Online - May 30, 2006

Behind the Music

“But Enough About Me,” by Jancee Dunn

Jancee Dunn is shameless.

And, as her totally gratifying memoir, But Enough About Me, makes clear, that’s one of the best things a girl can be.

A long-time Rolling Stone critic and former MTV veejay, Dunn has interviewed music’s most illustrious figures, from Bono to Loretta Lynn — yet her gimlet eye for the foibles of the ultra-famous hasn’t diminished her capacity to feel sweaty-palms fan-girl excitement.

Read about the mood-lit love-den interview with Barry White that mended her broken heart, the visit to Dolly Parton’s kitchen that yielded a souvenir chunk of Velveeta, and her drunken Lollapalooza wrestling match with Kim Deal.

Even better, though, is Dunn’s own story: An unrepentant Garden State girl (“unofficial slogan: Parts of it are nice”), Dunn found that her rock chick life was taking her too far from her big-haired, white-trash-food-eating, power-ballad-loving roots.

The tale of how she found her way back will make you want to wave a lighter back and forth and play air guitar ’til it hurts.

Available online at amazon.com or your local bookstore.