Pop Books - Page 6

Angel on My Shoulder: An Autobiography

Natalie Cole, Digby Diehl

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

This Book Is an Amazing Inspiration and So Is Natalie! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Natalie shares with astounding truth, humbleness, and shows us all how much she has been through, and how she - with the Divine help in her life - has triumphed from the darkest days. This book is an astounding beacon of hope for anyone who has been through both the highs and lows of life, and wants to genuinely rise from within.
Natalie shares much about her childhood, her relationship with her relatives, and so much about her own life, and how many times she thought it was all over for her, only to see that she can rise again - no matter what she has been through.

On a personal note, in 1995 I had dinner with Natalie, her candor and honesty took me back so much that I wrote about her with deep respect in my own book, `Individual Power'. She is a true soul, and I have the utmost respect for her, the courage she has shown, and how she is a beacon of hope for others.

If you want to read a book about one incredible woman, who humbly and candidly shows how no matter what you go through, you CAN triumph, I HIGHLY recommend this book. It is a gift that will touch you because of its authenticity.

Thank you Natalie for being a beacon of Light and Hope for so many. Keep Going Girl - You are One Awesome Gem!

Editorial Review:

Born to legendary singer Nat "King" Cole in the halcyon days of the 1950's, Natalie Cole grew up to become a versatile and soulful singer whose talents catapulted her all the way to Grammy Award-winning status. But that success came with a price. Dragged down by drugs, depression and divorce - and enduring everything from bankruptcy proceedings to surviving the ordeals of rehab - Natalie realised she had spun out of control and was in grave danger of losing custody of her son. What follows is the inspirational and riveting story of her tremendous musical comeback, from wrenching heartbreak to crowning glory, culminating in the international success of Unforgettable with Love, a tribute to her dad.

Barry Manilow: The Biography

Patricia Butler

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

This Book is Trash 1 out of 5 stars.
11 of 14 people found this review helpful.

This book was a comlete an utter waste of time and money. I threw it away rather than resell to an unsuspecting buyer. Totally based on gossip, rumors, and disgruntled acquaintances of Mr. Manilow. It is an unathorized biography and Ms. Butler has never spoken to Barry Manilow. How do you write someone's life story without accurate sources? She also trashed Jim Morrison and had some sort of scandal about a scholorship fund or charity she promised the profits from that book to. I don't believe a word she writes about anyone or anything. Save your money.

What is the deal 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I cannot believe people are so upset over this topic. They talk about Barry as if they know him. All they know about him is through his music. Barry, I imagine, is a human being just like anyone with trial, troubles and family issues and making it through the world just like everyone else. None of this makes him a bad person. He is just human. PERIOD! As for his sexuality, I didn't think it was such a secret. Recently he introduced Elton John "As the man I want to marry". I am sure he was joking but anyway. Get a grip on reality ladies.

Editorial Review:

Named "The Showman of our Generation," by Rolling Stone Magazine, Barry Manilow has had over 25 Top-40 hits and numerous gold, platinum, and multi-platinum records.

The softcover edition of the bestseller, is an assessment and record of both Manilow's personal life and almost a quarter of a century of chart and touring triumphs.

Features exclusive family photos and childhood pictures.

The Carpenters: The Untold Story : An Authorized Biography

Ray Coleman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Still and excellent read... 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Yes, this book is missing some of the more intimate and probably painful details of Karen's life. Regardless, it's still an excellent read and it does shed light on certain issues which Carpenters fans never knew about back in the 70's.

Tragic story. 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Like all the other reviewers of this book I am a long time fan of the Carpenters.

I bought this book in 1994 when it was first published and was pleased to be able to read about the history of Richard and Karen and to get an insight into their lives. I learned a lot about them both.

Looking back, and having read some of the other reviews here I can only speculate that yes a lot of things will have been kept out of the book. Richard Carpenter is a very private man, and I suspect that he will have been involved in deciding what would be included in the book and what he wished to keep private. Why should he bare every single detail of his family's business for worldwide consumption? Would you or I do the same?

The Carpenters' story is a cautionary tale: Be careful what you wish for. Karen and Richard craved success but success ultimately killed Karen Carpenter didn't it?

There will be certain things which will stay in the Carpenter family forever and we must accept this. There are no conspiracy theories here. Richard worshipped his sister, yes they came from an extremely close family and were incredibly protective of each other. Karen's demise came at a time when anorexia was virtually unheard of. If this was happening now things would be different.

Let's not get too excited about whether Richard smoked, or how many times Karen had sex Mr Koenig. Do we really need to know? This is a very informative book which is very revealing in lots of areas.

God bless you Karen. Thank you for your beautiful legacy. And thank you Richard for your artistry.

