A less-than-average celebrity memoir of the averagely famous Motown singer, written with the coauthor of Micky Dolenz's I'm a Believer (1993). Reeves scored hits with the anthemic ``Dancing in the Street,'' the rollicking ``Heat Wave,'' and the gutsy ``Nowhere to Run (Nowhere to Hide).'' Her father was a sharecropper and, like many Southern blacks, brought his family to Detroit after WW II in search of a better life. In high school, Reeves formed the Del- Phis, and they cut one local single. When she lucked into a job as a secretary at fledgling Motown Records, she began working as a background singer with two of her friends; the trio was soon renamed Martha and the Vandellas. They toured with the first ``Motortown Revue''; Reeves tells of performing for a segregated house in the South: ``We [sang] all of the songs twice; once in one direction, and the same song about-face.'' She crossed paths with many Motown legends, from Marvin Gaye (whom the Vandellas accompanied on many early recordings) to Mary Wells, the Temptations, and Smokey Robinson, but tells little about their personalities or their music. Those hoping for catty details of how young ``Diane'' Ross pushed her way into the spotlight will find only the occasional crumb. ``Diane [stole] onstage adlibs from everyone,'' Reeves complains, going on to assert that the Supremes once copied the Vandellas' gowns, forcing them to quickly come up with new outfits. She gives only a sketchy description of her descent into pill addiction and the bad LSD trip that precipitated a late-'60s nervous breakdown. Her ``comeback'' in the '80s and '90s has mostly consisted of rehashing her old hits. Motown historians will glean little new about Reeves's life; fans of the kiss-and-tell genre will be disappointed by the dearth of dirt. (Three 8-page b&w photo inserts, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Aug. 25, 1994
ISBN: 0-7868-6024-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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