As a life-long Dodger fan, I was set to devour this book. Clayton Kershaw is one of the greatest pitchers ever to put on the uniforWinning the Big One
As a life-long Dodger fan, I was set to devour this book. Clayton Kershaw is one of the greatest pitchers ever to put on the uniform, a sure bet first round hall of famer. His career has been dedicated to one organization, and he and his wife have been pillars of the community. Their charitable work has been inspiring, including the establishment of an orphanage in Zambia. The perfect story!
Well… maybe not perfect.
Clayton has won the Cy Young award as baseball’s best pitcher an incredible three times. He won the National League MVP award in 2014, a rare accomplishment for a pitcher. He has been the dominant stopper of his era… during the regular season. Slowly but surely his reputation began tarnishing during the post-season playoffs. ‘Wonderful, but he can’t win the big one.’ Whether overworked or pitching on short rest, things fell apart and the Dodgers, superior during the season, were unable to grab the World Series trophy behind their ace. The one time they did win, in 2020, has been devalued by many as the Covid series, with an unusual atmosphere adjusted because of the playing restrictions on crowds, teams, and locations.
Sportswriter Andy McCullough does provide glimpses of Kershaw we have not seen before. There is a detailed background of the financial struggles he and his mother endured in his youth, an early factor motivating him to succeed. His intensity, particularly on game day, is well known, and although it is pointed out he was much more easy-going on days he was not starting; a grumpiness and testiness seem to be asserting itself along with struggles to overcome injuries and the aging process. I was surprised to see him say he has no interest in instructing or tutoring the young pitchers coming up… “This might be, like, harsh, but I really don’t have any interest in helping people get better,” he said. “This is probably selfish… but I don’t, like, care.”
Kershaw’s career is winding down (being the old man of 36), but it is not over yet. His last pitched game, in the 2023 National League Division Series, was the worst performance ever, allowing six runs and recording only one out. In the off season he had elbow surgery before signing a $10 million contract for 2024. At the time of this book’s publication, he is still on the injured list, hoping to make another comeback by mid-season. One more chance to grab the brass ring.
“The Last of His Kind: Clayton Kershaw and the Burden of Greatness” gives us rare glimpses behind the scenes. We see how Kershaw felt about being robbed by the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal in 2017. A strained relationship with manager Dave Roberts is touched upon and we see a mutual admiration through the years with Sandy Koufax. An enjoyable portrait of a man driven to achieve greatness and unwilling to accept anything less.
Thank you to Hachette Books and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review....more
You can’t make this stuff up– and it is heartbreaking that this isn’t fiction.
Jim Gordon played drums on so many importHearing What No One Else Could
You can’t make this stuff up– and it is heartbreaking that this isn’t fiction.
Jim Gordon played drums on so many important hit songs it was ridiculous. He was a member of Derek and the Dominoes and was even credited for co-writing “Layla.” one of rock’s seminal pieces. He was the most in-demand studio drummer, he was well connected, he was good looking– he was on top of the world.
On June 3, 1983, he took a hammer and butcher knife and brutally murdered his 71-year-old-mother.
This is a gut-wrenching story. Jim appeared to be the nicest guy in the world, a little shy, and blessed with an intuitive talent that had the greatest drummers in the world, including Hal Blaine and Jim Keltner, shaking their heads in astonishment. There is a playlist at the back of the book showing work with the Beach Boys, Phil Spector, Neil Young, John Lennon, George Harrison, Tom Petty… the beat goes on and on.
And then the voices came. The lone way to keep the voices at bay was to smother them with increasing amounts of drugs and alcohol. As his behavior slowly became more erratic, people chalked it up to another rock star’s tango with drugs– just an occupational hazard. No one was aware of the voices he heard in his head, not his girlfriends, not his coworkers, not even the psychiatrists he eventually turned to.
Rita Coolidge, at one time his girlfriend, tells of the time they were part of Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, and Jim asked her to step out into the hallway with him. Things had been going so well with the two that she guessed he might be asking her to marry him. Instead, he punched her in the face so hard she hit the wall and lost consciousness. He nonchalantly walked into the next room and told people, “I hit Rita.”
