An entertaining, thoughtful account of the music business, one that would-be machers will want to study closely.
“I always know in a few seconds.” Music mogul Reid reveals the secrets of the producer’s trade.
Exhibit A is a young man named Usher Raymond IV, who came into the Atlanta headquarters of LaFace Records at a time when the label was suffering the inevitable growth pains, among them demands from its lead act, the hip-hop group TLC, for more money. Money is, as might be expected, a constant presence and preoccupation in Reid’s narrative, but happily, not at the expense of the music. He writes of having grown up in Cincinnati in the shadow of the King Records building, James Brown’s label. “Rhythm intoxicated me,” he writes, “and eventually it occurred to me that I wanted to play along.” He did so as drummer and driving force for the regionally popular combo called The Deele, which crafted hits for itself and other acts—notably Pebbles, whom Reid would marry. None too star-struck with himself, the author writes of learning his way around the music business, motivated in part by the desire to get out of his mother’s home: “I had no real prospects in the music business,” he notes, “but that didn’t occur to me.” Instead, he kept at it, realizing, critically, that he had a good brain as well as talent. He worked hard to learn as much as he could about that business and eventually stepped from behind the drum kit to take the lead first as a producer, then as a label owner, and then as an executive for the biggest hit-makers—a job, he notes, that is full of infighting and ugly politics. Throughout, Reid conveys his love of music and his open-minded search for new talent, no matter what the genre, including recent discoveries the Kongos and Meghan Trainor. (Incidentally, Usher passed that audition in a few seconds, and the rest is history.)
An entertaining, thoughtful account of the music business, one that would-be machers will want to study closely.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-227475-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
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
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