A perceptive pleasure for literate music lovers.
Portraits of musicians who blossomed anew late in their careers.
Remnick, the intellectually nimble editor of the New Yorker, has lately been focusing closely on world politics, but he finds time to profile a number of artists who, having enjoyed early success, “were all grappling, in music and in their own lives, with their diminishing gifts and mortality.” The best way to grapple is to maintain “the spirit of sostenuto” that keeps one at work composing, performing, teaching, and spreading the word. “Sometimes, when I go to hear music, I feel like a weekend naturalist of the Anthropocene, feverishly trying to catch a last glimpse of some glorious species.” Regarding the venerated Leonard Cohen, Remnick finds the Canadian-born poet, novelist, and later Zen Buddhist priest in a moment of somberness wrought by grief, with one loss in particular the Marianne who had inspired so many of his most famous songs. “The depth of his voice makes Tom Waits sound like Eddie Kendricks,” writes Remnick of Cohen’s impressive rumble. Keith Richards, having improbably survived to the age of 80, remembers that his first job as a member of the Rolling Stones was to turn audiences on to the blues, work he continues to this day; the improbability of his survival, of course, hinges on his “heroic” consumption of drugs, now a thing of the past. Richards may trade on “roguish charm,” while Paul McCartney has assiduously built up a fan base that “is the general population.” There’s dish here—no love lost between Mavis Staples and Aretha Franklin—and plenty of astute observation, but the central point is that many older artists will go offstage only kicking and screaming—a little diminished, true, but full of fight, as a closing image of Patti Smith belting out “People Have the Power” suggests.
A perceptive pleasure for literate music lovers.Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 9781400043613
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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