I have a problem reviewing Murray Dewart’s book. He’s been my brother’s best friend for 60 years. It’s possible I facilitated his marriage. I’ve spent a night in his guest room. I’ve reviewed his son’s media. But I want to tell you about the book. Solution: describe it, using no adjectives. A first. Here goes. Murray Dewart makes large public sculpture. His work is tinged with spirituality — his father was an Episcopal priest — and he has a religious commitment to art:
We pour all our energy and time and use up our stamina and wear out our eyes and our hands and our backs on the chance that the forms will come to life, that some sparking fire will keep burning in the stone cold form long after we are gone.
At the same time, he has an instinct for knowing what people who may not like sculpture respond to:
On New Year’s Eve, my bell installation on the Boston Common is finished and the response is astonishing, with a crowd of half a million people. At any one time, hundreds are waiting in line to ring the bells. In the heart of the city, I have set in place a simple bell ritual. Hour after hour there’s a palpable hunger and yearning in the upturned faces.
As a memoirist, he doesn’t spare himself:
At fifteen, in the library at Milton Academy, I had tried to talk James Taylor out of his plan for leaving school. What would happen to him as a high school dropout? About five years later, he was on the cover of Time Magazine. So much for my gift of prophecy.
There are many color photos. And practical advice, learned in China: “If you are being electrocuted, put your arms straight up so the electric current misses your heart.” There. No incriminating adjectives. To buy the book from Amazon, click here.
Nicole Zeitzer Johnson, illustrations by David Concepcion, “Joyfully Josie”
The story that Josie’s mother, Nicole Zeitzer Johnson, tells in this short, illustrated book is powered by a simple idea: children with disabilities can have rewarding friendships with children who have none. Josie can’t talk, can’t walk, can’t sit up without falling over. And yet, like other girls her age, “Josie loves music, sunny days, and playing with friends.” One more important fact about Josie: the more kids laugh, the more she laughs. So she has a big blue button to push — she can answer questions and signal agreement.
What’s Josie’s disability? FOXG1 syndrome. It’s rare – perhaps 1,000 people in the world have this gene glitch that affects brain development. When Josie was diagnosed, there was very little known about this syndrome, so Johnson teamed up with other FOXG1 parents to help children with this disorder experience life without suffering. The foundation they launched in 2017 now has a gene therapy program and hopes to be in clinical trials in the next few years.
We hear so much about “diversity” and “inclusion” and “acceptance” that these words have almost been bleached of meaning. Well, they’re fresh here. In just a few pages, Johnson banishes fear and resistance and normalizes disability. And there’s an information-rich website. This book is massively inspiring. [To buy it from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition,click here.]
Daniel Asa Rose: “Truth or Consequences: Improbable Adventures, a Near-Death Experience, and Unexpected Redemption in the New Mexico Desert”
In Daniel Asa Rose’s memoir, he and his best friend drive West, seeking adventure. It’s 1970. They’re 20. They’re driving a Land Cruiser they bought for $400. It has tires and a motor and not much else. Disaster looms, and in a small town in New Mexico — its name really is Truth or Consequences — it manifests: a reckless driver crashes into their car, and Dan goes flying. As he waits for an ambulance, a beautiful woman comforts him. Decades later, unmoored by the failure of his marriage, Daniel returns to New Mexico, looking to investigate what happened and thank that woman, but really to investigate himself. He’ll meet characters galore: a gun-toting AA group, a doctor awaiting change-of-gender surgery, and more. He also finds a situation he can change for the better — a moving ending that explains why Rose has won O. Henry and PEN Fiction Awards for his short stories. And why, this time, he lands on his feet. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
Cort Casady: “Not Your Father’s America: An Adventure Raising Triplets in a Country Being Changed by Greed”
I can’t think of another classmate in the class of 1968 who started his TV career with the Smothers Brothers, and I’m 100% sure I don’t know another classmate who became, in 1995, the father of triplets. Now Cort Casady has written a memoir that’s about much more than parenting. “I wanted to write a book that would be a kind of open letter to our children. It would attempt to give them some context and perspective on the country they were born into, beyond the obvious ‘before Google’ or ‘before there were smartphones.’ I soon realized it would need to be an extremely long letter.” Not that long: 225 pages. The stories about the boys are charming. The stories about the US are, correctly, not: “In a country without guardrails, devastating things can happen.” What he learned passes for balance: “Don’t panic. Take one day at a time. Stay committed. Don’t give up.” [To buy the book from Amazon, click here.]
