An intimate, candid look at the highs and lows of one musician’s artistic pursuit.
Singer offers a memoir about the ups and downs of life as a professional musician.
The author was born in 1949 and grew up in Canoga Park, California. Although his first real passion was baseball, his true calling would be playing the clarinet. When Singer was 12, his family took an extended trip to Europe, and while they were in Vienna, he came under the tutelage of the principal clarinetist in the Vienna Philharmonic, Rudolf Jettel. As the author recalls, “I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was the opportunity of a lifetime.” The “kind but very demanding” instructor helped Singer truly engage with the instrument, and when it was time for the author to return to the United States, his musicianship had grown immensely. Years later, he attended the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and after graduation, his professional journey took him to many different places; he recorded chamber music, performed at the White House, and, as the title suggests, took the stage at Carnegie Hall. However, he encountered financial struggles while pursuing his passion; he found it very difficult to make ends meet solely as a musician. For a time, he says, he drove a cab in New York City but felt shame about not finding music-related work: “Every time I drove by Carnegie Hall, I was afraid that one of my colleagues might recognize me.” He didn’t have the fortune of a friend who’d landed a long-term gig playing the French horn for the Broadway production of the musical Cats. Eventually, though, Singer landed a teaching job at Montclair State University before finally retiring to the West Coast.
The book ably underscores the hard truth that finding ways to pay the bills is a constant concern for many working musicians. Singer tells of attending auditions throughout the book, pointing out how pursuing leads “to get a great job can turn into another dead end so very quickly.” He effectively details the struggle by noting the strain that it put on his marriage and relating what it was like to drive a car that was “falling apart, as we put off essential repairs in favor of making sure the children always had what they needed.” He also lays out other key aspects of a thriving music career, such as receiving a positive review of a performance; for instance, he recalls when a recital of his was reviewed by the New York Times, stressing that a bad review “could very well slam the proverbial door shut to any kind of career playing with top artists in town.” Singer ably draws distinctions between playing in an orchestra with a conductor and in a group without one, as the latter requires far more skill from individual musicians: Without someone conducting them, he points out, “many musicians become lost both in the actual music and in the process of interpretation.” His accounts of encounters with figures such as cellist Pablo Casals and soprano Kathleen Battle may also excite dedicated music fans.
An intimate, candid look at the highs and lows of one musician’s artistic pursuit.Pub Date: June 25, 2024
ISBN: 9798822935211
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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