A fine general overview of one of the richest veins in American popular music.
Publishers Weekly review editor Rotella (Stolen Figs and Other Adventures in Calabria, 2003) presents an affectionate survey of the Italian songs and singers that have distinguished American popular music, with a particular focus on the period bracketed by World War II and the rock ’n’ roll revolution.
Frank Sinatra looms large in the narrative, along with contemporaries such as Dean Martin and Vic Damone, but the author devotes equal attention to largely forgotten stars, including Russ Columbo, a heartthrob to rival the great Sinatra; Nick Lucas, the first populizer of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”; and Julius La Rosa, who was infamously fired, on the air, from patron Arthur Godfrey’s program. Rotella offers a brief biographical sketch of each performer, along with insightful analyses of their varying styles, descriptions of their biggest hits and breakdowns of their particular constituencies. Along the way, he reminisces about his own experiences as the son of Italian immigrants and discourses on the traditional Italian values that informed the singers’ heady combination of macho swagger and gooey romanticism. Contemporary music fans may have trouble engaging with many of the Italian songs as described here, however, as the relentless lyrical focus on moon/spoon/June infatuation and heartbreak tends to blur the individual compositions into an undifferentiated mush. Chapters on such easy-listening stalwarts as the terminally laid-back Perry Como and vanilla crooner Jerry Vale are as bland as their subjects, and the reader longs for more material on the wild antics of Louis Prima, or fabled bad boys like Sinatra, Martin and Dion DiMucci. These cavils aside, Amore is a breezy, useful reference for those interested in exploring the subject. Rotella conducted interviews with many of the surviving subjects of the book, and his encounters with the likes of falsetto-wielding Lou Christie and doo-wop titan Johnny Maestro are full of charming anecdotes and period flavor.
A fine general overview of one of the richest veins in American popular music.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-86547-698-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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