Stephen Saltonstall: “Renegade for Justice: Defending the Defenseless in an Outlaw World.”
His ancestor was a member of Harvard’s first graduating class. His cousin was headmaster of Exeter. His father was Harvard ’38, and after Exeter, it was assumed that Stephen Saltonstall would follow in the family tradition. Instead, he joined the Young People’s Socialist League and the Student Peace Union at Exeter and was expelled for holding a peace sign at the Memorial Day Parade. Somehow he was admitted to Harvard. We bonded at the college’s venerable literary magazine, where we impeached the editor in its centennial year, and were involved in a confrontation with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Hey, it was the’60s.
Steve went on to the law school, which did not tame him. The title of his memoir says it all: “Renegade for Justice: Defending the Defenseless in an Outlaw World.” In his first case, he defended a serial killer. A cop killer followed. He tried to save the life of a fatally ill boy whose parents believed cancer could be cured with coffee enemas and Laetrile. Drug cases. Anti-nuke lawsuits. To paraphrase Reymond Chandler, trouble was his business.
His memoir begins: “This is a book of courtroom war stories, drawn from my forty years of experience as an obscure lawyer for the underdog and the downtrodden.” Don’t be fooled by his claim of obscurity. He handled important cases, and he tells their stories well — this is Grisham as non-fiction. This memoir is not a polemic. His aim is to recruit: “I hope my stories will challenge those of you — you know who you are, you who dream of soft landings in the glittering halls of boring, soul-free law firms doing the bidding of the uber-rich and powerful — to visualize the alternative, a career that’s built on cases and causes that further the public interest, human rights, and care of the natural world.” [To buy the paperback from Amazon, click here.]
Dori Salerno: “Mrs. Bennet’s Sentiments”
Doesn’t everyone love “Pride and Prejudice?” Really, it’s the favorite book of millions. Growing up, it was Dori Salerno’s. A few years ago, she reread it: “There was a section that seemed different this time around. Darcy was making fun of country families and Mrs. Bennet called him out on it, and her daughters disregarded her with the all-too-familiar eye-roll. But I thought, this mother is telling the truth. It made me think that maybe there was another reason for her to act the way she does besides just being ridiculous.” So she retold the story. This time around, Mrs. Bennet, agitated by menopause, sees clearly the grim fate that awaits her daughters if they don’t marry, and marry well. She’s sane and heroic, she rediscovers her talents, locates desirable suitors, and just generally kicks ass. Her “sentiments” are eye-opening and altogether delightful.
[To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
Stephen Mo Hanan: “Scarpia’s Kiss”
It’s 1946, the reopening of La Scala, and the opera is “Tosca.” Samuel Krandall — born in Brooklyn as Samuel Kaminetzky — started his career as a cantor and is now the star baritone of the Met. In this opera, his first at La Scala, he is Baron Scarpia, “whose cynical, menacing lust both repelled and mesmerized.” His partner will be 25-year-old Miranda Baltazar. The scene they play out — the novel’s opening chapter — is thrilling. It takes you through a great opera performance, and more: it shows you how drama can inspire life, for the singers fall in love on stage. Pregnancy follows. He can’t leave his wife; she goes off to an isolated Caribbean island. At this point, the novel becomes an exchange of letters, not a great favorite here. But complications arise, and the resolution is dramatic, and at every turn Stephen Mo Hanan serves up tasty tidbits about opera and its practitioners.
[To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
Ann Medlock: “Outing the Mermaid”
I know Ann Medlock as the Founder and Creative Director of Giraffe Heroes, which honors people who stick their necks out. It turns out she’s also a poet, a blogger, an editor, a speaker, an educator — and the author of an ambitious novel. Her book is a day in the life — or, better, a life in one day — of a woman whose marriage needed to die some time ago. Along the way, we revisit the cultural and political events of the 1960s and ‘70s. In the end, the put-upon wife does a simple thing, and you want to cheer.
