This collection of memoirs from the veteran Nashville musician, disc jockey, and broadcast personality is full of good-natured humor and thoughtful insights. Emery begins on a somber note, with a recap of Conway Twitty’s untimely death and the ensuing battle of his estate with his third wife, Dee, and his children, who viewed Dee as opportunistic and flighty—particularly when she moved to have his body exhumed and cremated, only to withdraw the request a few days later. While many of his subjects (Patsy Cline, Tex Ritter, Carl Perkins) are likewise dead, Emery’s tone seldom sounds morose after the Twitty section. Instead, he’s apt to recall humorous instances, such as Maverick Records founder Fred Foster’s run-in with old-time Nashville bigshot Wesley Rose, who objected to Foster’s making “race records,” and how Foster was reassured by legend-in-the-making Owen Bradley, who told him, “You keep doing what you’re doing—making great records.” Some of Emery’s best stories concern unlikely country music figures, such as Ray Charles, who recorded a crossover hit with “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” and George Bush, who defends his taste for country music despite his patrician background. Emery’s perspective is refreshing: though no longer young, and obviously a conservative politically, he keeps alive a positive attitude toward change. He can condemn the “reverse discrimination” of a word like “hillbilly” and at the same time express indignation over some Nashville establishment icon’s treatment of black country musician Charley Pride . . . and never lose his credibility. His telling of white country singer Faron Young’s support of Pride is among the most poignant vignettes in the collection. (Co-author Cox also co-authored Tanya Tucker’s autobiography.) Fans of any kind of music can open this at any page—and enjoy it. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 4, 1998
ISBN: 0-688-15150-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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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
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Noted jazz and pop record producer Thiele offers a chatty autobiography. Aided by record-business colleague Golden, Thiele traces his career from his start as a ``pubescent, novice jazz record producer'' in the 1940s through the '50s, when he headed Coral, Dot, and Roulette Records, and the '60s, when he worked for ABC and ran the famous Impulse! jazz label. At Coral, Thiele championed the work of ``hillbilly'' singer Buddy Holly, although the only sessions he produced with Holly were marred by saccharine strings. The producer specialized in more mainstream popsters like the irrepressibly perky Teresa Brewer (who later became his fourth wife) and the bubble-machine muzak-meister Lawrence Welk. At Dot, Thiele was instrumental in recording Jack Kerouac's famous beat- generation ramblings to jazz accompaniment (recordings that Dot's president found ``pornographic''), while also overseeing a steady stream of pop hits. He then moved to the Mafia-controlled Roulette label, where he observed the ``silk-suited, pinky-ringed'' entourage who frequented the label's offices. Incredibly, however, Thiele remembers the famously hard-nosed Morris Levy, who ran the label and was eventually convicted of extortion, as ``one of the kindest, most warm-hearted, and classiest music men I have ever known.'' At ABC/Impulse!, Thiele oversaw the classic recordings of John Coltrane, although he is the first to admit that Coltrane essentially produced his own sessions. Like many producers of the day, Thiele participated in the ownership of publishing rights to some of the songs he recorded; he makes no apology for this practice, which he calls ``entirely appropriate and without any ethical conflicts.'' A pleasant, if not exactly riveting, memoir that will be of most interest to those with a thirst for cocktail-hour stories of the record biz. (25 halftones, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-508629-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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