Emery and Carter prove lightning can strike in the same place twice: Witness this scintillating follow-up to their 1991 megabestseller, Memories. Emery (whose prime-time cable-TV show Nashville Now has 60 million viewers) reprises his humble beginnings in broadcasting at WTPR—a dusk-to-dawn 250-watter in Paris, Tennessee (pop. 5000). After broadcasting farm-to-market news at $45 a week, he began programming a Sunday morning country-music show—until his first fan letter informed him that listening to country on Sunday mornings was like eating green beans for breakfast. Switching to a gospel format featuring live services, Emery would race to the first church and set up a microphone, then speed back to the station to introduce the service. Jumping back into the station's jalopy, he'd rush to set up a mike at the next church while the first preacher was having his half hour on the air. The bulk of the narrative here, though, offers not autobiography but more of Emery's fascinating insider's anecdotes about the foibles of country-music stars; their families; the origins of their songs; and the zany behavior they use to drive away the boredom of working 300 one-nighters on the road each year. One bright episode concerns the silver-screen debut of Mel Tillis—a notorious stutterer but one of the first Nashville singers recruited by Hollywood. Facing the cameras for the first time, Tillis characteristically botched his lines with his stutter. When the furious director castigated him for improvising, the humiliated singer retired to his trailer for some liquid consolation. Meanwhile, the cast and crew convinced the director that Tillis's stutter made the line funny, and Tillis was invited back for another take: Intoxicated, he delivered his lines without hesitation—only the next morning did a sober Tillis finally declaim to perfection, stumbling over every word. Captivating, and likely to capture another top rung on bestseller lists. (For a less satisfied glance at Emery's life, see Skeeter Davis's Bus Fare to Kentucky, reviewed above.) (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs—not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1993
ISBN: 0-399-13890-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1993
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
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
© 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.