Later, as the voices became louder and more frequent, Jim would suffer unbearable pain if he tried to ignore them… a “white hot cruelty pain” encircling his head. His career started collapsing as his performance and dependability became increasingly unstable. The self-medicating with liquor and drugs only masked his condition to friends and doctors. Complaints of depression, anxiety and fatigue were never linked to schizophrenia. No one knew about the voices.
The voices came from many people, with his mother’s becoming more prevalent. He believed she “...was a truly evil person who had a hand in the deaths of Karen Carpenter and Paul Lynde.”
Joel Selvin has written a captivating account flowing as quickly as the best of novels. While it is hard to have any sympathy for someone responsible for such a gruesome act, the overwhelming perception is that Jim Gordon was doomed, a victim tormented by his own illness. A tragic tale.
A couple side notes: This book opened my eyes (or ears) to so many details going into drum performances I was never sensitive to– I will listen with enlightenment now. The other note is it seems, although Layla is credited to Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, the piano portion was composed by Rita Coolidge who was never recognized creatively or financially. When she confronted Clapton’s manager, Robert Stigwood, he slammed her with, “Who do you think you are? You’re a girl singer– what are you going to do?”
Thank you to Diversion Books and Edelweiss for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review....more
Author Sloane Crosley had her apartment broken into and lost jewelry, most of it relatively inexpensive, some of it tied to strong Tangling With Grief
Author Sloane Crosley had her apartment broken into and lost jewelry, most of it relatively inexpensive, some of it tied to strong family sentiment. She took this hard; this was a violation. Her closest friend and former boss, book publicist Russell Perreault, was the shoulder to cry on and the one person she felt comfortable confiding in. His reassurance: “If it’s any consolation,” he said, “you can’t take it with you when you go.”
A few nights later he committed suicide.
Unexpectedly, she forges the two events together. If she can solve the robbery and recover the jewelry– somehow it can turn events back. The first portion of the book has her working around the ineffectiveness of the police and doing her own investigation. This all-consuming mission acts as a protective cloak hiding her denial over the sudden loss of her friend. She even fantasizes about Russell, in death, recovering the jewelry for her.
As the title states, “Grief is for People,” not possessions. As the jewelry issue fades, Sloane deals with the guilt, the post-traumatic stress disorder, and the thousands of questions this loss brings out. We get that she loved Richard dearly as a friend and desperately searches for a way to bring him back, that by her continued living she is leaving him behind. She does paint a loving picture of his quirkiness and we do get a sense of why he is so missed.
We are not smothered in a solemn gloomy mess, though. There is a lot of witty humor in this book, which is a good thing because it helps balance out an underlying anger Sloane expresses. “We have all committed the sin of not being able to bring him back.” This does not profess to be a self-help book– she actually mocks the rigidity of a lot of those and challenges the traditional ‘five stages of grief,’ they are not as neatly divided as put forward. Everyone wears their grief differently.
I was drawn to this book as a way to address some of my own recent grief issues, and, although the suicide focus is not something specifically relevant, a lot of chords were struck that rang true. I have just ordered Joan Didion’s “Year of Magical Thinking,” her moving account of how she attempted to function in her world soaked in grief. That book is referred to a number of times here and when I first read it I was not looking at these issues from the same vantage point.
Please don’t be put off by the darkness you may associate with the subject matter. This is an excellent exploration of a place we are all bound to dwell in at some point. Again, serious questions addressed with an appropriately humorous slant. It is the tragedy comedy tradition.
“I still want to know where everything I loved has gone and why.”
Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux, thank you to NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review....more
“Whiskey Tender” is Deborah Jackson Taffa’s search for her identity as a mixed tribe native girl. Her father is Quechan/Laguna, and Yes, But Who Am I?
“Whiskey Tender” is Deborah Jackson Taffa’s search for her identity as a mixed tribe native girl. Her father is Quechan/Laguna, and her mother is a devout Hispanic Catholic. This is not a story of a girl soaking in the stories handed down by her family, she had to fight through their reluctance to speak of the things they had endured: tales of the treatment suffered in the Indian residential boarding schools and, as she said, “...the shame: the silence that follows an apocalypse.”
