The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma

by Ben Sidran

Overview

Tommy LiPuma was one of America's most influential record producers, whose work with icons like Miles Davis, Barbra Streisand, and Willie Nelson has sold 75 million records, with five trips up the Grammy red carpet.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780578556604
Publisher:	Nardis Books
Publication date:	05/04/2020
Pages:	286
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

Ben Sidran was a major force in the contemporary history of jazz and rock & roll, having played keyboards with or produced such artists as Steve Miller, Mose Allison, Diana Ross, Boz Scaggs, Phil Upchurch, Tony Williams, Jon Hendricks, Richie Cole and Van Morrison. Though primarily renowned as a gifted pianist, composer, producer, among other music-related roles, Ben Sidran has also made a name for himself as a writer. Sidran's first book, Black Talk: How the Music of Black America Created a Radical Alternative to Western Literary Tradition (Da Capo Press), is based on his doctoral dissertation. Talking Jazz: An Oral History (Da Capo Press), published twenty-four years later, collects personal interviews with jazz greats such as Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins. His third literary endeavor, Ben Sidran: A Life in the Music (Unlimited Media), expresses his life-long affair with music and all its functions: as prayer, as community, as legacy, and as nothing but a party. He delves into the complex relationships between African-Americans and Jews, fathers and sons, history and hope, money and technology, ecstasy and transformation. His penultimate book, There Was a Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream, was a 2011 finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and remains a teaching text in Jewish Studies programs everywhere.

Table of Contents

Prelude: Dinner with Tommy, ix

Intro: A Moment in Time, 1

Track One: A Dirt Path, 3

Track Two: Growing Up Cleveland, 13

Track Three: Meet Johnny Carson, 57

Track Four: Blue Thumb, 105

Track Five: Breezin’ , 137

Track Six: The Blue Horizon, 173

Track Seven: Makin’ Whoopee, 179

Track Eight: Mourning Becomes Elektra, 193

Track Nine: The House That Diana Built, 211

Track Ten: American Classics, 229

Track Eleven: Camp Cheerful, 239

Coda: March 13, 247

Discography, 253

Index, 261

Editorial Reviews

"I started Ben Sidran's Tommy LiPuma book at 1:15 in the afternoon, and I just finished it at 7:30 tonight. I could not put it down. I blew off everything else. . . . I was engrossed." --BOB LEFSETZ, The Lefsetz Letter

"An uncut gem, the music biography of the year." --KYLE OLEKSIUK, The New York City Jazz Record

"As I turn the pages, it seems I keep hearing long-forgotten melodies in my head. Here's a piece of music history vividly captured." --HARUKI MURAKAMI

"A beautiful surprise arrived through the letterbox from America, The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma. . . . I'm fascinated by the work of A&R, the mega producers, and the history of how it all joins up. Tommy was one of the real greats. . . . An amazing guy and a fabulous book. --GILLES PETERSON

"The fast-moving, entertaining early sections come over a bit like 'The Godfather Part II' rewritten by Lord Buckley. . . . [The book] is warm, witty and resolutely un-PC, initially a portrait of the music biz's bygone 'Wild West' era featuring an engaging roll call of shysters, hucksters and hipsters, but also encapsulating the whole history of modern recording techniques and philosophies. --movingtheriver.com

"Reads like Jimmy Breslin if the legendary journalist had an encyclopedic knowledge of recording." --CLIVE YOUNG, Prosound News

From the Publisher