BETWEEN YOU AND ME: Loving Reminiscences

Singer Bailey's sixth book (Hurry Up, America, and Spit; Pearl's Kitchen, etc.), once more reaching down into the heartstrings as she tells of, among other activities, returning to college in her 60s and going for a degree in theology. In 1978, when offered an honorary degree by Georgetown Univ. in Washington, D.C., the town in which she first went to school as a child, Bailey surprised herself when accepting by saying, ""Who knows, folks, I may be coming to this school."" The audience roared approval and the next year she entered as a freshman. At first she majored in French and took courses she thought would be a snap, but long hours studying, lugging big bags of books, and preparing for midterms and finals taught her that there were no ""snaps"" at Georgetown. Meanwhile, she was trying to keep house for husband Louis Belson, the drumming bandleader, and was having problems keeping in touch with her two adult kids. Her love life went on hold while she sank into Bible studies, Greek and Arabic philosophies, and made friends with teachers and fellow students far younger than she. After six years she received her degree. In the meantime, Bailey keeps all this well stirred by documenting her various emotional commitments at school. Site reprint s postgraduation testimonials from her teachers, which are nice enough, but the only real friction that reaches the reader is when some black girls ask her to join their sorority and she turns them down as bigots. She gives us her thoughts on family, dear friends she bas lost, tells of her trips to Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Israel, the Ivory Coast, and Russia, of working for Otto Preminger in the film of Porgy and Bess, of sharing a rousing dinner with Gorbachev at the White House, and of her delight at receiving an unexpected eight-page letter from Louis Armstrong. A built-in audience from her earlier books.