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Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. Today on the pod, we've got two music biographies looking at two very different acts. In a bit, we'll hear about a new biography of the rapper Tupac Shakur, but not before hearing about the rock band the Cars. And while these artists don't seem to have much in common at first glance, both books talk about how people's perception of them was just as important to their success as their actual music. Bill Janovitz is the writer of the Cars. Let the Stories be Told, and he talks to Here Now's Robin Young about how important MTV was to their success, but also how the band eventually fell apart as members jockeyed for center stage. That's ahead.
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The year was 1978. Yeah, way back then. So sad. We only had radio and records. Poor us. Actually. It was so great.
E
Let the good times grow. Let them make you a clown Let.
D
Them leave you so radio. We first even heard of the cars in the 1970s. The because a legendary Boston DJ played their demo reel. Years later, guitarist Elliot Easton would thank her when the Cars were inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame.
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In the very early days of the band, we had an angel in the form of a lady named Maxanne Sartori. She began to play our demo tape in heavy rotation alongside all the biggest records of the day. And we will forever be indebted to her for her incredible support in getting this thing going.
D
Then records. After the band was signed because of that tape Maxanne played, we finally got to drop the needle on the Car's debut album. As writer Bill Janovic says, the ripple from that first splash informed rock and roll for decades. Not just the sound, the look. This song won MTV's first Video of the Year award in 1984.
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You must think I'm crazy. Come hang around with you. Maybe I think I'm.
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The Cars, led by Cleveland's own Rico Cassock and Ben Orr, who'd moved to Boston. And guitarist Elliot Easton, drummer David Robinson, and on keyboards, Greg Hawks already there would go on to have other hits, let's Go, shake it up and the sublime Try who's gonna drive you home.
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Tonight?
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But the Cars broke up in 1988. Heartthrob Ben Orr died of pancreatic cancer in 2000. The remaining four members were inducted into the hall of Fame in 2018. Rick Ocasek died a year later. Now their story is being told by another musician, Bill Janovitz of the alt rock band Buffalo Tom. He's also the author of a best selling bio on Leon Russell. This new book is simply the Cars. But there is Nothing simple about it. 450 pages of rock history. Bill Janavis joins us in the studio. Good to see you.
G
You too. Thanks for having me.
D
So please start where you do in the book. In Cleveland, where Rick Otkasek, born to Czechoslovakian parents. Rick used to appear on local talent shows. And little Benjamin Orzikowski, the son of Russian Orthodox parents, already the Elvis of Cleveland. When he was a kid, he appeared on shows with his bands. They met up. I didn't realize how long what became Rick Ocasek and Ben Orr and how long it took for them to make their way to Boston and this fame.
G
Yeah, Rick Ocasec came as a teenager with his family to Cleveland. And he remembers seeing Benny 11 letters as they called him on the local show, upbeat. And when they finally met, they were like 18, 19 years old. And Rick totally remembered this natural, beautiful, great singer and everything. Just a natural musician.
D
We'll get more about the loveliness of Ben Orr. But what did Rick bring to the mix?
G
Rick was a ambitious, driven guy who wanted to be a writer. He grew up loving Buddy Holly, sort of pre Beatles guy. But then when Bob Dylan and Velvet Underground came around, it really stoked his love of writing and poetry. And he saw music as a vehicle for that primarily.
D
So 10 years in different bands, but now we come to they meet the players who are already here form the Cars and that first album. And Max Anne Sartori who got them signed. I can't give her enough props. This incredible early D. What was it about that album?
G
They tried on all these different kinds of things. You know, at first they were like a folk trio with a guy named Jim Goodkin. Then they were sort of a jazz rock band. But Rick's writing got really distilled as he threw off these other things and he realized what made a great pop song. And he struck on just the right combination of musicians with the help of Maxanne Sartore even in that regard. Because she said, you've got to get David Robinson on drums from the Modern Lovers, who were already with Jonathan Richmond. Quite popular.
D
Yeah, well. And Maxanne apparently played the car. So often people at BCN would hide the copy. So she couldn't do it, but she did. Here's just what I needed I don't.
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Mind you hanging out and talking in your sleep I guess you're just what I needed Just what I needed I needed someone to feed I guess you're just what I needed Just what I needed I needed someone to please.
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Then that's followed by Candy O, which has their first three top 20 single. Let's go.
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Let's Go.
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Bill Jonavitz. Talk about the other things that just happened at this time. You've got videos, mtv, that propelled all this.
G
Yeah, they were actually a little bit before mtv. They had the benefit of having a couple of videos already in their pocket thanks to working with Jerry Casale of Devo, who was a real visionary. So by the time MTV came around. Yeah, I mean, the Cars became sort of like when you think of mtv, especially the early days, you really think of the Cars and Devo.
