Magic Carpet Ride: The Autobiography of John Kay and Steppenwolf

Jack S. Broumpton is an assistant professor of music at Huntington
College, Laurentian University.

This book, written exclusively for the fans of this popular group (known
as Wolfpackers), chronicles the personal and professional life of John
Kay from his childhood in Arnstadt, Germany, through to the successful
current career of Steppenwolf.

The story is told strictly from John Kay’s point of view. The format
of the book is much like a diary, which allows Kay to highlight the
important moments as he sees them. What results is a point of view that
reinforces his ownership of the group and the idea that music is a
business—and to that end, John Kay has been very successful.

It is a good story, but in the manner it is told it seems that Kay is
trying to validate the position of the band as a seminal music group of
the 1960s and 1970s. Certainly the song Born to Be Wild became an anthem
for many of the young people of the 1960s, but Kay’s penchant for name
dropping and his criticisms of other popular performers of the time
(e.g., Jim Morrison and the Doors) seem inappropriate. The period of
Kay’s musical development as a blues-influenced folk singer in
Toronto’s Yorkville Village provides an interesting look at a part of
Canadian pop music history as Kay reflects on other young performers of
the time, such as Neil Young and Gordon Lightfoot. A discography is
included.