About The Book
THIRTEEN YEARS. ONE HELL OF A RIDE.
1964–1977: Thirteen Years of Sex, Drugs & Rock N Roll isn't a history of the 1960s and '70s.
It’s what happens when you take one young guy from the Bronx, put a pair of drumsticks in his hands, point him toward the music, and let thirteen years unfold.
Natale Andreassi takes readers back to a time before smartphones, social media, and GPS, when a night out could turn into an adventure and a simple invitation could send you halfway across the country.
The story begins in the Bronx in 1964, where neighborhood life, school, friendships, and music shape a young Natale. From there, the years start moving fast. Bands and performances lead to new people and new places. Road trips turn into stories. California becomes part of the journey. And then comes August 1969.
Natale was nineteen, had no ticket, no tent, and no real plan. He went anyway.
That pretty much tells you what kind of memoir this is.
The book moves through the experiences that defined his youth: rock ‘n’ roll, friendships, travel, relationships, drugs, changing social attitudes, marriage, work, California, Florida, and eventually even skydiving. The chapters don’t try to turn those years into a neat little history lesson. They follow life as it happened, with all its detours, surprises, questionable decisions, and unforgettable characters.
At its heart, this is a book about being young when everything seemed possible.
It is about the music you chased, the people you met, the places you ended up, and the decisions you made before you had enough life experience to know where they might lead.
And now, decades later, Natale is looking back at those thirteen years with the one thing he didn’t have back then:
perspective.
You can read about the era.
Or you can hear what it was like from someone who lived it.
This is Natale’s story.