Carolyn Bessette and John Kennedy Jr (25th Anniversary) video, Elizabeth Beller's book review

 

Carolyn Bessette and John Kennedy Jr: video dedicated in honor of the 25th Anniversary of their passing.

My review of Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy (2024) by Elizabeth Beller: This magnificent book by Elizabeth Beller is a state of art biography, an all-encompassing account of the life and career of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. Despite some reviewers protesting about the book being a bit too benevolent, I wonder if they had heard a previous unbiased version until this book arrived? The answer is a resounding NO. All the previous accounts about this extremely accomplished trailblazer woman referred to a soulless mannequin and were surrounded by sexist toxicity. It was about time some writer, and in this case Eizabeth Beller is unrivaled, expounded another different side of this fashion icon, a young woman who had daddy issues and mood swings, she was a perfectionist and she could be stubborn, she became increasingly paranoid due to her harrassment by a voyeuristic press, but guess what? She was actually a nice woman who in the early 90s stumbled upon the beloved John Kennedy Jr and she fell in love with him (not the public persona, his real self). Beller summes it up best: "The assumptions were from the pictures that she was icy, that she was cold. What I quickly learned was that she was warm and effervescent. She was joyful and loved to laugh.” A splendid biography totally worth your time. Highly recommended. Available now on Amazon.com

New Beatles book: Shake It Up, Baby!

Ken McNab’s new book, Shake It Up, Baby! The Rise of Beatlemania (May 7, 2024) is a gritty account of the Beatles’ rise to fame. McNab, an award-winning journalist from Glasgow, breaks down the Beatles’ concerts, business deals and bloody fights month by month during the transitional year of 1963. Much of the grit stems from Brian Epstein, the dapper, driven manager who kept the Beatles working incessantly. The group' stints in Hamburg between 1960 and 1962 exposed them to the rough quarters of the city’s Reeperbahn as the band tightened their sound. Success on the level the Beatles achieved was unprecedented in British pop, causing inevitable mistakes as Epstein learned the ropes of a cutthroat music industry. Tensions on the personal front also loomed. During a holiday to Spain, Epstein, a gay man who made no secret of his attraction to John Lennon, faced a potentially devastating scandal after the two vacationed separately from the other band members. Although McNab discredits rumours the relationship turned physical, rampant homophobia in England (where homosexuality was still illegal in 1963) made the insinuations dangerous. Lennon fueled the fire by violently assaulting a comedian who joked about the alleged “relationship” with Epstein. The author’s compulsion for detail makes Shake It Up, Baby! feel scholarly without sacrificing readability. Source: popmatters.com 

Albert Goldman was a celebrity ghoul who took advantage of his subjects being dead to avoid libel laws. His mission of undeifying icons like Lenny Bruce, Elvis, and John Lennon gave him the money and notoriety he could have never otherwise gained as a writer. His main sources usually had axes to grind or self-serving legal agendas they were trying to service. Albert Goldman was a celebrity gravedigger and a ghoul who wrote salacious books about those dead celebrities who conveniently couldn't sue him. His primary sources were usually disgruntled people in serious legal troubles. Goldman assaulted cultural icons he seemed to loathe and he could list his questionable and tainted sources so he could defend his tripe as "well researched."

Peter Doggett, in You Never Give Me Your Money, wrote about  Goldman's book: "The Lives of John Lennon was lousy with errors of fact and interpretation, speculative in the extreme, ill-willed and awash with snobbery. Yet Goldman pinpointed Lennon's almost clinical need for domination by a strong woman; the dark ambiguity of a man of peace being governed by violence, either vented or repressed; the unmistakable decline in his work after he left England in 1971, which led him from guru to guru, each obsession spilling into disillusionment and creative despair." People well versed in the Beatles lore think of The Lives of John Lennon as plain historical fiction. 

