The sad trajectory of Elvis Presley's life is a familiar story, but this memoir does shed a little new light on the early years. Though Moore is a distinguished guitar innovator and recording engineer, any general interest in his career lies in the 14 years he spent touring with Elvis. It all began back in Memphis in 1954, when Scotty and bassist Bill Black were casting around for a singer to front their unnamed band. A friend introduced them to the teenage Elvis, then unknown. They rehearsed a few times, then recorded more rehearsals at Sun Studios. These sessions produced a single with ``That's All Right, Mama'' on the A-side, ``Blue Moon of Kentucky'' on the B, and the rest is history. Moore and Black crisscrossed the South, touring with Elvis, but as his popularity soared, they were increasingly reduced to mere sidemen. Elvis promised them a percentage of record royalties, then broke his word. Moore and Black were left with salaries so meager they often couldn't cover living expenses. (Over the 14 years Scotty intermittently played with Elvis, he earned less than $31,000.) Eventually, they parted company. Disillusioned, Moore largely gave up the guitar and threw himself into studio work, mainly engineering. Musicologists may debate how revolutionary Elvis's early music really was, but a substantial component of that sound was Scotty's innovative (and self-taught) guitar stylings: ``His idea of using his guitar to provide counterpoint to the vocalist was a radical concept in popular recording at that time,'' asserts Dickerson. ``Scotty,'' a Nashville producer notes, ``was the whole deal. He made it all work.'' Though Dickerson (Goin' Back to Memphis, not reviewed) is not quite such an innovative collaborator, he turns in a competent performance with the slender material at hand. Scotty's real monument is not this book, but his music. (65 b&w illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-02-864599-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1997
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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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