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Monday, March 9, 2020

Musical biographies are here for your spring break reading pleasure

Acid for the Children: A Memoir by Flea and Patti Smith

"Acid for the Children is not an as-told-to, nor is it written "with" someone. These are Flea's words-excitable, jazzy, regretful, disarming, popping and writhing away in his biological bass zone. Insecurities to the fore: He worries that he may be producing "a thorny jumble of trash." But he's actually a lovely writer, with a particular gift for the free-floating and reverberant. He writes in Beat Generation bursts and epiphanies, lifting toward the kind of virtuosic vulnerability and self-exposure associated with the great jazz players....Flea-elegant nutcase, funk-at-high-pressure bassist, wildly cultured and culturedly wild man-has written a fine memoir. You'll put down Acid for the Children with your human sympathies expanded; you'll feel less alone."




The Beautiful Ones by Prince

“Everything Piepenbring shares about being a fan chosen to work with one of his idols resonates. . . . [He] doesn't just want to write this memoir with Prince, he wants to do it right. . . . This means we get a memoir that is written by Prince, literally. Handwritten pages he had shared with Piepenbring make up Part 1, taking us from his first memory—his mother’s eyes—through the early days of his career. . . . We also get a memoir that is carefully curated by Piepenbring, who writes that he was able to go through Paisley Park, room-by-room, sorting through Prince’s life. . . . The Beautiful Ones doesn't paint a perfect picture. . . . It’s not definitive. It can’t be. It shouldn’t be and, thankfully, it doesn’t try to be. . . . It’s up to us to take what’s there and make something out of it for ourselves, creating, just as Prince wanted.”
NPR






Face It: A Memoir by Debbie Harry 

“With Face It, Harry is here to fill in some of the blanks—briskly, humorously… Knowing that there are still those who expect her to be simply “a blonde in tight pants,” she tells her life story how she wants to tell it.”





JAY-Z: Made in America by Michael Eric Dyson

"Dyson has made a career out of contextualizing the struggles of Black America. With his latest work, JAY-Z: Made in America, he continues to unpack the catalysts and consequences of black creativity, power, and wealth... Ultimately, [Jay-Z's] rebellion started on the page―and Dyson is the perfect chronicler of its permanence."






Me: Elton John Official Autobiography by Elton John 

“A uniquely revealing pop star autobiography. . . . Me is essential reading for anyone who wants to know the difficult road that [Elton has] walked.”




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