[To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
Linda Condrillo: “Period. The End: Wit, Wisdom, and Practical Guidance for Women in Menopause — and Beyond”
Linda Condrillo is not a doctor. And she doesn’t play one on the Internet. She’s a woman of a certain age, with her hot flashes behind her, and she’s written a wise, humane guide to surviving menopause. And did I say funny? The book is dotted with cartoons, recipes and the personal stories of survivors. “The change,” indeed!
[To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
Lori Lieberman is one of the writers of the classic “Killing Me Softly” — early proof she’s a singer-songwriter of uncommon sensitivity. Now she’s released “Truly.” Old songs? Why? Lori: “When I was a girl growing up in Switzerland, my father introduced me to all kinds of American music. He was an interesting character to say the least, with a dashing resemblance to Don Draper of ‘Mad Men’ and an insane zest for life. He was an inventor who loved the music of Bobby Short, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and so many more. My childhood was chaotic and at times, difficult, but no matter what, our house was filled with that music, and my dad often told me he wished one day, I would sing some of those songs. To honor his memory, I wanted to make a record that would be easy on the ears, to attempt to calm the heart, and provide a moment of distraction. And I also felt compelled to re-record my ‘Killing Me Softly.’ as it is a story that is still unfinished.” In late October, 2022, I saw Lori Liberman do a set with a tight band. She played old songs I’d never heard, and I thought: ‘Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins — she’s the third of a small sisterhood.’ The obvious finale, “Killing Me Softly,” had women in the audience crying for reasons both universal and private.” [To buy the CD or MP3 from Amazon, click here]
In the delivery room, the obstetrician delivered good news to my mother: “It’s another boy.” My mother’s immediate reaction: “Damn! Another daughter-in-law!” Some of my marital history suggests my mother was wise. Sally Koslow and I are friends and I was an enthusiast for The Widow Waltz, but it was with caution that I approached “The Real Mrs. Tobias.” There are two daughters-in-law in this family, and there are not one but two psychotherapists, who fulfill the commonly accepted truth that therapists may be brilliant for their patients, but they’re often astonishingly dense about their own neuroses. The year is 2015, the setting is New York City, and the conversation is just as clever and intimate as outsiders imagine. But this is not NYC Plot 101. The son does something stupid in his car and drives away, and no amount of cajoling by his family can get him to do the right thing. Distressed, his wife flees to her family’s home in the Midwest, where she finds comfort and — no surprise — a boyfriend. This ratchets the tension in New York. A stressed family makes for drama and larger questions. Sally Koslow handles them masterfully. My mother could have benefited from this book. [To read an excerpt, click here. To buy the paperback from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
Laura Galloway: “Dálvi: Six Years in the Arctic Tundra”
When I met Laura Galloway, she was a communications specialist, which was exactly when the infant HeadButler.com needed. Like many who knew her in New York, I was surprised when she took an ancestry test, discovered she shared DNA with the Sámi people, and left the city for the Norwegian Arctic. Trading a solid career for a town of 3,000, where the most stable employment is herding reindeer? And when a romance craters there, stays for six years? Doesn’t compute. “Dálvi: Six Years in the Arctic Tundra” explains why. She found her mother dead in bed when she was three, was emotionally rejected by her stepmother, her husband had divorce papers served in a delivery of roses — she was a bundle of issues. In the isolation of her new home, she comes to terms, she learns to love and be loved — this is a book that is as much about healing as it is about a great adventure. [To read an excerpt, click here. To buy the paperback on Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
Craig Unger:”American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery”
I’m pleased that Craig Unger and I are friends, and sad that is why I can’t ethically review his book. I was a source, I’m briefly quoted, and I’m thanked. So all I can say is that “American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery” is the follow-up to his 2018 bestseller, “House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia.” As the title of the new book suggests — “Kompromat” is Russian for “compromising information”— Trump is nothing less than a Russian “asset.” Not officially, of course. But from the beginning of his real estate career, he eagerly did business with the Russians, most of them shady and connected to the KGB. This relationship started small, with television sets for the Hyatt Hotel. An American immigration reform allowed hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews to immigrate to the United States. Lo and behold, 1,300 Trump condos were sold in “secretive, all-cash transactions that enabled buyers to avoid legal scrutiny by shielding their finances and identities.” And then, because Trump needed money and liked sex, we meet a grotty bunch, including, of course, Jeffrey Epstein. I knew a lot of this story, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why Trump was so fond of Putin, but it’s still mind-blowing to read how the President put his needs above his country’s. [To buy the book of “American Kompromat” from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
In an unforgettable “Law & Order” episode, someone says, “There are two laws, one for the poor, one for the rich.” DA Jack McCoy knows better: “There are no laws for the rich.” That was then. Now, when a rich, white athlete from Princeton is accused of raping his girlfriend, we wonder if life in prison is enough punishment.
