I'M JUST DEAD, I'M NOT GONE

Name: I'M JUST DEAD, I'M NOT GONE
Author: Jim Dickinson
ISBN: 978-1-4968-1054-0

by Jim Dickinson edited by Ernest Suarez ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2017

There’s plenty of material, both in this book and from the decades the author doesn’t cover, to suggest that a full-scale...

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A memoir of sorts by the late Memphis musical legend.

Dickinson (1941-2009) may not be a household name, but in those households where he is, he is revered: session pianist for the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and other luminaries; producer for Ry Cooder, the Replacements, and Alex Chilton; patriarch of the North Mississippi Allstars. He’s also a world-class storyteller, from the evidence here, a mix of homespun philosophy, hipster poetry, ribald anecdotes, and humanizing reminiscences about pretty much everyone who was anyone in Southern musical circles, from stars to “the Bullet,” a black quadriplegic who would be carried onstage during an R&B revue to the chants of the white audience, “Bring on the Bullet, Bring on the Bullet!” Writes the author, “surely, he hated the audience that called his phantom name. He blew them away with screams from hell, like a dragon breathing fire. His howl’s burning sound seared the audience’s soul in a moment of ultimate release.” Such visceral detail and emotional intensity distinguishes Dickinson’s writing, as it did his playing and approach to production. He also recalls his theater days at Baylor, his visual art, his formative musical years in Memphis, his marriage to the love of his life, and his extended session work with the Dixie Flyers, a band that was largely dysfunctional in terms of vices and personalities but often came together much better in the studio. Here’s how the author remembers his introduction to rockabilly’s Ronnie Hawkins, whose comeback bid the Flyers would back: “A man among men. Hawkins got off the plane in Muscle Shoals with a cardboard box full of liquor bottles and a woman who looked like a cross between a Playboy bunny and a serial killer.” Unfortunately, the memoir pretty much ends in the early 1970s, with the release of his largely ignored solo debut and co-production of the second Cooder album.

There’s plenty of material, both in this book and from the decades the author doesn’t cover, to suggest that a full-scale biography is overdue.

Pub Date: April 1, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4968-1054-0

Page Count: 264

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS & CELEBRITY

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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BLACK BOY

A RECORD OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

by Richard Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1945

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This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.

It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.

Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.