D
You said that one thing that surprised you. In researching the book, how controlling Ric Ocasek was aided in part by the man who became the manager of the Cars. This is Elliot Roberts, managed Joni Mitchell. Neil Young single stars. And it seemed like the band members were pushed further and further into the background. In one video. There are even tiny little players on a bar of soap. You know, it's just kind of metaphor.
G
They really were edged out as the years went by. Rick really recognized the value of that team. It was a real band. There was never any other than the five members of this band. Nobody ever worked. He particularly saw the value of Ben Orr as a good looking frontman who sang half the songs on the first.
D
Oh, the beauty of his musicianship was amazing.
G
Amazing. And it really rounded off Rick's more angular sort of nature.
E
But Rick.
D
Oh, wait, you say angular. His nickname when he was a kid, you tell us, was the noodle. He looked odd.
G
He looked and he sounded odd.
D
He owned it.
G
Yeah, exactly. And it was the era where you could be a quirky sort of angular guy. You've got Elvis Costello, you've got David Byrne. And I think his time had come and he saw his ship had come in and now he'. After all those years of living in abject poverty and struggling for their music, he felt like, ah, maybe I could Be like Sting and go off on my own. Maybe I don't need these guys. And Elliot Roberts, as you say, was only used to dealing with one person at a time. But I think Rick really thought of himself as Rick Ocasick and the Cars.
D
Yeah, for some of us, it was Ben Orr and the Cars, primarily because of one or two gorgeous solos that he took. And one, of course, is Drive. Let's listen.
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Who's gonna hold you down when you. Who's gonna come around when you break? You can't go on, Ben. Nothing's wrong. Good night. Who's going to drive you home tonight?
D
Can you clear this up? Because it appeared to a lot of us that Ben, part of his decline, and we know he had drug. Drug issues and then horrible health issues, but part of his decline was this sort of sadness at what was happening. I mean, he should have been. Some of us felt elevated more. What'd you gather?
G
Yeah, and I think Rick realized what he had done over the years. And I mean, these stories are complicated, right? I mean, Ben was a really outwardly passive guy, go along with everything, you know, didn't really have an opinion on things. He was just a natural. But then when he finally had that ambition of wanting to write more, and not only ambition, but just sort of a resentment at being sort of edged out of Rick's life and the Cars. Yeah, it started to take its toll. I mean, it took its toll on the entire band. The entire band started to fall apart. Especially after Rick connected with Paulina Porizkova, his now would be his third wife.
D
And that further, you know, he went further into the stratosphere. But there was something else, a lesson for all bands. Who gets the publishing money for the songs?
G
Rick Ocasek wrote every song. He co wrote a few.
D
Yeah. Credit to him. Yeah, yeah.
G
He co wrote a few with Greg Hawks, who gave absolute form and color to his music, along with these other guys, Elliot Easton. Now, this gets into a question of, like, what is writing and what's arranging. Right, but that's a separate issue than, okay, you know, we're a band. We should sort of divide up the publishing, which is where the money really comes. Maybe I take 60 and the rest of you guys take 40. But it was 100% to Rick, except for those notable exceptions with Greg Hawkes. And that led to a great inequality, especially as they stopped touring as much as they used to, which was a big source of revenue for the others.
D
Well, the band eventually broke up, 1988. What do you think the story of the Cars is is it a tragic story, the breakup, the what could have been, or is it a fabulous story of what's possible when you play on local TV in Cleveland?
G
Yeah, it's both. It's like a family tragedy, right? It's a brotherhood. It was five guys, and I think the story is that it was five people. It wasn't just Rick, it wasn't just Ben. It was these great five members that really made the sound of the Cars. But the tragedy is like, you know, grown, especially men, especially of that era, not being able to trul communicate to each other and sustain it even longer. But I mean, how long can a great band last? I mean, 10 years is kind of the shelf life. Really Good times.
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Roll.
D
Author, musician Bill Janovitz. Don't forget Buffalo Tom, the band he's in. His new book is the Cars. Let the stories be told. Bill, thanks as always.
G
Thank you, Robin, and thanks to hearing now.
E
Let the stories be told. Let them say what they want.
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It's clear that Jeff Perlman, author of the new book Only God Can Judge Me, loves Tupac not just as an artist, but as a person, as someone who had more to give to music to the world before he died. Here's perlman Talking to NPR's A. Martinez.
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Tupac Shakur was one of the most influential pop culture figures of the 90s. His rap lyrics echoed the voices of disaffected black youth, and in some songs he sought to lift his community out of that anguish. But Tupac's recording Shakur's life ended in tragedy when he was just 25 years old. Writer Jeff Pearlman wanted to know more about those 25 years, so he interviewed hundreds of people for a new book called Only God Can Judge the Many Lives of Tupac Shakur. When I sat down with Perlman, I asked about the incredible story of Tupac's mother, Afaini Shakur, who inspired the song Dear Mama.
