It is said that Josh Gibson is the only man ever to have hit a fair ball out of Yankee Stadium. Some claim he hit as many as seventy-five home runs in a season. All agreed that he was a frightening hitter to face. What Satchel Paige was to pitching in the Negro leagues, Gibson was to hitting: their greatest star, biggest gate attraction, and most important symbol. Though Gibson is best remembered as the black Babe Ruth, Ruth became a beloved symbol of the national pastime, while Gibson lived a life veiled in the darkness that came both from the shadow world of the Negro leagues and from...
It is said that Josh Gibson is the only man ever to have hit a fair ball out of Yankee Stadium. Some claim he hit as many as seventy-five home runs in...
This first exhaustive history of the Negro leagues sheds new light and delves deeper than any previous work. Find out how black fans came to cherish their own heroes, why a trip to see a Negro league game was a statement of racial pride, and why much of black culture once centered on "blackball."
For over fifty years -- or up until that bright April day in 1947 when Jackie Robinson smashed the major leagues' color barrier -- the only ball fields where an African American could play organized baseball were the tarnished diamonds of the Negro leagues. On these fields, men such as Satchel...
This first exhaustive history of the Negro leagues sheds new light and delves deeper than any previous work. Find out how black fans came to cherish t...
The Supremes is a sprawling tale of unforgettable music, cutthroat ambition, and heartbreaking betrayal. Mark Ribowsky explodes Dreamgirl fantasies by taking the reader behind the closed doors of Motown to witness the rise of group leader Diana Ross, the creation of timeless classics like "Where Did Our Love Go?," and the dramatic power struggles within Detroit's fabled music factory. Drawing on firsthand, intimate recollections from knowledgeable sources such as the Temptations's Otis Williams and other Motown contemporaries--many never before interviewed--The Supremes...
The Supremes is a sprawling tale of unforgettable music, cutthroat ambition, and heartbreaking betrayal. Mark Ribowsky explodes Dreamgirl
Mark Ribowsky's Hank has been hailed as the "greatest biography yet" (Library Journal, starred review) of the beloved icon. Hank Williams, a frail, flawed man who had become country music's first real star, instantly morphed into its first tragic martyr when he died in the backseat of a Cadillac at the age of twenty-nine. Six decades later, Ribowsky traces the miraculous rise of this music legend?from the dirt roads of rural Alabama to the now-immortal stage of the Grand Ole Opry, and, finally, to a lonely end on New Year's Day in 1953. Examining Williams's chart-topping...
Mark Ribowsky's Hank has been hailed as the "greatest biography yet" (Library Journal, starred review) of the beloved icon. Hank ...
When he died in one of rock's string of tragic plane crashes, Otis Redding was only twenty-six, yet already the avatar of a new kind of soul music. The beating heart of Memphis-based Stax Records, he had risen to fame belting out gospel-flecked blues in stage performances that seemed to ignite not only a room but an entire generation. If Berry Gordy's black-owned kingdom in Motown showed the way in soul music, Redding made his own way, going where not even his two role models who had preceded him out of Macon, Georgia Little Richard and James Brown had gone.
Now, in this...
When he died in one of rock's string of tragic plane crashes, Otis Redding was only twenty-six, yet already the avatar of a new kind of soul music....
When he died in one of rock's string of tragic plane crashes, Otis Redding was only twenty-six, yet already the avatar of a new kind of soul music. The beating heart of Memphis-based Stax Records, he had risen to fame belting out gospel-flecked blues in stage performances that seemed to ignite not only a room but an entire generation. If Berry Gordy's black-owned kingdom in Motown showed the way in soul music, Redding made his own way, going where not even his two role models who had preceded him out of Macon, Georgia Little Richard and James Brown had gone.
Now, in this...
When he died in one of rock's string of tragic plane crashes, Otis Redding was only twenty-six, yet already the avatar of a new kind of soul music....
