly I was aghast: here was a fellow in a guitar chat-room discussing ukuleles and he had the nerve to say he’s tired of me and I’m an old fart who publishes songs nobody young has ever heard of.”

The wit would well be enough, but Letters from Lotusland also has much soul, in Whitcomb’s generously expressed love for songs and their singers, in his unabashed pining for worlds that waltzed past and won’t return (the England of his ’40s and early-’50s youth, Tin Pan Alley, pre-Beatles America) and his gratitude for being allowed to watch, as well as play, the games of showbiz and life. A delight, really.


Ian Whitcomb's Letters From Lotusland: An Englishman in Exile is available for purchase here.