Editorial Review:

Music journalist Coleman, the author of Lennon and Clapton!, with the full cooperation of Richard and the Carpenter famiy, explores the public and private lives of the Carpenters, portraying Richard and Karen's dynamic pop music career as well as Karen's descent into anorexia nervosa and untimely death. 32 pages of photos.

Elvis Day by Day: The Definitive Record of His Life and Music

Peter Guralnick, Ernst Jorgensen

List Price: $49.95 By: Ballantine Books Amazon Marketplace: 15 new & used starting at $11.14

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From Elvis' foremost biographer, Peter Guralnick, author of the bestselling two-volume biography, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love, and Ernst Jorgensen, the premier archivist and reissue producer of Elvis' recorded work, comes a unique chronicle of Elvis Presley's life and music. Granted unprecedented access to hundreds of thousands of photos, documents, letters, artifacts, and memorabilia by Elvis Presley Enterprises, Guralnick and Jorgensen present the King as you've never seen him before. Elvis Day by Day is a complete account of public, private, rare, forgotten, and renowned moments, captured with such detail and immediacy they read like diary entries in a life--from first steps to the first time the young "hillbilly cat" stepped on stage; from the creation of a revolutionary new sound to the last days of a universally known, tragically misunderstood music legend.

Lavishly illustrated with more than three hundred color and black-and-white photographs, this one-of-a-kind volume features such hitherto unknown details of Elvis' childhood in Tupelo as a father's touching postcards from prison and the family's backbreaking struggle to make ends meet. It includes Elvis' first work application at eighteen in which he describes his leisure-time activities as "sing[ing], playing ball, working on car, going to movies." At last, the complete story of how Elvis met his legendary manager, Colonel Tom Parker, is revealed in detail, and long-debated mysteries like Elvis's famous lost tryout for the Arthur Godfrey show are finally put to rest. In addition, the reader will find an invaluable and reliable reference guide to every recording session, record release, song hit, movie, and live performance (including a number of shows not previously documented)--clearing up in the process many misconceptions and misunderstandings about Elvis' life.

All the facts are here--from Elvis's unlikely visit with President Nixon in 1970 to his spontaneous articulation of patriotism and pride in a 1957 telegram to a marine private (coincidentally named Nixon). Within these facts are a story: funny, sad, sometimes uplifting, occasionally disturbing--but always fascinating for the disarmingly unbuttoned, behind-the-scenes view of a celebrated life.

From private moments to public milestones, this is the first complete and accurate chronology of Elvis' life, in a form that offers instant accessibility to Elvis expert and casual reader alike. Elvis Day by Day is an extraordinary piece of American musical history, bringing the life and times of Elvis Presley into dazzling focus for the record--and for the ages.

Gut Feelings: From Fear and Despair to Health and Hope

Carnie Wilson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 45 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

I thank God for my parents 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Wow - I don't even know where to begin with this book. I bought it because Carnie is an intriguing character - and no disprespect at all - but she was the heavy girl with two beautiful girls. I was curious to her life and her surgery.

Well, what a vulger read we had here. Aside from the expletives everywhere - we learn she lost her virginity at 13 or some too young age - at a parent sanctioned sleep over with her boyfriend. That falls under way too much information.

Carnie has a beautiful voice and she mentions quite often she didn't get the respect she deserved. We get it. Quit whining.

But the coup de gras was what she whispered to her surgeon prior to him slicing her open. I'll save that for you to read for yourself.

Bad.

Editorial Review:

Carnie Wilson's story is a journey from the darkness of a lifelong struggle with emotional rejection, compulsive eating, and morbid obesity into the light of health. For anyone who feels lost, out of control, or needs help to find the way to a better tomorrow, Gut Feelings is Carnie Wilson's beacon. The darkness will never be the same.

Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams--The Early Years 1903-1940

Gary Giddins

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 43 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

An Very Good Biography-But Not Perfect 4 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

When I first picked this book up I wondered "700+ pages on Bing Crosby?" Tho a Crosby fan (more of his early work than later), I wondered if there was enough material for 700+ pages, and that just in the first volume. There is, tho with some judicious editing it could have been cut down a bit. (There is some repetition in the book, especially the author's emphasizing again and again that "Bing made great contributions to American Music", as though we in the younger generations really had to be convinced.)

What I didn't like was the author's putting down some of Crosby's contemporaries. He was relatively kind to Russ Columbo, but scathing on Rudy Vallee. I'm not particularly a Vallee fan, but you have to credit the guy's popularity, and his longevity in show business as a big name. He had a wild, faddish vogue in the early part of his career, which was bound to fade when a more talented performer like Crosby came around, but he stayed in show business as a name to be reckoned with until the mid 60s. And tho he was portrayed as a blowhard and boaster, Vallee at least had enough of a sense of humor to mock his own image in movies like "The Palm Beach Story".