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And I can see you coming home after work late. You're in the kitchen trying to fix us a hot plate.
H
So, Jeff, who was Afeni Shakur, and what was it like for Tupac to be raised by her?
J
Fenny Shakur was a Black Panther. When she was 21 years old, she was pregnant with Tupac. She was being shot out from jail to a courthouse in Manhattan for something called the Panther 21 trial, which was that the government had infiltrated the panthers and accused 21 members of the Black Panthers of trying to blow up different landmarks. And she was one of the people on trial. She turned down a court appointed attorney, represented herself, and won while pregnant with Tupac. And later in her life, but not that much later, develops into a very, very, very serious crack addict who isn't there for her kids. So you have this guy who worships his mother and tells everyone he meets, oh, my mom was a Black Panther Panther 21. My mom represented herself. And then at the same time, has the sadness and the heartbreak of watching her fall into a state of disrepair. And there's this one moment when Tupac was 19 years old. He was supposed to fly to Atlanta, and a group he was hoping to help sent him $300 in cash to buy the plane ticket. And when he gets home, the money is gone. And his mother had used it to buy crack. And a friend of his named Kendrick Wells, who I interviewed, said the mom he wanted wasn't the mother he had. He had a hero, but he didn't have a mother.
H
So what you said right there, he had a hero, but he didn't have a mother. I'm wondering how that thought maybe extends toward his relationship with women over the years, because he had a complicated one.
J
Oh, man, it's heartbreaking. He was 14 years old when he had his first sexual experience, and it was with a cousin. When he was 15 years old, he had a second sexual experience, and it was with an adult friend of his mother. He had no father around. His dad, Billy Garland, was not around for the vast majority of his life. He never learned about sex, never learned about how to treat people in that way. And he became this guy Known as a sex symbol. But throughout his youth, throughout middle school, much of high school, he was a kid with gap teeth, really bad braces. He walked like a duck. He wore thrift store clothes. He was not a guy the women were interested in. And his whole life was kind of a yin and yang of being a sex symbol, being an ugly duckling, being a guy who didn't understand sex, being a guy who dove into sex.
H
So in 1995, Tupac was in prison for sexual abuse, and he began to form a partnership with Suge Knight, who founded Death Row Records. Knight posted a $1.4 million bond before he signed Tupac to Death Row. And then the next year, they released All Eyes on Me, his most successful commercial album and his last before he was shot to death. And it included arguably his biggest hit, California Love.
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Out of bail, fresh out of jail, California dreaming Soon as I step on the scene I'm hearing hoochie screaming, Feeding for money and alcohol for life Of a West side player with cows die and a strong ball Jeff.
H
It always felt to me that even back then, Tupac, in a way, sold his soul. During this time in his life, what did he see in Suge Knight that others maybe didn't? Because Suge Knight is a scary guy. He's in prison right now serving a 28 year sentence for a hit and run, A fatal hit and run. But what did he see in Suge Knight that others couldn't?
J
It's interesting. Tupac is in prison at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemore, New York, and as he's there, Suge Knight is greasing the wheels. He is sending his mother money. He's sending his mother gifts. He visits Tupac multiple times, and he basically shows up one day and provides the bail. And for Tupac, that was liberation. And the other thing is that Suge Knight factually supplied is amazing musical opportunities. He hired the best producers, but he also had expectations. Suge Knight's line was for writers was write a hit or get hit. I interviewed one guy who was hired, and as soon as he was hired, he said Suge Knight walked him over to a window and said, just so you know, we don't take failed employees and fire them. We take failed employees and throw them out windows. And Suge Knight expected Tupac to exemplify sort of thug life. And he sold Tupac on this lifestyle, and Tupac really wasn't that, but he kind of bought into it.
H
Yeah, because that album, as good as it was, it was not what he was doing before. Before it was a little more socially conscious. This was all about, as you say, this thug life that Suge Knight wanted him to kind of put out there. Now he died in Las Vegas in September of 1996. As someone who has chronicled Tupac Shakur his whole life, all the accomplishments, all the pain, everything he's endured, all the mistakes he's made, what do you think about how his life ended?
J
It sucks. It's the worst death I've ever written about or really even read about in regards to the pointlessness of it. They're in Las Vegas. It was the aftermath, immediate aftermath of the Mike Tyson, Bruce Seldon fight at the MGM Grand. Tupac is walking through the lobby. He's with a bunch of Death Row guys. Standing there in the middle of the lobby is a guy named Orlando Anderson, who is a Southside Compton Crip. And a guy with Tupac says, yo, that's the guy who stole my chain. Tupac walks up to him, says, you from the South. And then punches him in the face. And all the Death Row guys come in and stomp on him and beat him up. Then they leave. Later that night, Orlando Anderson, Keefe D, his uncle, or two other guys driving around kind of looking for Tupac. There he is at one point along the Strip, dangling out of Suge Knight's car, hollering at women, and he shot him. And it's so stupid. Tupac had so many gifts and was so talented and had so much to contribute. His mom was a Black Panther. He was raised on this idea about raising up black people as a community in this country and fighting for them. And this is how you die. And one of his friends said to me, if you really want to understand Tupac, his life, and his death, you have to understand the idea that he swam in waters too deep. And I feel like that was a perfect example of a guy who wasn't a gangbanger swimming in waters that were way too deep for him.
