Below are a synopsis and sample chapter/s of Ragamuffins Tale, a two hundred page memoir of a coming of age story, behind-the-scenes, among some of the countercultural revolution’s most iconic figures, artists, musicians and underworld figures. Such as Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Joanna Harcourt-Smith and Timothy Leary.
While I have had music published as a composer in film, this is my first attempt at writing a book. For most of my career I’ve been a film, commercials and TV producer and editor, working primarily in New York, Los Angeles and Istanbul. Some notable releases being the feature film Swing, with Jacqueline Bisset and the A&E Biography of James Earl Jones, as well as commercials for Pepsi, Pantene and music videos for The Wonderstuff, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Roger Taylor (of Queen).
The target audience are fans of music figures, artists and counterculture.
Books in a similar category would be The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls; Acid for The Children by Flea and The Invisible Circus by Jennifer Egan.
I do have two readable chapters open on my website at https://ragamuffinstory.com
Yours sincerely,
Charley Weber – Author and Researcher in Writing, Film and Digital Arts
Ragamuffin’s Tale Synopsis:
A coming of age story set in the heart of the heady 60s and 70s counterculture revolution.
The story is more one of survival than of a heroic journey, but reflects a reality often glossed over: what happens to some of the kids born into that circle of poets, artists and dealers when one of their parents gets too heavily into smuggling and using drugs.
If it weren’t such a universal cautionary family tale, you might be forgiven for reading the story as one long name drop of the who’s who in the cultural revolution: from the first chapter, in which Charley recalls experiences of meeting Jimi Hendrix, where he was famously filmed on stage with the guitar god, to being driven around by Tara Browne in his infamous sports car. On to being a page boy and also a child drug mule, smuggling an illicit gift for Mick Jagger at his wedding to Bianca in St. Tropez, as well as meeting with Timothy Leary and Joanna Harcourt Smith in Switzerland when Leary is on the run from federal agents.
As he and his brother grow up they are left to contend with a loving but heavily drug addicted father getting deeper into dangerous gang level drug setups, rip offs and raids by the police – who may also be in on the setups. One brother is rescued by a godfather to go to Ivy League schools in California, the younger one is left at the centre of the drug dealing antics. This is his account of what happened next in one person’s struggle to reach solid ground.
Book layout examples:
Charleys Core Creative 