A must-read for the Prince die-hards who have remained devoted through the musical meanderings of the last three decades.
Everything you ever wanted to know about the making of the popular Prince movie—and much more.
There are two justifications for this book. The first is the 30th anniversary of Purple Rain, the blockbuster movie and album that transformed Prince from a cult favorite into the supernova of popular culture. The second is the exhilaration of the ascent as experienced by a high school senior, later to be a well-respected music critic and editor. For Light (The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of "Hallelujah," 2012, etc.), then and now, Prince’s genius is a given, and the movie’s landmark status is beyond argument: “From all of Prince’s groundbreaking work, it is Purple Rain that endures first and foremost. It will always be the defining moment of a magnificent, fascinating—if often erratic—career. It carries the weight of history.” Lest this seem like hyperbole, the author quotes another critic who reviewed the movie at the time as “the best rock film ever made.” Since Prince doesn’t care much for anniversaries or looking back and has described the movie’s success as “my albatross,” Light didn’t bother asking him to reflect on that period. Instead, he relies on seemingly limitless access to his musical collaborators, the first-time director (who later became Prince’s manager), his publicists and his girlfriends. Beyond the minutiae of moviemaking and who was sleeping with whom, the book is particularly incisive in providing context, showing how video technology and black crossover artists were changing the marketplace. A few of the revelations are real howlers—e.g., a studio suggestion that the untrained actor with a couple of hit singles wasn’t really big enough to carry the movie and that maybe he should be replaced by John Travolta. But mainly, Light commemorates an anniversary that might otherwise have passed without much notice.
A must-read for the Prince die-hards who have remained devoted through the musical meanderings of the last three decades.Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1476776729
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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