Growing up in the Boston suburbs, Tom Werman was deeply affected by pop music from a young age. He long dreamed of a career in music--first as Elvis, then as the next George Harrison--but it almost didn't turn out that way. Dutifully following the path his parents had laid out for him, he obtained an MBA from an Ivy League university and took a plum job in an industry he came to despise.

Then, in 1970, a chance letter sent to CBS Records boss Clive Davis led to a new opportunity . . . and a place in rock'n'roll history. As an A&R man at Epic Records, Werman helped introduce the world to REO Speedwagon, Boston, Ted Nugent, and Cheap Trick; he also discovered KISS, Rush, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, but his record label passed on all of them. Then, as an independent producer, he oversaw landmark albums by Mötley Crüe ( Shout At The Devil ), Twisted Sister ( Stay Hungry ), Lita Ford ( Dangerous Curves ), Jeff Beck ( Live With Jan Hammer ), Poison ( Open Up And Say ...

Ahh! ), and many more. All in all, his record-making résumé includes twenty-three gold- or platinum-selling albums and cumulative sales of more than fifty-two million copies. After bearing witness to several sea changes in the music industry, Werman retired from producing in 2001 and reinvented himself as an award-winning innkeeper in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts.

And that might have been that--until an off-the-cuff rebuttal to a disparaging critique of his role in making the Mötley Crüe album Girls, Girls, Girls on a music website led to a fortnightly column and now this book--an honest and engaging insider account on how some of the best-loved albums of the 1970s and 80s came to be. A must for anyone interested in the glory days of rock and metal, ...