A charming and informative must-read for music lovers, with a personal touch for fans of ’60s folk and roots music.
Professional musician Greenhill recounts his musical history with his idols in this debut memoir.
Anyone who knows folk and blues music from the late 1950s onward will likely be jealous of Greenhill’s experiences. His father, Manny, was a concert promoter, and a who’s who of luminaries would stay at the family house when they came to town. The young author was already in love with music after his mother, Leona, took him to see Paul Robeson perform a children’s concert. Family friend Pete Seeger helped solidify that love and got him started playing guitar. From then on, he soaked up knowledge at every turn, learning from legends. For instance, Odetta taught him how to slide up the neck for a ringing E7 chord, and the Rev. Gary Davis instructed him on how to wrap his thumb around the neck for a thicker C7 chord (which he helpfully illustrates with a photo of the finger position for aspiring guitarists—one of many attractive photos that accompany the narrative). The family moved from Brooklyn to Boston, and Greenhill fell into the Cambridge folk scene frequented by Taj Mahal, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan. He became a professional musician and toured the country, living in New York City, Boston, and Los Angeles. Over the course of this book, Greenhill employs a wonderful, elliptical approach to storytelling, following experiences with particular performers over the course of a chapter and not following a strictly chronological course. The stories are very personal and engaging. For instance, Greenhill writes about how Lightnin’ Hopkins rudely spat out the eggs that Greenhill’s mother cooked for him (he found them too runny); the 16-year-old author saw this act as “transgressive” and “wild,” and it coincided with the teen’s taking his driver’s test, which he saw as another form of freedom. There are some technical explanations that guitarists will appreciate more than laypeople, but they never detract from the overall story.
A charming and informative must-read for music lovers, with a personal touch for fans of ’60s folk and roots music.Pub Date: April 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-64445-5
Page Count: 198
Publisher: Hillgreen
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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