June 7, 2010
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You Don’t Know Me: Reflections of My Father, Ray Charles
by Ray Charles Robinson Jr., with Mary Jane Ross
A deeply personal memoir of the private Ray Charles – the man behind the legend – by his eldest son.
Ray Charles is an American music legend. A multiple Grammy Award-winning composer, pianist, and singer with an inimitable vocal style and a catalog of hits including “What I Say,” “Georgia on My Mind,” “Unchain My Heart,” “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” and “America the Beautiful,” Ray Charles’s music is loved by fans around the world.
Now his eldest son, Ray Charles Robinson Jr., shares an intimate glimpse of the man behind the music, with never-before-told stories. Going beyond the fame, the concerts, and the tours, Ray Jr. opens the doors of his family home and reveals their private lives with fondness and frankness.
He shares his father’s grief and guilt over his little brother’s death at the age of five — as well of moments of personal joy, like watching his father run his hands over the Christmas presents under their tree while singing softly to himself. He tells of how Ray overcame the challenges of being blind, even driving cars, riding a Vespa, and flying his own plane. And, in gripping detail, he reveals how as a six-year-old boy he saved his father’s life one harrowing night.
Ray Jr. writes honestly about the painful facts of the addiction that nearly destroyed his father’s life. His father’s struggles with heroin addiction, his arrests, and how he ultimately kicked the drug cold turkey are presented in unflinching detail. Ray Jr. also shares openly about how, as an adult, he fell victim to the same temptations that plagued his father.
He paints a compassionate portrait of his mother, Della, whose amazing voice as a gospel singer first attracted Ray Charles. Though her husband’s drug use, his womanizing, and the paternity suits leveled against him constantly threatened the stability of the Robinson home, Della exhibited incredible resilience and inner strength.
Told with deep love and fearless candor, You Don’t Know Me is the powerful and poignant story of the Ray Charles the public never saw — the father and husband and fascinating human being who also happened to be one of the greatest musicians of all time.
Harmony
Available June 8, 2010 in Hardcover
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May 23, 2010
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Dream So Big: A Parent’s Guide to Helping Your Child Believe and Achieve
by Christopher B. Pearman (Author), Ian Blake Newhem (Author), Raven-Symone (Foreword)
Adams Media
Available May 18, 2010 in Hardcover
While so many talented and ambitious kids have become tabloid fodder, Raven-Symon, beloved star of That’s So Raven, has remained grounded and happy as she’s created a massive franchise for Disney, won multiple Kids’ Choice Awards, and made history as the first African-American woman with her own sitcom. The difference? Her parents’ positive-approach plan–which you can now use with your own children.
As her father and manager, Christopher B. Pearman worked tirelessly to nurture Raven’s dream, while teaching her to believe in herself and, most importantly, never losing sight of their family’s core values. Inside, Pearman breaks down his plan into eight “Dream Catchers”–spiritual and practical principles that filter out negativity, and allow only affirming thoughts into your child’s consciousness. Make no mistake: This is not a guide to stage parenting, but a doctrine for raising your kids to reach their full potential in any endeavor, simple or grand.
As a parent, you know there’s nothing more important than making sure your children become all they want to be. Dream So Big shows how commitment, responsibility, and dedication to your children’s innermost wishes can catapult them to great success–and happiness.
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April 28, 2010
Ivan R. Dee, Publisher
Available 04/16/10 in Hardcover
In the twentieth century, African Americans not only helped make popular music the soundtrack of the American experience, they advanced American music as one of the preeminent shapers of the world’s popular culture. Vast numbers of black American musicians deserve credit for this remarkable turn of events, but a few stand out as true giants. David Stricklin’s superb new biography explores the life of one of them, Louis Armstrong.
April 28, 2010
University Of Chicago Press
Available 05/01/10 in Hardcover
Few American artists in any medium have enjoyed the lasting international cultural impact of Duke Ellington. From jazz standards such as “Mood Indigo” and “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”, to his longer, more orchestral suites, to his leadership of the stellar big band he toured and performed with for decades after most big bands folded, Ellington represented a singular, pathbreaking force in music over the course of a half-century. At the same time, as one of the most prominent black public figures in history, Ellington demonstrated leadership on questions of civil rights and America’s role in the world.
