Though Starr fails to develop great intimacy with her reticent subject, her biography, the first of the gifted pop star, will delight lang's legions of fans. k.d. lang is the androgynous lesbian animal-rights activist with the incredible voice who has captured mainstream success against all odds. Starr, producer of a radio program on women in pop, chronicles lang's development from her early days in Eastern Alberta, Canada, to her emergence as a performance artist/singer and kitsch country star. Supplementing apparently limited access to the singer with interviews of friends and others, the author chronicles the maturation of lang's style from ``new progressionalist torch and twang'' to her more recent ``post- nuclear cabaret'' sound and answers questions fans have yearned to ask. Why the lower-case name? The youthful lang was a fan of e.e. cummings. Does lang really think she's the reincarnation of Patsy Cline? Yes and no. And what prompted lang to reveal—to the delight of her lesbian fans—that she too is gay? A desire for candor as much as anything else. Starr provides detailed analysis of lang's abortive experience with Nashville, a city the singer had sworn that she would reform. Considering her unfortunate outburst—a sweeping criticism of country music and its capital when the music she made there failed to gain radio play—the author suggests that if lang had been more diplomatic and possessed greater knowledge of the genre and its history, success could have been hers. The book closes with speculation about lang's love life (unsubstantiated liaisons with Madonna, Martina Navratilova, and Ingrid Caseras), which shows that the singer does a laudable job of retaining some privacy. That quality accounts for the book's lack of immediacy. Fans will have to turn back to lang's music to restoke their ardor, but they'll have learned a lot here.
Pub Date: June 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-10928-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1994
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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