Also the author puts down John Boles, a popular actor of the 30s, who beat Crosby out of an important number in the early musical "The King of Jazz" (it was Crosby's own fault). Again, Boles is nobody in comparison with Crosby when it comes to fame or importance, but he had a decent film career, and before I saw "The King of Jazz", I mainly knew him from films like "Frankenstein" and "Stella Dallas", and when I first saw "The King of Jazz", I was impressed that he could sing at all. Boles was famous enough to be part of a gag on a Leave It To Beaver episode--when June told of getting in trouble in school for trying to impress her friends by telling them that John Boles was her uncle!

Also, as a footnote, the author relates the story of a talent contest run in Spokane as part of a Bing Crosby homecoming celebration, noting that one of the winners was Janet Waldo, and not saying much more than that. Janet Waldo did make some movies, never becoming a film star, but she did later become one of the more durable voice artists in radio and television, specialising in teenage girls (famously as Corliss Archer and Judy Jetson-and in one particular episode of I Love Lucy) into what must have been her old age-sort of a female Arnold Stang (I hope that isn't an insult!) I thought this successful part of her career was worth a mention, especially since Hollywood talent contests of the time seemd to be mere publicity stunts, and that winners were usually given a bit part in a b-film and shipped straight home to obscurity.

One other thing that bothered me was the author's apologising for Big Crosby's being a Republican (a rather mild one at that). Maybe the author is a Democrat or liberal, but that's his business. The assumption that everyone reading this book is a democrat and will be offended by Bing Crosby's conservatism is a bit overbearing.

But for the most part, I enjoyed the book very much. It was well written, well researched, and gave more information than you knew existed on Crosby's recordings and his movies. As someone who knows almost nothing about the more technical aspects of music, such as chord changes and harmonies, the technical descriptions of Crosby's singing went over my head and I didn't quite know what the author was talking about, but I guess that stuff is for the jazz buffs amongst the readership, and my ignorance is not the author's fault. The book was also especially good on one Crosby subject I had always been curious about: the break-up of the Rhythm Boys, and Crosby's subsequent relationships with Al Rinker and Harry Barris. I knew from seeing Crosby's films that Barris frequently had small parts in them, and figured they were probably favors from Crosby to an old pal. His split with Rinker was sadder, but from the descriptions in the book, probably inevitable. (I was so dumb on this subject that I never knew Mildred Bailey was Al Rinker's sister!)

Overall, very well worth buying and reading if you are interested in the history of American music, films or popular culture in general in the 20th Century.

Editorial Review:

From 1934 to 1954, Bing Crosby utterly dominated North American entertainment. Nobody has ever had as many hit records, and Crosby was the number one movie star five years in a row. The rise of Bing Crosby was the rise of North American popular culture itself. In Bing Crosby, the first volume of the definitive Crosby biography, award-winning music critic Gary Giddins chronicles the ascension of Bings career. From Crosbys early recordings, to his triumph on Americas most popular radio show, to his first success in Hollywood, Giddins provides the most detailed study yet of the rise of a North American star. This is the first definitive biography of Crosby and was written with exclusive access to unpublished materials. Giddins Visions of Jazz won the 1998 National Book Critics Circle Award. Bing Crosby was the first North American pop culture icon, and his career heavily influenced Sinatra and Elvis, as well as popular music itself.

Dancing with Demons: The Authorized Biography of Dusty Springfield

Penny Valentine, Vicki Wickham

List Price: $24.95 By: St. Martin's Press Amazon Marketplace: 20 new & used starting at $8.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Authorized??? Biography of Dusty Springfield... 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Authorized, I don't think so...
This book, as well as being 95% negative, is very poorly written.
It's difficult to follow at times, even rereading some of the long run on sentences...It appears that no one edited it before publication.
Some of the "facts" and dates, even names (Dinah Washington is refered to as Ella Washington), are questionable.
It does shed light on the seemingly very sad life of Dusty Springfield, but is the most poorly written book I've come accross ever.

Editorial Review:

Dusty Springfield led a tragic yet inspiring life, battling her way to the top of the charts and into the hearts of music fans world-wide. Her signature voice made songs such as, "I Only Want to Be With You," "Son of A Preacher Man," and You Don't Have to Say You Love Me," international hits. In Dancing With Demons, two of her closest friends, Valentine and Wickham, capture, with vivid memories and personal anecdotes, a Dusty most people never glimpsed in this no-holds-barred yet touching portrait of one of the world's true grand dames of popular music.

