Howling At The Moon: The True Story of the Mad Genius of the Music World

Howling At The Moon: The True Story of the Mad Genius of the Music World

by David Ritz (Contributor), David Ritz (Contributor), Walter Yetnikoff (Author)

Synopsis

The ultimate showbiz insider's expose, Howling at the Moon is the wildly entertaining and brilliantly narrated autobiography of Walter Yetnikoff, head of CBS Records during its heyday in the 1980s, and then the most powerful man in the music industry. Yetnikoff knew most of the stars and embraced all the excesses of this era: he was mentor to Streisand, father confessor to Michael Jackson, shared a mistress with Marvin Gaye and came to blows with Mick Jagger. He feuded with David Geffen and outmanoeuvred Rupert Murdoch. He was also addicted to cocaine and alcohol - until his doctor gave him just 3 months to live. Yetnikoff came from a working-class Jewish family from Brooklyn; he graduated from law school in the 1950s and proceeded to climb the corporate ladder to the very top. His high-flying ended in breakdown, but throughout his rise and fall, Yetnikoff remained a man of huge charisma and disarming charm. Howling at the Moon is written with David Ritz, the only 4-time winner of the Ralph J Gleason Music Book award, who has collaborated on the autobiographies of such stars as Ray Charles, BB King, Aretha Franklin and Etta James.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Edition: New e.
Publisher: Abacus
Published: 03 Feb 2005

ISBN 10: 0349118906
ISBN 13: 9780349118901
Book Overview: * Colour advertising campaign in THE GUARDIAN, INDEPENDENT, OBSERVER, TIMES, TIMEOUT and NME * Review coverage in the national press and music magazines * Submitted for trade promotions * Reading copies available

Media Reviews
Jackie Collins herself couldn't have plotted a more readable yarn * SUNDAY TIMES *
Vodka for breakfast, secretary for lunch, signed the Stones at tea . . . It is as an entertaining, high-grade gossip sheet that this Brooklyn-born Caligula's memoirs function primarily, but they also provide an invaluable account of key stage in the hist * OBSERVER *
A blisteringly entertaining read * INDEPENDENT *
It provides a stream of fabulous anecdotes -a fight with Mick, a shared mistress with Marvin, and several disturbing encounters with MJ, who called him Good Daddy ' ARENA * `His stories of the whispering venality of the image-obsessed young Michael Jackson wanting to renege on deals while appearing squeaky clean are very revealing . . . An entertaining book, his sex life alone being of Olympian proportions' *
Author Bio
Born in Brooklyn in 1933 and graduating from law school in the 1950s, Walter Yetnikoff went on to become president of CBS Records from 1975 to 1990, creating the most prestigious and profitable stable of artists in music history.