In addition to the struggles for support within the family, her identity was beset by social confusion. Born on the Yuma, California Reservation, the family moved to Farmington, New Mexico, where her father could find the work he was trained for. Leaving the reservation was tantamount to betrayal or desertion in the eyes of her father’s people. Farmington is on the northeast border of the Navajo Nation and there was a resistance against full acceptance of Quechan blood and tradition. The Hispanic population did not see Deborah’s family as their own, either. As for the white attitude, Farmington had just been the scene of protests following the “Indian rolling” kidnapping and murdering of three native men by three high school students.
This confusing attempt to grasp identity while being sent mixed signals reminded me of “If I Survive You” by Jonathan Escoffery, a novel shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. A main theme of that book involves the denial of acceptance by those the protagonist is drawn to. Escoffery’s character is a young Jamaican immigrant, rejected by Jamaican islanders just as soundly as he is rejected by every other group in his new home.
This is a fascinating portrait of where Native Americans look to find themselves today, told through one woman’s coming of age in an America which has tried so hard to whitewash out her heritage. I love the relationship she conveys with her father. I am touched by the distance she and her mother try so hard to bridge. A wonderful book addressing life from the family to the nation.
Thank you to Harper Books and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #WhiskeyTender #NetGalley
***Acknowledged by author on X / Twitter... Deborah Jackson Taffa @deborahtaffa Thanks for the dream comparison to @J_Escoffery , Michael! I’m a huge fan of his work! ...more
I wanted to learn more about the Tulsa Race Massacre, always amazed at how some historical events are allowed to be conveniently hidden away and sweptI wanted to learn more about the Tulsa Race Massacre, always amazed at how some historical events are allowed to be conveniently hidden away and swept under the carpet. Like most people, I was unfamiliar with this tragedy until just a few years ago. I remember hearing accounts on NPR about people growing up in Tulsa completely unaware this had taken place in their community.
“Don’t Let Them Bury My Story: The Oldest Living Survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre in Her Own Words” is not just about what happened in 1921. Viola Ford Fletcher is now 109 years old and it is her story of how this explosion, this Big Bang affected the lives and destinies of thousands through the shockwaves it generated.
Viola was seven years old when the Black Wall Street, the Greenwood district of Tulsa she lived in, blew up as angry white terrorists attacked. The numbers are argued over, but it seems mobs killed an estimated 300 people and looted and torched more than 1400 homes and businesses. Nearly 10,000 people were left homeless. Airplanes were even used to track people down, with reports of turpentine bombs being dropped.
A particularly gruesome memory pours out during the riot. Viola sees a man, spouting out his allegiance to the KKK… “He held up his shotgun, pointed it, and blew a poor Black man’s head clean o!, right in front of us.” What does seeing that do to a child?
Damage was not just to homes and businesses, but to the psyche of the victims. Promising futures were marred with paranoia and PTSD. These burning after-effects altered the life paths of the victims. This is really what the book is about. You can now fact-check the event on Wikipedia, you can read about the mass grave sites being investigated, but until you read the first-hand account of what people went through it is just another historical entry.
Viola has appeared before Congress to tell her story and is currently in court seeking reparations under Oklahoma’s public nuisance law. The slow grinding wheels of justice? 102 years and counting…
Thank you to Lauren Klouda, Independent Publishers Group, Mocha Media Publishing, and Edelweiss for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. ...more
I have to admit I was not too familiar with Larry McMurtry’s work. I was aware he had written “Last Picture Show” and “Lonesome Dove,” but I had neverI have to admit I was not too familiar with Larry McMurtry’s work. I was aware he had written “Last Picture Show” and “Lonesome Dove,” but I had never read these nor had seen the films. I have seen “Terms of Endearment” and “Brokeback Mountain,” but I did not get a sense of his style from these. His son, James McMurtry, is an awesomely talented musician whose music I have enjoyed for years, but Larry was only a vaguely famous name.
Tracy Daugherty has put together an all-encompassing biography of McMurtry; exhaustive at 560 pages. McMurtry was not a man who just sat in his house and wrote books. Book collecting and book selling were huge obsessions of his. He tried in vain to establish his tiny childhood town of Archer City as a major book center.
As I read on, I did go out of my way to stream some of the screen adaptations of his work. I watched “Hud,” “The Last Picture Show,” and the first season of “Lonesome Dove.” It was pointed out that audiences parted with a romantic view of these lives, while McMurtry’s aim was to strip away our illusions. Hollywood paid well, however, and he found it within the bounds of his conscience to compose the profitable sequels for Dove.