The Supremes: A Saga of Motown Dreams, Success, and Betrayal

Mark Ribowsky

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Not yet published By: Da Capo Press

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Editorial Review:

Drawing on intimate recollections from friends, family, and Motown contemporaries, Mark Ribowsky charts the Supremes’ meteoric rise and bitter disintegration. He sheds light on Diana Ross’s relationship with Berry Gordy and her cutthroat rise to top billing in the group, as well as Florence Ballard’s corresponding decline. He also takes us inside the studio, examining how timeless classics were conceived and recorded on the Motown “assembly line,” and considers the place of Motown in an era of cultural upheaval, when not being “black enough” became a fierce denunciation within the black music industry.

Deftly combining personal testimony, history, and expert analysis, Ribowsky not only tells the full, heartbreaking story of the Supremes, but shows why Gordy’s revolutionary concept of “blacks singing white” was essential to the modern evolution of music.

That's Amore: A Son Remembers Dean Martin

Ricci Martin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A tribute to Dean and also a nod to old Hollywood 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I'll start out by confessing that I don't know if I can write a wholly objective review of this one. I wanted to love it. I DID love it. Even after noting that, I have to add that Ricci Martin did not sugar coat this memoir and he revealed plenty of his father's flaws, including the pain and confusion during Dean's divorce from Jeanne Martin (there is an incident with a policeman during that time that reveals much of the pain Ricci was possibly going through).

I am trying to be very careful not to reveal anything that would spoil this for readers. The photo section is wonderful. Also, there are some facts about racial relationships that I found very revealing in this book, especially since Sammy Davis, Jr was a part of the notorious "Rat Pack". I found Ricci's insights and childhood experiences to be very revealing about that side of things.

There are also some secrets revealed, ones that might not surprise those who already know every detail of Dean's life that can be found at various fan sites but I honestly did not know some of the information about Shirley Maclaine that was included in the book. If your imagination is going wild about that, let me add that you'll probably be surprised and perhaps intrigued by the info included but it probably won't be what you expect. Enough said about that. Yes, I'm really, really against lurid details and spoilers so if you're finding that disappointing, I'm sure someone here has written a more explicit review. If you want spoilers, just post a comment to me and I'll fill in any details for you, gladly. But not in this review.

Another part of the book that was enjoyable? Learning about what it was like to grow up in "old Hollywood" before the Sharon Tate murders and other incidents made people lock their doors and hire more security. It was truly a different era, a time when the Martin kids could sell items to tourists from their front lawn (can you imagine the look on the tourists' faces?) or even give some lucky fans a tour of the house.

This is a very personal look from one son's perspective. I recommend reading Deanna Martin's book as well because it gives a whole different view of growing up as the child of Dean Martin and reveals more about Dean's first wife. Ricci clearly adored his father and it shows. Deanna was more critical about him. Both books present a rounded picture of Dean Martin.

Editorial Review:

Ricci Martin takes readers on a tour through his childhood, from the star-studded parties to the exploration of three marriages, eight kids, one family, to the treasured one-on-one time he shared with his father.

The Importance of Being Barbra: The Brilliant, Tumultuous Career of Barbra Streisand

Tom Santopietro

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Controversial, a global icon, a diva among divas---Barbra Streisand, the last genuinely unique show business personality of the twentieth century is the most honored entertainer in the world today. But along with the Tony, two Oscars, six Emmys, eight Grammys, ten Golden Globes, fifty gold albums, and wild acclaim have come wildly diverse reactions to a personality as outsized as her talent. In the words of Streisand herself, “I'm a liberal, opinionated Jewish feminist---I push a lot of buttons.”
In Tom Santopietro’s witty yet analytical look at this one-of-a-kind career, the myths and personal foibles are stripped away, and the focus lands squarely on the work. From the early recordings to the groundbreaking television specials, from the Hollywood blockbusters to the history-making comeback concerts, Streisand’s career is placed within an oftentimes uniquely American social context but always allowed to speak for itself. In a brisk, funny, and always compelling style, The Importance of Being Barbra reveals all the milestones in a new and sometimes startling light, ranging from the brilliance of Funny Girl and The Broadway Album to the misbegotten yet curiously popular A Star Is Born.
Treating Barbra Streisand like the serious artist she is---and has always claimed to be---The Importance of Being Barbra delves into the key reasons for her all-encompassing success: the overwhelming ambition, the notorious perfectionism, the fervent gay following, the dramatic pull of a voice and style that mysteriously connect with the lovelorn all around the world. A full-scale examination of the acting, singing, and directing that have ranged from the dazzling to the occasionally inexplicable---it’s all here for anyone who has ever wondered at the phenomenon that is Barbra Streisand.