I remember Philip Norman's biography of John Lennon was the one that made him seem the most like a real person to the reader. The Lives of John Lennon portrayed Lennon as a volatile, perverted drug-user who had a gay affair with The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein and maybe even had killed Stuart Sutcliffe in Germany. It's not a question of whether his books were best sellers, it's a question of what kind of person devotes years of research to destroying a dead man's reputation, even for cash. One wonders whether Goldman himself, or anyone else, could have withstood the merciless scrutiny he devoted to his subjects. Goldman's first biography, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce!!" helped him get an advance for the Elvis Presley book. Its success earned him a seven-figure advance for the Lennon rip-job. At the time of his death, Goldman was picking over Jim Morrison's bones for yet another book. Fortunately for the rock music fans, he died in a flight crash in March 28, 1994. Source: consequenceofsound.net

It’s impossible to tell how many books have been written about The Beatles, but definitely in the thousands. Mark Lewisohn alone has written 15 detailed books. Instead, about their main influence Buddy Holly, there are only about ten books published. Despite Paul McCartney admitting there would have not been The Beatles without Holly: “John and I started to write because of Buddy Holly.” In an interview with Skip Brooks and Bill Malcolm, Holly's former manager Norman Petty still found it difficult to address why he hadn’t been more supportive of Buddy Holly’s need to experiment as an artist; Petty admitted he had lacked vision. As John Beecher (author of Remembering Buddy: The Definitive Biography Of Buddy Holly) recalls: "Norman and Vi Petty sent us information, but mostly they obstructed us in our efforts to gain access to photographs, recordings, and footage of Buddy and The Crickets - something I found really hard to understand until later, when I worked out that Norman Petty was just waiting for an opportunity to make some money." 

"I suspect that by the time Buddy discovered what had been going on with their income that had been directed to Clovis, it was too late for Norman to regain trust and he knew this. Thus, he burned all his boats with Buddy and cold-shouldered his attempts to get his royalties. Soon, lawyers were involved in getting Buddy his money and the process would have taken years to resolve. When I visited Clovis, I saw the problem at first hand; it was not until MPL took over Nor Va Jak that writers received regular statements and payments." About Ellis Amburn's mean-spirited biography, of which Bill Griggs said "that book belongs to the trash can," John Beecher agrees: "I don't much dig what Albert Goldman had to say on Elvis. I knew that a lot of what he attributed to John Lennon wasn't true; he tried to destroy Lennon's soul for commercial gain and I think that's unforgivable. A bit like the tales Ellis Amburn told on Buddy Holly - so many of his facts that were able to be checked were so out of line that it made one doubt his assertions on anything he wrote. It looked like Goldman again." —"Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly" (2014) by Philip Norman

Saving Buddy Holly: Blue Days & Black Nights

 

"Starlight" written by Buddy Holly, backed by The Crickets and recorded at Norman Petty's studio in April 1957.

For Charlie, the pleasant endorphin-induced positive mental experiences by Buddy Holly’s music converged in his mind. And thus began Charlie’s love for his music and later the man. As Charlie became more passionate about Buddy Holly, he read rock ‘n’ roll books and more biographies about him. Charlie became interested in time travel and time machines when he first read H.G. Wells’ book “The Time Machine”. Charlie had shared his thoughts about time travel and his 'multiple time lines' theory with his wife Sue. “I like to call paths through time ‘time lines’.” Being a rock ‘n’ roll fan, he decided to watch “The Buddy Holly Story.” When he was watching the final scene of the movie, Buddy Holly’s last show (a triumphant concert with the music filling the screen with exuberant joy), Charlie felt tears welling up in his eyes. It didn’t make sense for Sue that Charlie was about to cry. And then the movie ended suddenly with the announcement of Buddy Holly’s death. Charlie found Sue and fell into her arms sobbing uncontrollably. Buddy Holly had died at the peak of his career.

He was looking forward to a career of writing, singing, playing and producing records. He was full of confidence. Buddy was a happy man and should have enjoyed a much longer life. As Charlie’s time travel ideas evolved, Artie became an important sounding board for Charlie’s time concepts. Charlie had started with basic physics equations that he had learned: E=mc2, E=hv, F=ma. He loved formulas, symbols and numbers. As Charlie’s time travel visions progressed, they incorporated quantum mechanics and theories beyond quantum theory. His formulas became more complex and sophisticated as he refined and expanded his theories. Artie said, “I remember talking to you about going back in time and warning Buddy Holly not to get on that airplane.” “I have thought about it lots of times. Maybe I will go back in time and warn Buddy Holly of his impending fate. I think that if I could get close to him somehow,” Charlie continued: “Some of my memories and knowledge might pass into Buddy’s mind and warn him about what happened after he played at the Surf Ballroom in February 1959.” 

