Jackie Wilson, The Man, The Music, The Mob
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The stories of ill-educated but talented teenagers, who, from humble origins suddenly rise to become obscenely rich and famous before plummeting to the depths has almost become a cliché. The story could be about any number of celebrities from sportsman to entertainers with the usual cocktail of alcohol, drugs, sex and paranoia all being present. In Jackie Wilson's case however we are given an added ingredient, the mob, the Mafia influences which controlled so much of his life. It is a typical story, but none the less one which is worth reading. Thoroughly researched by its author Tony Douglas, it is reasonably well written and has clearly been a labour of love. It does however suffer from one inherent weakness in that he has chosen not to construct it in a chronological order and relies heavily on interviews with Jackie's remaining relatives and associates. By quoting them verbatim he covers the same ground several times which leads to much un-necessary repetition. I lost count of the number of times I was told of Jackie's astonishing vocal range, that he was the ultimate showman and that women found him irresistibly attractive. I have no objection to an author pressing a point, but as just about every single interviewee made these same observations it did become just a tad tedious at times. Another problem with relying on interviews as strongly as the author has done is that references tended to become very confusing. Normally this would not be a problem, but Jackie's personal life was so complicated with several marriages, numerous affairs and an almost incalculable number of children that references to 'her mother' or 'his sister' left the reader struggling to grasp which of the vast network of his family they were talking about exactly. This type of construction has made what is basically an excellent book into just 'very good'. You come to high points where you can't put it down then suddenly find yourself nodding off when you come across something you've already read half a dozen times or are having to break off to piece together who, exactly, the text is referring to. Despite the flaws I can genuinely recommend this publication, but the reader must be prepared for considerable repetition and more than a little detective work in keeping all the characters clearly in perspective. |
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Why Not visit the Authors other Website, 'The Alternative Blackpool Website' at http://www.localdial.com/users/jsyedu133/bpool This Site Last Updated 18/05/05
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