POP MUSIC

BOOK REPORT: Bonnie Raitt and the Eagles share histories as cornerstones--and triumphant survivors--of California rock’s ‘70s party life. Their stories are among the most colorful and inspiring in pop.

But they also share something else: no desire to see those stories in book form.

Those wishes are being ignored by two authors, though. Mark Bego’s “Bonnie Raitt: Just in the Nick of Time” was just published by Carol Publishing, and Marc Elliot is working on an Eagles tome. But both projects exist without the blessing or cooperation of their subjects.

Bego admits that he was at a disadvantage not having any assistance from people close to Raitt, who followed her wishes that her private life remain private.

“But the worst aspects of what she’s gone through she’s talked about publicly plenty, and I was able to put them together in a logical, thorough fashion,” says Bego, whose credits include an unauthorized Madonna bio, as well as co-writing former Supreme Mary Wilson’s autobiography.

“With Madonna,” he says, “her past is so littered with people who she screwed over that they were all willing to talk. But Raitt’s circle of friends declined to talk to me without her permission.”

Meanwhile, the Eagles’ representatives are quietly discouraging associates of the group from talking with Elliot. A letter is circulating that, while not specifically insisting on non-participation, makes it clear that it’s not approved of by the group members.

Eagles manager Irving Azoff says, “We’ve never participated in an unauthorized book and don’t intend to.”