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Sylvie Simmons is a London-born, California-based music journalist, named as a "principal player" in Paul Gorman's book on the history of the rock music press In Their Own Write.

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Sylvie Simmons

Recorded in 2014, it’s the haunting, magical debut of a singer and writer who’s spent her whole life in music but hasn’t gone public until now. Devendra Banhart calls it “Fragile and fearless, direct and poetic, absolutely beautiful.”

Sylvie Simmons was a young girl when she bought her first guitar in a junk shop. One night she took it onstage and, paralyzed by stage fright, chose to play only at home. For Sylvie home was a malleable concept. Born and raised in London, she had a habit of running away, starting with L.A, where she became a renowned music writer. She went on to write books (Serge Gainsbourg; Neil Young; most recently, Leonard Cohen) and kept on moving, including three years in a tumbledown French chateau.

Sylvie was living in San Francisco and her guitar in England when an enigmatic Japanese man gave her a ukulele. From the moment she played it, it was love. Ukes continued to appear in her life under mysterious circumstances and she forgot all about her guitar. “I’d always thought of the ukulele as a toy, a little handful of happiness,” Sylvie says

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BY WHITNEY PHANEUF

Lifting a cup of tea to her mouth, Sylvie Simmons pauses and grins in the middle of a story about how Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich used to bum around her Laurel Canyon apartment “like a little Doberman puppy”—before the metal band made it big. She puts the cup down, too excited to take a sip.

“Metallica are ukulele players! I have outed them—yeeeah,” Simmons exclaims, singing the “yeah” with unbridled glee.

“Their producer Bob Rock lives in Hawaii, and he sent them all ukes. I was doing an interview with James [Hetfield] and I told him I could play ‘Stairway to Heaven’ on the uke, and James was like, ‘What? Would you show me?’”

Simmons, an esteemed rock journalist and author, known for her authoritative Leonard Cohen biography, I’m Your Man, knows better than to bury the lede. After nearly four decades spent writing about other people’s music, she recently released her debut album, Sylvie. “First law of music journalism: Do not make an album. And on top of it, I play a ukulele,” Simmons jokes.

Finding Her Voice

The transition from behind t

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Simmons, Sylvie

PERSONAL: Born in London, England.

ADDRESSES: Home—London, England. Office—c/o Mojo, Mappin House, 4 Winsley St., London W1W 8HF, England.

CAREER: Writer on rock music, 1977–; Mojo magazine, contributing editor.

WRITINGS:

Too Weird for Ziggy (short stories), Black Cat (New York, NY), 2004.

NONFICTION

(With Malcolm Dome) Lüde, Crüde, and Rüde: The Story of Mötley Crüe, Castle Communications (Chessington, England), 1994.

(Author of introduction) Kiss, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Neil Young: Reflections in Broken Glass, Mojo (Edinburgh, Scotland), 2001.

Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes: Requiem for a Twister, Helter Skelter (London, England), 2001, Da Capo Press (Cambridge, MA), 2002.

Regular contributor to London Guardian newspaper; articles have also appeared in Independent, London Sunday Times, Rolling Stone, Creem, and Sounds. Contributor to Van Halen, by Jim Palmer, Anabas, 1984.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A book about Johnny Cash.

SIDELIGHTS: British writer Sylvie Simmons is one of the better-known names