Readers who have had any sort of musical passion should find these stories compelling.
As the title suggests, this is a wide-ranging exploration of the hold that music has on so many of us, from the esoteric instruments to which some devote their lives to the musicians who inspire loyal obsession long after their popular heydays.
This book is as much about Washington Post Magazine deputy editor Rowell (The Train of Small Mercies, 2010) and his musical passions (including a collection of percussion instruments from around the world) as it is about the ostensible subjects of each chapter. But by focusing so narrowly—e.g., on the “hang,” an obscure, expensive instrument in Switzerland, the popular rise and decline of the Hammond organ, or the cult appeal of musical aggression known as “grindcore”—the author offers revelations that seem universal, if often ineffable. Though the author is not a music critic—after all, he reveres Yes and other reviled prog rock acts—he has been a drummer since boyhood but apparently not a professional musician, and he offers no evidence that he is a particularly proficient one. He might best be described as a music geek who writes engaging features about idiosyncratic musical passions, including the Appalachian “canjoe,” a kind of single-string banjo made of a stick and a can that earned its maker an appearance on the Grand Ole Opry. Rowell also provides a fascinating account of the bipartisan political machinations that helped promote Yes for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was led by the strategist for Rick Santorum’s presidential run, though Santorum, it turns out, is more of a Styx partisan. “The one thing we’ve absolutely sworn off is negative campaigning,” said the operative. “You’re not going to see any anti–Moody Blues ads.” Every story concerns music, but the heart of each is people—the ones who make the music or the instruments and the ones whose lives depend on it.
Readers who have had any sort of musical passion should find these stories compelling.Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-226-47755-8
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© 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.