With “Duke Ellington’s America”, Harvey G. Cohen paints a vivid picture of Ellington’s life and times, taking him from his youth in the black middle-class enclave of Washington, D.C., to the heights of world-wide acclaim. Mining extensive archives, many never before available, plus new interviews with Ellington’s friends, family, band members, and business associates, Cohen illuminates his constantly evolving approach to composition, performance, and the music business-as well as issues of race, equality, and religion. Ellington’s own voice, mean-while, animates the book throughout, giving “Duke Ellington’s America” an intimacy and immediacy unmatched by any previous account. By far the most thorough and nuanced portrait yet of this towering figure, “Duke Ellington’s America” highlights Ellington’s importance as a figure in American history as well as in American music.
March 20, 2010
Killing Willis: From Diff’rent Strokes to the Mean Streets to the Life I Always Wanted
by Todd Bridges, , Sarah Tomlinson (Contributor)
Touchstone
Available 03/16/10 in Hardcover
The former child star—best known as Willis Jackson on Diff’rent Strokes—shares the shocking but inspirational details of his struggles with addiction, brushes with the law, and fierce fight to carve a path through the darkness and find his true identity.
For Todd Bridges, early stardom was no protection from painful childhood events that paved the road to his own personal hell. One of the first African-American child actors on shows like Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, and Roots, Bridges burst to the national forefront on the hit sitcom Diff’rent Strokes as the subject of the popular catchphrase, “What’chu Talkin About Willis?” When the show ended, Bridges was overwhelmed by the off-camera traumas he had faced. Turning to drugs as an escape, he soon lost control.
Now, for the first time, Bridges opens up about his life before and after Diff’rent Strokes: the incredible reversals of fortune brought on by fame and the precipitous—and very public—descent that followed; the persecution from police; the drug addiction that nearly consumed him; the criminal charges that almost earned him a life sentence; and his successful legal defense led by Johnnie Cochran. Through it all, Bridges never relented in his quest to fight his way back from the abyss, establish his own identity—separate from Willis Jackson—and offer his ordeal as a positive example for those struggling to overcome similar challenges. His triumphant story of recovery and redemption is recounted here as well.
Todd Bridges has lived a life of remarkable twists and turns—from the greatest heights to the lowest lows imaginable. In this shocking but ultimately hopeful memoir, he proves that what he was really talking about was survival.
February 21, 2010
Foxy: My Life in Three Acts
by Pam Grier, with Andrea Cagan
Springboard Press
Available 04/28/10 in Hardcover
Beautiful, bold, and bad, Pam Grier burst onto the movie scene in the 1970s, setting the screen on fire and forever changing the country’s view of African American actresses. With a killer attitude and body to match, Grier became the ultimate fantasy of men everywhere. But she quickly proved that she was more than just a desirable film goddess. She had the brains, courage, and tenacity to sustain a career that would span more than 30 years. In FOXY, she chronicles the good, bad, and steamy highlights in her life and career. From her early beginnings as a star in Foxy Brown to her Golden-Globe nominated role in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, Grier reveals her hard-won battles against racism and sexism, her victories in Hollywood, and her relationships with Richard Pryor and Kareem Abdul Jabar. Here, we see Pam in all of her incredible roles-from army brat and movie star to cancer survivor and dedicated activist. Revealing, thoroughly candid, and audacious, this is a no-holds-barred look at one of our most enduring screen idols.
July 24, 2009
The Supremes: A Saga of Motown Dreams, Success, and Betrayal
by Mark Ribowsky
Da Capo Press
Available 06/25/09
Drawing on intimate recollections from friends, family, and Motown contemporaries, Mark Ribowsky charts the Supremes’ meteoric rise and bitter disintegration. He sheds light on Diana Ross’s relationship with Berry Gordy and her cutthroat rise to top billing in the group, as well as Florence Ballard’s corresponding decline. He also takes us inside the studio, examining how timeless classics were conceived and recorded on the Motown “assembly line,” and considers the place of Motown in an era of cultural upheaval, when not being “black enough” became a fierce denunciation within the black music industry.