The book explores the many relationships he had with well-known celebrities including Cybill Shepherd and Diane Keaton. We see him hobnobbing with politicians and socialites, as well.
I suppose a comprehensive study of an author’s life should cover as much as possible, but this was much too much for my interest. I can see myself reading some of his work in the future, particularly his portrayal of Texas, but my interest peaked much too early in this book.
Thank you to St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. ...more
Bernie Taupin’s “Scattershot” delivers insight into one of rock music’s most visible unknowns. Known as Elton JohnThe Words You Know, The Tune You Hum
Bernie Taupin’s “Scattershot” delivers insight into one of rock music’s most visible unknowns. Known as Elton John’s lyricist, his photos were on a number of the 1970’s albums… but anything else could pretty much be fabricated with interpretation of his lyrics. The wide-eyed innocence of “Your Song” was a landmark and melded perfectly with Elton’s unforced piano work. From there… a long, extraordinary road.
I can never get enough rock biographies— until I read one. Music has been a huge part of my life, both as an entertainment and as a livelihood. Casey Kasem’s countdown shows were always a must and to this day I possess wonderfully pointless trivia neutrons lounging in vital brain cells. All that being said, worthwhile music biographies have been illusive in my pursuits. Keith Richards’s book was surprising with its profound and illuminating insights. The recent Ricki Lee Jones bio was enjoyable, and the stories Robbie Robertson told were (from his angle, at least) amazing. On the less worthwhile side, Chuck Negron’s Three Dog Night story was mostly one of a heroin tragedy. I found Donovan’s to be so self-aggrandizing I wanted to sic ‘Superman or Green Lantern’ on him. Most of the other accounts were hit or miss, pretty tepid “as told to” tales of drugs, groupies, two-year peaks and crashes.
In the Author’s Note, Bernie warns us this is not a straight-forward biography, not a strictly chronological tale. It is going to be “Scattershot,” perhaps haphazard in its form. If a scholarly document is desired, this is not the place to look. The book takes off from there. The initial, well known telling of the Elton-Bernie collaboration is covered, there are the early struggling years, and the career breakthrough Troubadour performances. Much of this was covered in Elton’s book, “Me,” and the hyper-glitzy film “Rocketman.”
“Scattershot” is not limited to Elton’s adventures with his sidekick. We do get insights into their relationship and there are passages like Elton’s suicide attempt and how that is transformed into “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” but Bernie stresses the differences in their personalities and how they have found their own separate paths to happiness. He is not just one of the Captain Fantastic posse as he travels on tour, he claims his job is to be a witness.
“I’m a complete voyeur when it comes to my ideas. I always have been, from day one. I think if there’s anything you could put on my tombstone, it could be: HE WAS AN OBSERVER.” – Bernie in a Vanity Faire interview.
Is this a “tell all” book? It is a “tell some” with entertaining anecdotes about people like Cher, Nilsson, John Lennon, John Belushi, Bob Marley, Frank Sinatra— even encounters with Salvador Dali and author Graham Greene. He pulls no punches as he blasts Chevy Chase, John Bonham and Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant. Fun stuff.
Songwriters are often grilled on the meaning of the lyrics. One of the big reveals is that he was never a Marilyn Monroe fan, that “Candle in the Wind '' was not originally about her, and that while he did adapt the lyrics for Princess Di’s memorial, he was never particularly a royal family follower. There are a few instances where Bernie reveals his inspiration, but he includes Lou Reed’s quote, “Just because I wrote it doesn’t mean I know what it’s about.” Then he adds, “Don’t rely on me– I’m liable to make things up.”
Bernie’s life is much more than songwriting. The ‘Brown Dirt Cowboy’ has been an accomplished equestrian, a successful restaurateur, and a celebrated artist. While these areas show a great deal of diversity, there is much more detail here than necessary and could have been edited down.
Finally: I do not hold it against “Scattershot” that Mr. Taupin was responsible for writing “We Built This City.” There must be a statute of limitations on that crime. Oh, “Island Girl,” too.
“I’m just a hack writer who drinks too much and falls in love with girls.” – Holly Martins from “The Third Man” as quoted by Bernie.
