June 22, 2010
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact Malik Shakur at
malik@independentcreativeartists.com
info@damngoodman.com
310-694-4196 / 323-758-1337
LOS ANGELES—Actor and television shopping host Dale Madison was one year old when Berry Gordy formed Motown records. As Motown celebrates 50 years of music-making history, Madison creates a tribute to the music he calls “the soundtrack of his life.” Motown legend and original member of the Supremes Mary Wilson says, “Dreamboy is truly a Dream Come True. You have written a memoir that not only every gay man should read but every person should read.”Ms. Wilson is referring to “DREAMBOY: My Life as a QVC Host and Other Greatest Hits” written by Dale Madison.
As a kid growing up on the gritty streets of Baltimore, Dale Madison idolized the glitz and glamour that the Supremes personified for an era in American music history. So it seemed natural for Madison to shape his memoir as an homage to the group, and in particular to the 1984 Mary Wilson book, “DREAMGIRL: My Life as a Supreme.”
“I had such an emotional attachment to the incredible cultural success of the Supremes in the 1960s” Madison says. “At different points in my life I felt as if I were each one of the Supremes. I can’t tell you how many times my mother caught me singing like Diana Ross whenever I got an ‘A’ on an assignment from school.”
The book explores with candor and charm his Baltimore childhood, his straight and gay relationships, his varied careers, his turbulent four years as a shopping channel host at QVC, and his current work as a bit player in Hollywood movies.
Diva Supreme Mary Wilson says, “We were just doing what we enjoyed doing and hoped that people liked it. I really do appreciate your admiration of us.” and you’ll agree when you read this anthology of greatest hits by Dale Madison.
In an unexpected twist, Madison’s short film of the same name succeeded before the release of the book it was intended to promote. The film “DREAMBOY …” earned four nominations at February’s 2008 San Diego Black Film Festival and won the LGBT film award
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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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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.
January 4, 2010
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Available 12/02/09 in Hardcover
Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2009
Crafted with a musician’s ear and an historian’s eye, Pops is a vibrant biography of the iconic Louis Armstrong that resonates with the same warmth as ol’ Satchmo’s distinctive voice. Wall Street Journal critic Terry Teachout draws from a wealth of previously unavailable material — including over 650 reels of Armstrong’s own personal tape recordings — to create an engaging profile that slips behind the jazz legend’s megawatt smile. Teachout reveals that the beaming visage of “Reverend Satchelmouth” was not a mark of racial subservience, but a clear symbol of Louis’s refusal to let anything cloud the joy he derived from blowing his horn. “Faced with the terrible realities of the time and place into which he had been born,” explains Teachout, “he didn’t repine, but returned love for hatred and sought salvation in work.” Armstrong was hardly impervious to the injustices of his era, but in his mind, nothing was more sacred than the music. –Dave Callanan
Louis Armstrong was the greatest jazz musician of the twentieth century and a giant of modern American culture. He knocked the Beatles off the top of the charts, wrote the finest of all jazz autobiographies–without a collaborator–and created collages that have been compared to the art of Romare Bearden. The ranks of his admirers included Johnny Cash, Jackson Pollock and Orson Welles. Offstage he was witty, introspective and unexpectedly complex, a beloved colleague with an explosive temper whose larger-than-life personality was tougher and more sharp-edged than his worshipping fans ever knew.
Wall Street Journal arts columnist Terry Teachout has drawn on a cache of important new sources unavailable to previous Armstrong biographers, including hundreds of private recordings of backstage and after-hours conversations that Armstrong made throughout the second half of his life, to craft a sweeping new narrative biography of this towering figure that shares full, accurate versions of such storied events as Armstrong’s decision to break up his big band and his quarrel with President Eisenhower for the first time. Certain to be the definitive word on Armstrong for our generation, Pops paints a gripping portrait of the man, his world and his music that will stand alongside Gary Giddins’ Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams and Peter Guralnick’s Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley as a classic biography of a major American musician.
December 13, 2009
R. Kelly is writing more chapters, only this time, it’s not for his “Trapped” saga, but for a new memoir.
The 42-year-old singer, writer and producer says in a statement issued Wednesday that he is working on an autobiography with David Ritz that will “tell it like it is.”
He has a lot to talk about. He’s one of the best-selling recording artists in history but also one of the most controversial.
The book promises to go through all his drama, including child pornography charges that ended with an acquittal.
The autobiography is untitled right now, just like his new CD. It’s scheduled for release by Tavis Smiley’s SmileyBooks in 2011.
Yahoo! News
October 27, 2009
Through the Wire: Lyrics & Illuminations
by Kanye West
illustrated by Bill Plympton
Atria
Available 11/10/09
This is a rare partnership between two geniuses at the top of their crafts — Kanye West, who was named “the smartest man in hip-hop” by Time magazine, and Bill Plympton, an Academy Award-nominated animator, cartoonist, and illustrator.
Through the Wire is a graphic memoir that illustrates the lyrics of twelve Kanye West songs to tell his story, from his decision to drop out of college to pursue his dreams in music, through his days spent folding chinos at the Gap while struggling at night to make a name as a producer, through the pivotal car accident that eventually set him on the course to stardom and the epiphany of realizing exactly who he had become:
And anything that happens is for a reason…”
Plympton illustrates each of the songs in detail, his vision of Kanye’s world. The songs are annotated with explanations of the references in the songs, biographical components that illuminate the lyrics, and their meaning on a deeply personal level.
The result is a one-of-a-kind book that initially grabs you and stays with you forever.
October 27, 2009
Chronicle Books
Available 10/21/09
Photographer Todd Gray worked with Michael Jackson for several years before Jackson requested that he become his personal photographer, a relationship that would encompass the singer’s performances with the Jacksons through the release of his smash solo albums Off the Wall and Thriller. This collection of unseen, intimate, and joyful pictures of Michael taken over a span of 10 years reveal him at home, with his family and fans, in career-making live performances, and the on the “Beat It” video shoot. A young black man not much older than Jackson at the time they met, Gray brings unique insights to his time with the singer, contributing stories and context to the images, presenting a rare, intimate portrait of Jackson at a creative peak as he grew from a brilliantly talented young man into a pop icon.
August 1, 2009
Publisher: Atria; 1 edition (May 12, 2009)
Kiss The Sky tracks the life of Sophie “Sky” Lee, a thirtysomething black rock musician making a comeback in New York City in 2000. There are a few hitches to her plans: Sky’s guitarist is her mercurial, drug-abusing ex-husband; her manager is also her boyfriend; and Sky herself is frightened of the cost she’ll pay to reach the pinnacle of fame.
Add to that her struggles with religion, her family, and her meddling girlfriends and you have a book which blends substantial themes of love, faith, and longing with contemporary pop culture. Kiss the Sky also has a catalogue of music references on par with books like High Fidelity.
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.
