Becoming Elektra: The True Story of Jac Holzman’s Visionary Record Label

Becoming Elektra tells the incredible true story of the pioneering Elektra Records label and its far-sighted founder, Jac Holzman, who built a small folk imprint into a home for some of the most groundbreaking, important, and enduring music of the rock era.

Placing the Elektra label in a broader context, the book presents a gripping narrative of musical and cultural history that reads like an inventory of all that is exciting and innovative about the 60s and 70s: The Doors, Love’s Forever Changes, Tim Buckley’s Goodbye & Hello, The Stooges, The MC5’s Kick Out The Jams, Queen and Queen II, The Incredible String Band, Carly Simon’s No Secrets, and many, many more.

First published in 2010, Becoming Elektra was praised as ’eye-opening’ (Q) and a ’dazzling narrative’ (The Sun), and for ’perfectly encapsulating the enigmatic, unpredictable spirit’ of the label (Record Collector). This fully revised and expanded edition includes a brand new foreword by John Densmore of The Doors and draws on extensive new interviews with a wide range of Elektra alumni, including Tom Paley, Judy Henske, Johnny Echols, Jean Ritchie, and Bernie Krause, as well as further conversations with Holzman himself. It also adds two new chapters: a look at Elektra in Britain in the 60s and a reappraisal of the label’s 70s output.

Mick Houghton is a music publicist and journalist. Since 1979 he has looked after the Ramones, Talking Heads, Undertones, Echo & The Bunnymen, Julian Cope, Sonic Youth, The Jesus & Mary Chain, The KLF, Spiritualized, XTC, Bert Jansch and Richard Thompson, among many others. His writing has appeared in Let it Rock, Circus, Zigzag, Sounds, Time Out, Mojo, Uncut and Shindig! and he wrote the book that formed part of the Grammy nominated Forever Changing: The Golden Age of Elektra 1963-1973 CD boxed set. He first bought an Elektra LP in 1966.

John Densmore is a musician and songwriter best known as the drummer in The Doors. He is the author of the bestselling autobiography Riders On The Storm (1990) and The Doors: Unhinged (2013).