White Rabbit acquires memoir from writer and music PR legend, Barbara Charone

13 January 2022 - Press release

Access All Areas: A Backstage Pass Through 50 Years of Music and Culture tells the story of how a music-loving, budding journalist from a Chicago suburb became the defining music publicist of her generation. With an exclusive foreword from Elvis Costello, Barbara Charone’s debut memoir is a time capsule of the last fifty years, told through the lens of music, from the incredible woman who set the cultural agenda in her work with a myriad of stars including Keith Richards, Foo Fighters, REM, Rod Stewart and Madonna. 

Lee Brackstone, Publisher at White Rabbit, has acquired World rights from Cathryn Summerhayes at Curtis Brown for Access All Areas: A Backstage Pass Through 50 Years of Music and Culture by Barbara Charone to be published on 23rd June 2022. 

First as a journalist and then a publicist at Warner Brothers Records for nearly twenty years, Barbara Charone has experienced, first-hand, the changes in the cultural landscape. Access All Areas is a personal, insightful and humorous memoir packed with stories of being on the cultural frontline, from first writing press releases on a typewriter driven by TippEx, then as a press officer for heavy metal bands taking the bus up to Donington Festival with coffee, croissants and the much more popular sulfate. To taking on Madonna, an unknown girl from Detroit, and telling Smash Hits 'you don't have to run the piece if the single doesn't chart', and becoming a true pioneer in music, Charone continues to work with the biggest names in music, including Depeche Mode, Robert Plant, Foo Fighters and Mark Ronson at her agency MBCPR.

Barbara Charone said: “I’d often thought of writing this book especially after a few glasses of wine with friends but somehow never got round to it. By chance, Bobby Gillespie happened to read one of my old articles about the Stones during lockdown,and suggested I speak to Lee Brackstone. I can’t think of a better home for this than White Rabbit.”

Lee Brackstone said: “Whether you know it or not, Barbara Charone’s uncanny taste and understanding of the pop culture zeitgeist has been the invisible compass driving your gig-going and music-buying habits for the past forty years. A maverick PR with the magic touch, her magnificent memoir tells the story of a music-obsessed girl from Chicago who falls in love with British counter-culture, destined to re-shape it for multiple generations.”

Born in Chicago, Barbara moved to London after graduating from Northwestern University. The first half of her career was spent as a music journalist working for NME, Sounds, Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy and Cream before writing the authorised biography Keith Richards: Life As A Rolling Stone in 1979. 

In November 2000, after almost 20 years at Warner Brothers, Barbara co-founded leading independent music agency MBCPR with Moira Bellas where she still works now. Within six months it became one of the country’s top music PR firms. The current client roster includes: Madonna, Mark Ronson, Foo Fighters, Elvis Costello, Keith Richards, Rod Stewart, Kasabian, Metallica, Depeche Mode, Texas, Rag’n’Bone Man, St Vincent, Pearl Jam, Olly Murs, Ray Davies  and Rufus Wainwright. 

Barbara Charone is one of the most respected women working in the music business. In November 2001, Charone and her business partner, Moira Bellas, were honoured as Women of the Year by Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy and The Brit Trust. Then, in both 2006 and 2009, Barbara won the coveted Music Week Press Award. 

Access All Areas: A Backstage Pass Through 50 Years of Music and Culture will be published by White Rabbit on 23^rd June 2022 in hardback, ebook and audio.