Swing: The Search for my father, Louis Prima - Softcover

Gerstel, Alan

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9781456527556: Swing: The Search for my father, Louis Prima

Softcover

ISBN 10: 145652755X ISBN 13: 9781456527556

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011

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Alan Gerstel’s career has run the gamut from actor to stage manager to filmmaker to television news anchor. But his first love has always been music... though he never fully understood why. Alan was adopted soon after birth and suffered the pangs of rejection through his formative years even though he was raised in a warm, loving household. That nagging rejection prompted the unrelenting search for his birth parents when he reached his late 20’s. To compensate for feelings of rejection, many adoptees are known to fantasize that their birth parents were famous people. Alan’s decades-long investigation revealed that his birth father certainly fit the bill. Louis Prima was a huge star... and a married man... when he had a fling with a pretty, young woman who yearned to be a singer in his band. Alan was the product of their short-lived liaison. SWING takes the reader on an adventure that centered on 52nd Street in New York City during World War II when it was known as “Swing Street.” Alan’s birth mother was a “hostess” at many of the jazz clubs that made 52nd Street also known as “The Street That Never Sleeps.” Her heartless act after giving birth to Alan crushed one couple’s hopes while setting up impediments that would frustrate Alan’s investigation many years later. SWING is a tale of dogged determination. It is a story of private investigators, of payoffs and bribes, of good people and some very bad people. Louis Prima was a show business headliner and one of the good people. He created a monumental musical legacy that is not fully appreciated today. Alan is proud to call Louis Prima his birth father.

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About the Author:

52nd Street in New York City earned the notorious reputation of “Swing Street” during the 1940’s. The booze flowed freely in the jazz joints that peppered the street where every night was party night! Louis Prima was the headlining band leader noted as much for his wild onstage antics as he was for “Sing, Sing, Sing”...”Jump, Jive and Wail”... and “Just a Gigolo.” Dorothy McDonald was one of the party girls who worked on Swing Street. She lusted to take the stage as the singer in Louis Prima’s band. She wasn’t shy. She was willing to indulge him in a wild night of sex to achieve her dream. 30 years later, the son they sired but didn’t want, embarked on the nearly-impossible mission to identify them and then locate them. SWING is a detective story filled with deceit and double-crossing, payoffs and bribes. It takes readers on a ride through the underbelly of New York City... to Sing Sing Prison... and to Atlantic City, New Jersey as its author unravels the treachery that eventually leads him to the truth of his origins.

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