H
That's Jeff Pearlman, author of Only God Can Judge Me, the Many Lives of Tupac Shakur. Jeff, thanks a lot.
J
Thank you.
I
I see no changes.
H
And we should mention that Orlando Anderson, who is now deceased, consistently denied his involvement in Tupac's murder, and he was never tried.
A
That's it for this week on NPR's Book of the Day. Let us know what you think. You can write to us@bookofthedaypr.com org I'm Andrew Limbong. The podcast is produced by Chloe Weiner and edited by Megan Sullivan, with help from Ivy Buck. Our founding editor is Petra Maher. The show elements for this week were produced and edited by Jeanette Woods, Avery Keatley, Mallory Yu, John Ketchum, Lena Muhammad, Eniko Tamagawa, Todd Munt Ahmed, Katherine Fink, Lindsay Todd and Katie Klein. Yolanda Sanguini is our executive producer. Thanks for listening.
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Episode: Music biographies 'The Cars,' 'Only God Can Judge Me' balance greatness and tragedy
Date: November 14, 2025
Host: Andrew Limbong (NPR)
This episode features insightful discussions on two significant music biographies:
Though these artists inhabit very different genres, both biographies explore the tension between public perception and personal reality—how the mythos around musicians can sometimes overshadow or entangle with their actual lives.
Interview with Bill Janovitz by Robin Young
[01:23–12:06]
The Cars' origin traces to Cleveland, Ohio, where Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr first met and forged a musical partnership after seeing each other perform on local talent shows.
Their journey to fame was long and circuitous; it took a decade before they reached Boston and formed The Cars.
Maxanne Sartori, a legendary Boston DJ, played a crucial role—putting their demo on rotation and catching industry attention.
The band’s debut album had a seismic effect, blending sound and visual flair; their music videos were foundational to the rise of MTV.
Ric Ocasek's vision and ambition steered the band. He was inspired by both 1950s pop and 1960s poetic songwriting, seeing music as a vehicle for his creative output.
Ocasek, with influence from high-profile manager Elliot Roberts, increasingly controlled the band's image and direction. Other members were marginalized, both creatively and visually.
Ben Orr, seen by many fans as the handsome frontman and emotional heart, became sidelined—leading to quiet resentment.
Songwriting royalties caused tension as Ocasek retained the majority, deepening a sense of inequality especially as touring income waned.
The band broke up in 1988. Ben Orr died in 2000; Ric Ocasek in 2019. The four surviving members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.
“It was five guys, and I think the story is that it was five people. It wasn't just Rick, it wasn't just Ben ... The tragedy is like, you know, grown, especially men, especially of that era, not being able to truly communicate to each other and sustain it even longer.” —Janovitz [11:23]
Closing sentiment: The Cars' story is both a tale of triumph and familial tragedy—a flash of brilliance that forever impacted rock music.
Interview with Jeff Pearlman by A. Martinez
[13:23–20:31]
Tupac’s mother Afeni was a formidable activist—one of the Panther 21, representing herself in court while pregnant with Tupac and winning her own defense.
Her later struggles with addiction became foundational trauma for Tupac, shaping his perspective on family and loyalty.
Imprisoned for sexual abuse in 1995, Tupac’s path crossed with Suge Knight, who offered him both a literal way out (posting $1.4 million in bail) and a new musical direction via Death Row Records.
The Death Row period (notably the album All Eyez on Me) amplified the tension between Tupac’s social consciousness and the violent, “thug life” persona promoted by Knight.
Tupac was gunned down at 25, following an impulsive, violent confrontation in Las Vegas; his enormous potential cut short by the street conflicts he was drawn into but never truly belonged to.
The episode notes that Orlando Anderson, often linked to the shooting, denied involvement and was never charged. [20:33]
The episode is reflective and nuanced, balancing admiration for musical greatness with candid discussions of personal flaws, internal strife, and tragic endings. Both interviews hold a sense of reverence for the artistry these biographies cover, but are unflinching in examining the sadness and limitations that often shadow brilliance.
Whether discussing the power plays and creative friction behind The Cars’ pristine pop or the gnawing loneliness and societal conflict underpinning Tupac’s turbulent genius, both books—and this episode—reveal how public personas are constructed atop foundations often fraught with unseen heartbreak and hard choices.