April 29, 2009
Cooling Board: A Long Playing Poem
by Mitchell L.H. Douglas
Red Hen Press
Available 02/15/09
In the tradition of the Langton Hughes classic Montage of a Dream Deferred, Mitchell L. H. Douglas uses persona poetry to explore the personal and professional struggles of soul legend Donny Hathaway in his debut collection Cooling Board: a Long-Playing Poem. Evoking the sense of listening to a concept album, Douglas presents a narrative in two sides: side one focusing on Hathaway’s development as a young musician and subsequent rise to fame and side two bearing witness to the adversity that plagued his later years. Readers will see Hathaway as true to his family, true to his faith, and uncompromising in his quest for musical innovation.
In a nod to Hathaway’s legacy as a musical trailblazer, Douglas implements a significant poetic innovation in the format of the book. By including alternate versions or “takes” of poems throughout Cooling Board, the reader hears an echo of ideas that can be likened to an album with previously unreleased versions of popular songs. When the poems are revisited in alternate takes, new information emerges, and the reader is forced to consider new interpretations. Along the way, poems resembling liner notes and pop charts enhance the experience, never letting the reader forget that the heart of this ride is the music.
Above all, Douglas’ depiction of Hathaway gives readers the human side of a man who has remained a mystery in the 30 years since his death. Not only does the poet speak in the voices of Hathaway and his long-time collaborator Roberta Flack, the reader also hears the voices of those closest to Hathaway whom we are less familiar with: his mother, Drusella Huntley, his grandmother, Martha Crumwell—Hathaway’s earliest music teacher—and his wife, Eulaulah.
As the book’s first “Liner Notes” poem recognizes, “Cooling Board is about life lessons, the difficult things you don’t always get on the first take.” With Douglas as a guide versed in the power of possessing many tongues, Cooling Board captures its reader like the best Hathaway song: passionately, honestly, and with an undeniable sense of purpose.
March 22, 2009
City Kid: A Writer’s Memoir of Ghetto Life and Post-Soul Success
by Nelson George
Available 04/02/09
A candid, colorful memoir about a nerd from the Brooklyn projects who made it big Nelson George grew up in the Tilden housing project in the crime- and despair-ridden Brownsville section of Brooklyn during the 1960s and 70s. In this tough neighborhood, Nelson was the nerdy kid who, in between stickball and street games, devoured Captain America comics, Ernest Hemingway novels, and album liner notes. City Kid introduces us to Nelson’s family: his absent wanna-be-hustler father; his tough-minded sister, who is seduced by the streets; and his mother, who dreams of becoming a teacher and returning to the South. Amid the struggles of his family, Nelson finds himself drawn into the world of black pop culture, first as a writer and then as a filmmaker, eventually collaborating with some of the major figures of the era — Spike Lee, Russell Simmons, Chris Rock, and many others. Nelson’s story is ultimately one of triumph, but it is not saccharine, sentimental, or full of false inspiration. Seeking transcendence through art and loving New York City, Nelson creates an insightful portrait of the emergence of black artists in the 1980s and 90s and illuminates how the pain of life can be turned into thoughtful books and cinema.
February 14, 2009
The Legs Are the Last to Go: Aging, Acting, Marrying, and Other Things I Learned the Hard Way
by Diahann Carroll
Available 10/01/08
It’s conventional wisdom that Hollywood has no use for a woman over forty. So it’s a good thing that Diahann Carroll — whose winning, sometimes controversial career breached racial barriers — is anything but conventional. Shonda Rhimes, the creator and executive producer of the hit program Grey’s Anatomy, developed a role just for her, and a recent show that’s touring the United States, The Life and Times of Diahann Carroll, was enthusiastically embraced by the New York Times. And all this since Carroll turned seventy! Here she shares her life story with an admirable candidness of someone who has seen and done it all. With wisdom that only aging gracefully can bestow, she talks frankly about her four marriages as well as the other significant relationships in her life, including her courtship with Sidney Poitier; racial politics in Hollywood and on Broadway; and the personal cost, particularly to her family, of being a pioneer. Whether she’s recalling an audition for Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard, reflecting on her marriage to Vic Damone, or talking about her experience with breast cancer, Carroll’s storied history, blunt views, and notorious wit will be sure to entertain and inform.
