Invaluable insight into one of the major figures in American music.
A lavishly illustrated biography of the iconic country singer, with his lyrics as the focal point.
John R. Cash (1932-2003) was born in rural Arkansas in the depths of the Depression. The child of poor sharecroppers, he was also the grandson of “circuit-riding Missionary Baptist preachers.” Stielper, who has been covering Cash for 40 years, argues that these roots are evident in both the sympathy for underdogs and the spiritual aspiration that are constant themes in Cash’s music. After graduating from high school, Cash spent four years in the Air Force, stationed in Germany. After his discharge, he married his first wife and moved to Memphis, where he worked as an appliance salesman. At the time, he was busy writing songs, and he managed to convince Sam Phillips, the legendary owner of Sun Records, to let him record some of them. Eventually, he wrote more than 600, and this book includes the lyrics to 125, chosen “to explore Cash’s range as a poet and a storyteller.” Stielper succinctly covers the singer’s career, including his marriage to June Carter, his TV show and prison performances, and his numerous recordings. Cash’s son, John Carter, provides personal insights into his father’s character and intriguing analyses of his songs. Fleshing out the text are numerous photos of Cash, in performance or in more casual settings, along with handwritten lyric sheets, meditations, letters, and other documents. Many of the photos are very similar, though die-hard Cash fans may not consider this a shortcoming. Regardless, it’s the lyrics—some universally familiar, some fairly obscure—that are the true stars of the book. It’s easy to hear Cash’s voice in them, even for those readers who may not have heard him sing, and all readers will finish the book with a deeper understanding of his art.
Invaluable insight into one of the major figures in American music.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780316503105
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Voracious/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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