Folksinger Burgan, with assistance from Rifkin, recounts his life as a founding member of the San Francisco electro-folk band We Five ('You Were on My Mind'). This memoir brings together his experiences at a time, the 1960s and 1970s, when the folk and rock music cultures were undeniably going through a transformation. Regardless of your prior knowledge of music or desire to read explicitly about We Five, this book tactfully delves much deeper than band history. It integrates stories of growth and maturity of a group of musicians from teens through adulthood with tales of drugs, religion, relationships, love, and discrimination as seen through Burgan’s eyes. The final chapters include recent updates on the band and its members; for several it was the final days of life among longtime friends. VERDICT This excellent, well-written chronicle of the folk-rock revolution from an active band member of that time will be enjoyed by general readers and fans of music memoirs.

Library Journal

An intimate portrait of a boyhood friendship ripening into rivalry and then redemption. . . .The vivid profile of cultural maven [Frank] Werber may alone be justification for the book. . . .Burgan treats each [of his bandmates] with unfailing tenderness and perception.

The San Francisco Examiner

Over these beautifully written pages, we track the history of We Five as the group converged on the 1960s California folk-rock scene, burst to national prominence with its first hit (the phrase 'wounds to bind' comes from 'Mind's' lyrics) and then disintegrated rapidly as inexperience, trends and haphazard management took their toll. . . .We Five, in [Jerry Burgan's] estimation, was once 'in a leading position to redraw the rules of both folk and rock,' and critics may debate whether that's truth or just ecstatic hype. But then, why not be ecstatic about it? Here in the suit-yourself 2010s, when Facebook has trumped balladeering as a tool of social change and the very notion of a song becoming an anthem feels quaint, it's intoxicating to imagine a time when a single's debut would gather spellbound listeners around a radio. Burgan, and others of his generation, emerged from the 1960s with plenty of wounds. Maybe time doesn't always heal them. But sometimes, an up-tempo tune can make them smart a little less.

Daily Pilot

Written with insight and wit, Burgan's empathy chiming perfectly with those heady times.

Shindig! Magazine

Burgan tells the story, and it's a good one, of the way success doesn't last and how difficult it is to adapt when it's gone. It is also the story of two fascinating individuals: Mike Stewart and Frank Werber. Stewart was the tormented fire in We Five, Werber a San Francisco giant, the 1950s hipster who discovered the Kingston Trio and managed them to a long run as the most popular folk-pop group in the world. When the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead began creating the very San Francisco sound he was after, he didn't recognize it for what it was. Wounds to Bind is the story of these people, those times and that music, all of which Jerry Burgan acknowledges he was lucky to be associated with. As readers, we are lucky, too, because he has given us a fine book about it all.

Rambles.NET

[B]rilliant detail, with much shade, light and color. . . .Burgan is at his rhapsodic best when writing about the arrangement and recording of ‘You Were on My Mind’. . . .Mike Stewart and company created lyrical emphases that didn’t exist in the original, and added instrumental flourishes that made the song a timeless, transcendent piece of earnest folk-pop-rock. Burgan’s recounting of his time on the road in Dick Clark‘s traveling revue is also a richly rewarding read [that] rightly highlights the significance of having drummer John Chambers in the band in a time when mixed-race groups were highly unusual (to say the least). And his stories about We Five (by then on the downhill side of success) performing in front of ultraconservative audiences in Texas and Utah are well-told and (rare within the context of the book) simply hilarious. The fact of the matter remains that We Five never capitalized on the success of their lone hit single. . . .Verdict: a qualified recommendation. Parts One and Two are well-written, essential reading, and those who get that far will want to read the rest.

Musoscribe