Ruthless: A Memoir - Softcover

Heller, Jerry

3.8

194 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1416917942 ISBN 13: 9781416917946

Publisher: Gallery, 2007

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A founder and former CEO of Ruthless Records traces his four-decade career in the music business.

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About the Author:

Across five tumultuous decades, Jerry Heller has helped shape American popular music, breaking new talent, developing new trends, and forging an industry-wide reputation as "the guy who gets there first." He rose to prominence in the 1960s as a "superagent," importing Elton John and Pink Floyd for their first major American tours, and representing Journey, Marvin Gaye, Joan Armatrading, Van Morrison, War, Average White Band, ELO, Eric Burdon, and Crosby-Nash, among many others.

In the mid-1980s, Heller was the moving force and marketing genius behind the worldwide emergence of West Coast rap music. He not only cofounded Ruthless Records with Eazy-E, but discovered, signed, or managed the likes of N.W.A., The Black Eyed Peas, Above the Law, The D.O.C., and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. Jerry Heller lives in Calabasas, California, with his wife, Gayle, a Realtor for Sotheby's; his sister-in-law, Vicki, an attorney; and their menagerie of animals.

Gil Reavill is a journalist, author, and screenwriter who lives in Westchester County, New York.

From Publishers Weekly:

"People had me thinking that I was coming to meet the devil," Dallas rapper J.R. Ewing once said to Jerry Heller, long-time artist representative and a co-founder of Ruthless Records, home to N.W.A., Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Eazy-E, aka Eric Wright, Heller's partner and label co-founder. Heller's book is in part a response to the anti-Semitic rhetoric thrown his way (especially by O'Shea Jackson, aka Ice Cube) and in part a tribute to Eazy-E. Opening in 1991 with Eazy-E's betrayal by Dr. Dre-rap mogul Andre Young-the bulk of the book covers Heller's work with rap artists, leaping back to Associated Booking in 1963, where he cut his teeth. Heller's volume is a meandering but fascinating personal tour through the sordid underworld of the music business, with its guns and grudges, drugs and bodyguards. Those familiar with Heller only as a rap impresario may be surprised by the extent of his pop culture pedigree; he crossed paths with the likes of Bill Graham and David Geffen, as well as Berry Gordy and Marvin Gaye. Written in an informal style, including gritty conversations transcribed with scatological color intact, the book tracks the collision between street-smart and business-savvy, presenting the prototypes for the rapper/entrepreneur figure that currently dominates the scene-think Diddy or Jay-Z. This should appeal to anyone interested in the history of the hip hop business. A brief discography is included.
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