by Ricky Skaggs with Eddie Dean ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2013
Lacking the dirt of other high-profile music memoirs, Skaggs’ life is an affirmation of hard work, drive and faith.
Legendary bluegrass and country musician Skaggs reflects on his life and career.
Born and raised in the eastern Kentucky mountains, the author knew from an early age that he was destined to be a musician. After receiving his first mandolin at the age of 5 in 1959, young Skaggs was given his first big chance only a year later, performing side by side with his idol Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys at a local concert. Skaggs’ natural talent had already made him something of a local celebrity—the only reason he got on stage with Monroe was because the crowd chanted for him—but Skaggs’ musical roots go even deeper. Raised in a musical home, he recalls his mother singing hymns and other tunes around the house as she did chores. He also tells how his father aspired to be a musician, but the death of Skaggs’ uncle in World War II killed the brothers’ dream of making it as a duo. As Skaggs’ musical talent developed, so, too, did his passionate Baptist faith. For Skaggs, music was synonymous with spirituality. Even after becoming a crossover country music star, Skaggs recalls his mother asking him, “Son, you know who got you here, don’t you?” To which Skaggs replied, “Yes, Mama. Jesus did.” Skaggs’ memoir is not only his personal history, but also a narrative history of bluegrass music and its eventual decline. He is a faithful observer, and among his best anecdotes are those from his time playing with New South at the Red Slipper Lounge in Lexington. Having been superseded by pop country, bluegrass would be bumped to the festival circuit. Years later, Skaggs re-embraced his bluegrass roots, though he doesn’t regret his foray into country, and he remains a formidable presence in the music scene as the owner of Skaggs Place Recording Studio and Skaggs Family Records.
Lacking the dirt of other high-profile music memoirs, Skaggs’ life is an affirmation of hard work, drive and faith.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-191733-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: It Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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