I do recommend “Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me” for its entertaining reveal of a pop life we could only imagine. It rises above the average rock bio, thankfully.
Thank you to Hachette Books and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review....more
First, NO, this is not that new Bourdain book, “Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain” that has been clogging up the Looking for Tony
First, NO, this is not that new Bourdain book, “Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain” that has been clogging up the news feeds recently. This collection, “Anthony Bourdain: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations,” has been out for a few years now. I have mixed feelings about that new book– but this is about the Last Interview book.
The thrust is simple enough, just seven of his interviews stretching from back in 2003 to his very last one in 2018. Interviewers include Neil deGrasse Tyson and Trevor Noah. The last interview itself is not very long. It is a little bittersweet, however, seeing him praising the honesty and bravado of companion Asia Argento– when so much of the bilge emerging from the new book concerns his emotional upheaval with her.
“That is something that Asia cannot help but do,” he said. “She is brutally honest about herself and anything, and it’s a great quality.”
I miss Bourdain. I still have trouble believing what happened and cannot think I will ever wallow in the sordid muck of the Down and Out book. I prefer to cling to the illusion that he is still out there filming and enlightening us with his wicked sense of humor.
There are no new revelations or tabloid headlines here, it is akin to going back and watching one of his shows. Three stars– not an essential read, but he was always witty and entertaining.
Thank you to Melville House and Edelweiss for providing the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review....more
The face, the energy, the charisma, jumped out when Michael K. Williams took over the screen. HBO’s “The Wire,” long considered one Sharing the Scars
The face, the energy, the charisma, jumped out when Michael K. Williams took over the screen. HBO’s “The Wire,” long considered one of the best series ever, reverberated once his Omar character appeared. In a cast of brilliant actors somehow this awkward, troubled kid from the Bronx stepped in and captivated us.
I just wish the man was still around to see his story come out.
On September 6, 2021, word hit that Michael K. Williams had od’d. Like so many other tragic Hollywood deaths, the news was stunning. We knew Michael. We recognized him. We wanted the dialogue to continue. This could not be right– there was so much more for him to offer. His characters radiated danger and menace… but that was the script, the acting, right?
In “Scenes from My Life” Michael tells us about the insecure boy growing up in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood. We see him awaken and connect with life when Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” video kindles an obsession with performing. He turns himself into an in-demand dancer and eventually the very talented actor we all knew.
But there are the drugs. Over and over we see him fall victim to his addictions. Who knew that his resistance crumpled once he no longer had Omar to hide behind? From there we see a series of ups and downs as he fought his demons. When he first met Barack Obama he was so high on cocaine he could barely function. He repeats a number of times that he knows he is never free for good. Eventually he comes to believe his purpose is to be an example to others, to make his story heard and see if anyone else could stand on his shoulders. As you read the last few chapters you want to will a different ending… you want to fantasize the story of a man who brought himself back from the edge a number of times and lived to tell the tale.
Michael turned in his memoir shortly before overdosing on fentanyl, p-fluorofentanyl, heroin and cocaine. It is hard to judge another’s struggle, he is gone. Just a shame. More chapters should have been there for the taking. I recommend the book as a way to see into this man, as heartbreaking as it is to see him self-destruct and tumble away from us.
Thank you to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. #ScenesfromMyLife #NetGalley...more
David Milch is a monumental talent. I became aware of him through the DVD commentaries of the brilliant HBO “Deadwood” series he created. His actors sDavid Milch is a monumental talent. I became aware of him through the DVD commentaries of the brilliant HBO “Deadwood” series he created. His actors sang his praises and spoke of him in reverential tones. He voiced a number of the features himself and brought insight into the characters and plotting. It was fascinating to hear him break down the creative process behind the arc of the show.
Like all die-hard fans, I was crushed by the premature cancellation after only three seasons. Skip thirteen long years to 2019 and word came out that finally, against all odds, HBO had greenlit a special “Deadwood: The Movie”, maybe giving closure to the fans. The announcement was bittersweet, however, as the joy was tempered with the news that David Milch was suffering with Alzheimer's, news that was only released when it was obvious his condition could not be hidden with all the press surrounding the new movie.