Like in Isaac Asimov’s story ‘The End of Eternity.’ Charlie thought how Buddy seemed to have an innate goodness within the double helix of his DNA. Carlie and Artie kept talking about the details of the fatidic night on February 2, 1959. “The plane the three musicians had taken was the N3794N. What color was the plane?” “In the Ritchie Valens movie La Bamba, the plane is blue and white. That’s wrong. It was a red and white V-tailed Beechcraft Bonanza.” “Was the Buddy Holly movie pretty accurate?” “The two Crickets in the movie had the wrong names.” “Why would they do that?” “There were two versions of the movie being filmed at the same time and copyright issues screwed things up before the movie was finally released. The screenwriter commited suicide just days before its screening." Charlie had started his crusade to meet and try to save Buddy Holly a long time ago. 

At a time when the general public was convinced that every rock and roll singer was a millionaire, The Crickets only ever stood to collect $40,000 between them in mechanical royalties should the single go on to sell a million copies. Not too many musicians in those days did the math, although there seemed to be a theory at large that if you sold a million records, then you ended up with a million dollars. In fact records sold in shops for just sixty-nine cents each, and the royalty was often as low as one cent per side. Buddy of course would have been aware of this. His first royalty statement from Decca Nashville in June 1956 showed that having sold just under 10,000 copies of Blue Days Black Nights, he had earned a grand total of $113.77! Not that he even got this pittance from Decca who had added a charge of $500 for the recording session, meaning that he would not get his first cent in royalties until he had earned another $385.97 for the label.

Buddy Holly would marry Maria Elena Santiago at Buddy’s parents’ home in Lubbock, Texas on Friday, August 15, 1958. Charlie set his time machine to Lubbock, August 14, 1958. Buddy and Maria Elena were living on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The Crickets Jerry Allison and Joe B. Mauldin had split with Buddy in November 1958. Buddy had been talking about going on a tour to make some money, but Maria Elena did not like the idea of Buddy going on the Winter Dance Party tour. “I’d take you along but you’re still getting nauseous from the pregnancy,” Buddy sighed. “This will be like the Summer Dance Party that I did last summer. Norman owes us a lot of money, but I can’t wait for that anymore. The idea that lawyers and accountants are holding things up drives me nuts. In Lubbock I was taught that a handshake was a deal,” lamented Buddy. “I always trusted Norman. I just can’t believe he’s cheating me. Norman said he is being screwed around by the record companies and businessmen in New York. I know that Jerry said he thought we were being ripped off by Norman when he added his name as a writer to our songs. Norman explained that it was only fair. He let us use his studio for a lot of time that he didn’t charge us for. Getting writer royalties for songs was how he got paid back for that session time. He told us that if the records never sold, he would never get paid for his work. Maybe we made a mistake in trusting Norman, but it made sense back then."

The bus rides on the Winter Dance Party Tour were far from glamorous. Buddy was daydreaming about the good times he'd enjoyed in England. On their way to Green Bay for the February 1 show, their bus had broken down. A passing truck driver saw them and alerted the sheriff’s office. Deputies had come out and saved them. The driver and his passengers had been fortunate that none of them had lost a limb or died of exposure to the freezing temperatures. Wisconsin’s winter was so record bad in 1959 that some people had died. There was little time between shows and travelling for them to get enough rest or get their clothes cleaned. Buddy had hoped to get to Moorhead, Minnesota early after the Clear Lake show so he would have time to do laundry and get some sleep. Now Buddy knew what the expression 'bone-chilling' meant. Everyone on the bus was paying attention and considering what Buddy was saying. Buddy had asked the manager of the Surf Ballroom Carroll Anderson to get a plane to the next show in Moorhead. 

There was a struggle going on in Buddy’s mind. Something in his brain seemed to know that he must not get on that plane. The eerie conflict continued in his mind. 'Am I going insane?' Buddy thought. Tiny snowflakes were drifting down and landing on his glasses. Buddy started to move toward the plane when the front page of a Clear Lake newspaper flashed into his mind. He was seeing the front page of the Clear Lake Mirror-Reporter. “Death of Singers Shocks Nation” was the headline. Buddy felt like he had seen this headline before. He had never been to Clear Lake except for this Winter Dance Party tour, yet he felt certain that the front page was one that he had read before. Although it was very cold, he was perspiring now. He opened his eyes and closed them again. Yet Buddy thought the sooner they got to Fargo, the sooner he would get some rest. But the image was clear and pervasive: “Death of Singers.” Buddy had already decided that he was not getting on the plane. Buddy Holly, once he had made up his mind, was like a huge ocean liner, hard to turn. So Buddy knew he had to try and convince Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper not to fly that night. –"Saving Buddy Holly: Blue Days Black Nights" (2024) by Gerard Goldlist