September in the Rain: The Life of Nelson Riddle - Hardcover

Levinson, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0823076725 ISBN 13: 9780823076727

Publisher: Billboard Books, 2001

Synopsis

Nelson Riddle will forever be linked with the music and recordings of such unforgettable vocalists as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, and dozens of others. Riddle not only helped to establish Nat “King” Cole’s career in the 1950s, but was also a major participant in reviving Frank Sinatra’s musical career. He served as arranger for many of Sinatra’s albums, as well as musical director for many of the singer’s television specials and feature films. Later, this renowned arranger was active in writing the scores for such television shows and feature films as Route 66, The Untouchables, Robin and the Seven Hoods, Paint Your Wagon, and The Great Gatsby, for which he won an Academy Award.



September in the Rain is the first-ever biography of the most highly respected arranger in the history of American popular music. This fascinating book is based on more than 200 personal interviews with Riddle’s closest friends, family, and colleagues. Readers will receive an inside look at his inspirations, his work, and his creative genius...how he revived his own career after the abrupt change in popular music during the ’70s...and the story of his brilliant association with singer Linda Ronstadt, which resulted in three gold and platinum albums, sold a grand total of 6.1 million records, and earned him one of his three Grammy awards.



For readers who are fans of such great stars as Dean Martin, Johnny Mathis, and Judy Garland, September in the Rain provides an exclusive, inside look at the creative genius who helped build these singers into musical legends.



• The first-ever biography of the greatest arranger of American popular music, strongly identified with Frank Sinatra's finest recordings, television appearances, and films

• Based on more than 200 first-hand interviews with Riddle's closest colleagues, family, and friends

• Also features a look at American pop music from the big-band era through the mid-1980s

• Name interest in such stars as Frank Sinatra, Linda Rondstadt, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat "King" Cole, and Dean Martin

About this title

About the Author

Peter J. Levinson is the author of Trumpet Blues: The Life of Harry James. He worked for 42 years in the entertainment business as a publicist, freelance writer, booking agent, and personal manager. He lives in Malibu, California.

Reviews

In this entertaining biography, Levinson (Trumpet Blues: The Life of Harry James) highlights Riddle's song-writing accomplishments that had singers topping the charts. By 1953, Levinson writes, "the only thing about Frank Sinatra that sparkled was the superb cap job done on his teeth ten years earlier" record sales plummeted, his TV show was canceled, and MGM dropped him. But his career took on new life and artistic depth after he recorded a series of albums with Riddle, whose intelligent, seductive arrangements have become American classics. Aside from Sinatra, Riddle worked with Nat "King" Cole (on almost all of his most famous singles) and Ella Fitzgerald (in her American Songbook collections), as well as with Judy Garland, Rosemary Clooney and Johnny Mathis. He scored such films as the original Ocean's 11, Can-Can and The Great Gatsby, for which he received an Oscar. Levinson, a longtime friend of Riddle and a respected jazz publicist, meticulously narrates Riddle's often strife-torn personal life and charts the importance and enormous breadth of the arranger's career. While the narrative covers salient aspects of Riddle's life (his relationship with his cold, autocratic mother, his affair with Rosemary Clooney, the disintegration of his once-happy marriage and an underlying depression throughout his life), Levinson's analysis of his work and the music industry give the book both its vitality and enormous value. Always lively and written with a deep understanding of the economic, political and emotional complexities of the music business, this is an important addition to the history of American popular culture.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Levinson (Trumpet Blues: The Life of Harry James) has written the first full-length biography of the man The Encyclopedia of Popular Music calls "probably the finest arranger/leader of modern times." Well rounded and fascinating, the book charts Riddle's evolution from Big Band trombonist to premier arranger to film and TV composer. Much of Nat "King" Cole's and Frank Sinatra's best work was done in collaboration with Riddle. Since he worked with so many pop music icons, the book also serves as an important general history of popular music from the Big Band era to the mid-1980s, when Riddle worked with Linda Ronstadt. Riddle himself emerges as a sad, dour man who, while self-effacing in the main, was capable of viciousness in his relations with those nearest to him. The book is especially valuable for the light it sheds on the place of the arranger in pop music as well as the sometimes murky matter of credit (early in his career, Riddle ghostwrote several hit arrangements and later may have used ghostwriters himself). Recommended for all libraries with an interest in popular culture. Bruce R. Schueneman, Texas A&M Univ. Lib., Kingsville
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Billboard Books
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0823076725
• ISBN 13: 9780823076727
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288