“Life's Work: A Memoir” opens with Milch describing the unbalanced state his world is in now, a tricky memory and distorted sense of reality. He worked on it with the help of his family, relying on recollections they have of stories Milch had relayed in the past .Especially helpful were writings his wife had been composing for years about his writing process.
David Milch is a man of extremes. He graduated at the top of his class at Yale. He was praised by Robert Penn Warren who said, “No one writes dialogue better than you.” While in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop he dropped down to Mexico to manufacture acid. He developed a heroin addiction. Attending Yale Law School passed the time until he was arrested for shooting out street lights with a shotgun and then turning his sights on the flashing lights of a police car. All this before he was even out of school.
“Hill Street Blues,” “NYPD Blue,” and “Deadwood” are just some of the projects his writing has given us. Milch goes into great detail about struggling to instill depth into each character. He often worked out personal issues in the scripts, including his own molestation as a child by a family friend. A racehorse owner, his love for the track was reflected in “Luck,” a series he created for HBO. Again, his extreme nature is stressed when his wife discovers his gambling has blown up– he had spent twenty-three million dollars at the track during a ten year period.
Much like William Goldman’s wonderful “Adventures in the Screen Trade,” this book gives tremendous insight into the nuts and bolts of the writer’s art. In “Life’s Work” we see the author striving to make his craft personal, weaving his world into the script to reflect truth. A captivating read by an amazing man.
Thank you to the Random House Publishing Company and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #LifesWork #NetGalley...more
“You go back, Jack, Do It Again”... The mysterious voice and strange hypnotic music seeped its way out of transistor radio waves in laNo Static At All
“You go back, Jack, Do It Again”... The mysterious voice and strange hypnotic music seeped its way out of transistor radio waves in late 1972. This stood out from the other fare coming from AM radio. An otherworldly electric sitar and plastic organ drove the tune up the charts. A few months later “Reeling in the Years” popped with a guitar solo that Jimmy Page said is his all time favorite.
Donald Fagen was the reluctant voice behind most of Steely Dan’s music. He and Walter Becker founded the group, wrote the material, and charted its course. He was uncomfortable performing and they both absolutely hated touring– describing the ordeal as “nights of shame and terror.” Clips of the group on The Midnight Special verify this, even to the point of having a designated lead singer covering the vocals Donald performed on record. By the completion of the third album, Pretzel Logic, the band dissolved into Donald and Walter and an array of the world’s finest studio musicians. Touring was stopped cold and sworn off forever.
Donald always kept to himself and showed reluctance to open up to the press. The mystery has been to figure where he ended and where Walter began. Their song lyrics are enigmatic and often cynical, including sordid tales of characters on the outskirts of accepted society. The music, too, was a complicated mixture of pop, jazz, R&B, blues and standards unlike anything anyone else was conjuring.
The “Gaucho” album, the group’s seventh official album in nine years, was released in 1980. And then nothing for twenty years. In 1982 Donald released the brilliant, semi-autobiographical “The Nightfly” album and we finally saw clues as to what he brought to the studio apart from Walter. Finally, in 1993 the two reunited to work on Donald’s second solo album, “Kamakiriad” and eventually started touring and recording again.
“Nightfly: The Life of Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen” conquers some difficult challenges. It succeeds in giving us enough background to understand a very private man. Donald was never one to jump into the media promotion circus. His darker side is revealed, too– there is more than one allegation of financial promises that were not kept. A nasty domestic violence episode is also brought up. We are not just presented with a Saint Donald bio.
The author, Peter Jones, has a jazz musician background, but he does not overcomplicate the explanations of the very technical demands of Becker and Fagen’s craft. We see the world’s greatest musicians tested to their limits with the long, grueling sessions in search of perfection.
Questions are answered. We see why the two seemingly inseparable geniuses broke apart for so long and what was happening during those dark days. The vehement anti-tour mindset slowly morphs into an aggressive performing outfit. Finally, we see how Donald took Walter’s death and where things stand today, with Donald as Steely Dan. While the book is essential for die-hard Steely Dan fans, casual rock music fans should enjoy it, too. It fills in a lot of the holes behind the enigma. An enjoyable read.
Thank you to Chicago Review Press and Edelweiss for providing the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review....more
![Paul Simon: The Life [Deckle Edge]](https://cdn.statically.io/img/i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1521364006l/36373611._SX50_.jpg)
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