Ty here with a book review. I was raised by my grandmother and she had a spill two months back and is still on the mend. I told her I needed to do a book review this month and she suggested we both read the book and discuss it before I write about it.
Sounded great to me.
We both love music so she looked from something on AMAZON's KINDLE UNLIMITED and came up with Ellen Hunter Ulken's SILENT SISTERS: PROFILES OF THE SHORT LIVES OF KAREN CARPENTER, PATSY CLINE, CASS ELLIOT, RUBY ELZY, JANIS JOPLIN AND SELENA QUINTANILLA-PEREZ.
Do we recommend it? Half-halfheartedly, yes.
It's a quick read serving up six sketches of six different singers.
The worst sketch is the one on Ruby Elzy and that should actually be the strongest sketch because of the life Elzy had. However, as the author reveals, her sketch on Elzy comes from David E. Weaver's 2004 book BLACK DIVA OF THE THIRTIES: THE LIFE OF RUBY ELZY. Other sketches have multiple sources -- with Patsy Cline's widow having apparently spoken with the author. But for Elzy, she has only one source and it makes those pages come off dull. She could have enlivened them by writing about what she thought of Elzys performances in the films THE EMPEROR JONES and BIRTH OF THE BLUES but apparently that would have required more work than the author wanted to put in.
The Selena sketch is a disappointment as well. I always thought Selena was this huge star with millions of records sold due to her certifications of platinum on various albums. Turns out that she was a regional artist making in roads in the world market when she died. And that her four-times-platinum album only sold 400,000 copies because this was a different measurement than US mainstream where a four-times-platinum album -- quadruple platinum -- would have meant four million copies sold.
Selena died young and comes off stunted. Janis Joplin died young too -- and was also from Texas -- but Janis lived a life.
Other problems with the book?
What is this pretense about Karen Carpenter? That was my grandmother's biggest problem with the book. She noted that Karen and her brother Richard met with -- and applauded -- Richard Nixon. "Being anorexic did not make that White women a better singer or a better soul."
I wasn't aware of what an embarrassment Karen Carpenter was. I knew she was a so-so singer with a nice range. She wasn't soulful or really moving with her vocals. She sang like a virgin. But I did some work and apparently the overly praised pre-grunge group Sonic Youth was instrumental to the revisionary view of the Carpenters as important artists.
They weren't.
They were a bubble gum act for conservatives and they were conservative themselves. If Selena had a sheltered life, Karen Carpenter was a girl in a bubble. Neither woman had a life to brag about. They were both scared of their shadows and doing what Mommy and Daddy told them to do.
It's why their 'art' is so stunted.
Pasty Cline is the strongest sketch. Again, the author appears to have spoken to people who knew Patsy. I've seen the Jessica Lange film SWEET DREAMS about Patsy Cline's life. So I had that background and, of course, like many I've heard "Crazy" and "Walkin' After Midnight." A true and soulful singer, Patsy's known throughout America, regardless of race. (I am African-American, for those who don't know.) My grandmother enjoyed this sketch the most due to the coverage of Patsy's childhood and the various places she lived growing up. (We were both surprised to learn that Patsy's father molested her. Is that a detail discussed outside of SILENT SISTERS?)
After that, the sections on Cass and Janis were our favorites.
Cass Elliot, of course, shot to fame as a member of the Mamas and the Papas. The author does a really good job of presenting Cass early efforts to break through in the music world and on Broadway. Meeting Michelle Phillips and John Phillips -- she already knew Denny Doherty. The Mamas and the Papas changed American music and it's nice to read about Cass. Janis got her start thanks to Michelle, John and Lou Adler who put on the Monterey Pop Festival that Janis rode to fame as part of Big Brother & The Holding Company. Janis lived a life and then some. The author captures that very well.
And maybe the stunted nature of the Karen and Selena sketches is due to those women's stunted lives? Possibly but the author is the one who decided the women she'd write about and somewhere in her research and writing, she should have grasped how dull and dead those two sketches were.
