Ladies of Soul (Biography)
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If you were to be given the title of a book, 'Ladies of Soul', which artists would you expect to find included? Aretha Franklin? Gladys Knight? Martha Reeves? Diana Ross maybe? In every case you'd be wrong because David Freeland has made a strict policy of avoiding soul's megastars and has picked artists who have had much more limited commercial success. Less commercial success maybe, but who have earned much critical acclaim from the soul cognoscenti. The artists covered in this book are Southern Soul Diva's Denise La Salle, Ruby Johnson and Carla Thomas; Bettye Lavette is Detroit's representative whilst Barbara Mason is Philadelphia's songstress; Maxine Brown and Timi Yuro are the New York soul sisters who have been included. In many ways this is a brave choice for David Freeland, because bigger names may well have been a safer bet commercially. He has even had the courage to include a blue-eyed performer (Timi Yuro) in his selection. Whether David will make much money from the project I cannot say, but I am convinced it will become a standard tome for die hard soul fans. So much is already known about Aretha, Gladys and Diana that yet another re-working of their life stories is wholly un-necessary, but the subjects of this publication are much more obscure and therefore their stories are much fresher. These are people who have not been tainted with superstar success and therefore lead much more 'normal' lives. Readers will relate to their experiences much better than they would to the patronising twaddle of the super rich patronisingly telling us 'how tough they've had it' and how much they've 'had to struggle'. In an excellent preface the author explains the reasons for his choices. He believes that the music industry has been tough on all soul musicians but that women artists have had it even worse than their male counterparts. Though his book he aims to try and redress some of that imjustice. His introduction is a potted history of soul music followed by a summary of the impressions he formed from all of his interviews. The artists are grouped by the regions in which they performed (The South, Detroit, Philadelphia and New York) , and he prefaces each section by explaining the individual characteristics of each areas brand of soul which allows the reader to put each artists work into a context. Throughout each interview he includes short commentaries of his own to clarify any comments they make. As I have already hinted, these artists seem less affected and more normal in their outlook than their superstar contemporaries. Racism, sexism, corrupt agents, corrupt managers, non payment of royalties are common themes throughout all their stories. They have all had personal struggles to overcome but have all stayed relatively free from hard drugs. The normalness of their daily struggles help the reader identify with them and in the end I doubt if anyone can avoid liking them. The book is published by the University Press of Mississippi which once again illustrates the long overdue artistic acceptance which soul music is starting to gain. This book is well written, logically constructed and very sympathetically handled. Once I had picked it up I could not put it down until I had finished it, and there aren't too many biographies I can say that about. I don't like giving books star ratings, but if I did this would unquestionably get five out of five. This is essential reading for all soul aficionados |
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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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