An evenhanded biography that humanizes the guitar hero once dubbed ``God'' by his adoring fans. Schumacher (Dharma Lion: The Biography of Allen Ginsberg, 1993) methodically dissects Clapton's life and persona, beginning with the musician's childhood in the rural English village of Ripley, where he was born out of wedlock in 1945 and raised by his 16-year-old mother's parents. We follow Clapton's metamorphosis from an introverted teenager captivated by blues and rock-and-roll into the most heralded young guitarist on London's fertile music scene of the early 1960s, when he worked briefly in such historically important bands as the Yardbirds and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Schumacher effectively captures the yin-yang aspects of Clapton's personality, revealing a complicated, troubled individual who began acting like a petulant rock star early in his career. After leaving Mayall's group, Clapton went on to found the influential trio Cream with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, and Schumacher provides some juicy dirt on that volatile three-way alliance. Also covered is Clapton's relationship with Pattie Boyd, wife of Beatle George Harrison when she served as the inspiration for ``Layla,'' one of Clapton's best songs. (She later married Clapton, but it didn't last.) The book bogs down when covering in excessive detail the string of mediocre albums Clapton recorded during the '70s—a time when he had traded in a debilitating heroin addiction for a near-fatal dependence on alcohol—but picks up steam as it moves toward the present. The story ends on a bittersweet note: After the tragic accidental death of Clapton's young son, Conor, in 1991, the musician's career blossomed anew, largely due to the success of ``Tears in Heaven,'' a song commemorating Conor's demise. Clapton recently returned to playing his first love, the blues, bringing his saga full circle. Meatier than the average fan bio. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: April 28, 1995
ISBN: 0-7868-6074-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.
A light-speed tour of (mostly) Western poetry, from the 4,000-year-old Gilgamesh to the work of Australian poet Les Murray, who died in 2019.
In the latest entry in the publisher’s Little Histories series, Carey, an emeritus professor at Oxford whose books include What Good Are the Arts? and The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books, offers a quick definition of poetry—“relates to language as music relates to noise. It is language made special”—before diving in to poetry’s vast history. In most chapters, the author deals with only a few writers, but as the narrative progresses, he finds himself forced to deal with far more than a handful. In his chapter on 20th-century political poets, for example, he talks about 14 writers in seven pages. Carey displays a determination to inform us about who the best poets were—and what their best poems were. The word “greatest” appears continually; Chaucer was “the greatest medieval English poet,” and Langston Hughes was “the greatest male poet” of the Harlem Renaissance. For readers who need a refresher—or suggestions for the nightstand—Carey provides the best-known names and the most celebrated poems, including Paradise Lost (about which the author has written extensively), “Kubla Khan,” “Ozymandias,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, which “changed the course of English poetry.” Carey explains some poetic technique (Hopkins’ “sprung rhythm”) and pauses occasionally to provide autobiographical tidbits—e.g., John Masefield, who wrote the famous “Sea Fever,” “hated the sea.” We learn, as well, about the sexuality of some poets (Auden was bisexual), and, especially later on, Carey discusses the demons that drove some of them, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath among them. Refreshingly, he includes many women in the volume—all the way back to Sappho—and has especially kind words for Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop, who share a chapter.
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-23222-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