That alleged rape is the centerpiece of “When We Were Bright and Beautiful.” Or rather, that’s the start of the novel. Cassie rushes home from Yale to help in her brother’s defense. She has a problems of her own, starting with her complicated romantic history and an unwise, dangerous relationship with a detective who’s working this case. There are endless meetings in the family’s “war room” that slow the book, but Jillian Medoff is a first-class novelist — I loved her last novel,THIS COULD HURT — and the trial yields real drama and a satisfying payoff. [To buy the hardcover from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
I became aware of Ann Medlock because of the Giraffe Heroes Project, which she started “to inspire people to stick their necks out for the common good” and to honor those who did — among the 2,000 people she’s profiled, she honored my mother. Now in her late 80s, she’s published “Silence of the Seamaid,” her first novel. It is, she says,”a roman á clef about the first half of this long life.” It covers a lot of career ground over several continents, but the real story is her awakening as an independent woman. Lee Palmer’s first marriage is to a handsome man who is, despite his exotic job, “constantly at a loss, a sweet-natured, passive man who was content with his lot, whatever it was, and with his pretty, helpful wife, whoever she was.” When she learns that “a dependent husband was not acceptable,” she moves on. But to Joe Montagna? He’s more than handsome, he’s charismatic, well on his way to massive success. How can he be interested in her? And yet he is. They marry. Then the mood swings surface. Charm can turn to violence in the blink of an eye. Marriage becomes a prison. Does she flee? Not quickly. I came to hate this man as I have rarely hated a character before — more so because this is a roman á clef. And I cheered her escape and her first steps into a great new life — into Ann Medlock’s life. [Meet her in a short video. To buy the paperback from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
Ethics prevent me from reviewing this book — it was my honor to brainstorm with veteran trendspotter Marian Salzman in its creation, as I have on several of her previous books. I can say that trends have the lifespan of fruit flies now; it’s her genius to identify and explain ones that might affect more than this week. In these pages, she explains the most consequential shifts underway: “our warming planet, pervasive forces of chaos and uncertainty, and the evolving battle for supremacy between the world’s two 21st-century superpowers, the United States and China.” Even more valuable, she digs into the forces shaping how we live. As she writes, they include “the blurring and resetting of boundaries; the value of small in a world undergoing massive change; the new luxury of freedom and time; the massive shifts in gender norms and expectations and the move toward individualism…. While this book is intended to decode the myriad political, cultural, environmental, and technological trends that will influence our tomorrow, I regard it less as a forecast than as a call to action. Some four centuries ago, Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes declared, ‘Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.’” Marian Salzman is definitely prepared. Consider joining her. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here. For the audiobook, click here.]
When we last read Owen Lewis, it was 2015, and the psychiatrist/teacher/poet had just published “Best Man.” The title could not have been more ironic or bittersweet — the 23 poems were about his brother Jason, who died in 1980, age 23. Jason was the tragedy every family fears: a bright, drugged thief and liar. Here the dead talk, and the survivor talks back. [To buy the paperback of “Best Man” from Amazon, click here.] “Marriage Map,” in contrast, is about his enviable second marriage. The quotation from Homer that is the book’s epigram signals the tone: “There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife.” But a second marriage invariably invites contrasts. In the first poem, “The day I met you/ a crane fell, smashing cars, slicing six/ stories of corners off a building.” Owen calls Susan to explain the trouble. She says she has a “Plan B.” He’s breathless. More accurately, she’s holding his breath — the breath of a man whose marriage is, like the crane, collapsing. The last line: “Who had ever considered for me a ‘Plan B’?” In these poems, love revives him, strengthens and affirms him. But not without cost. In a second marriage, you can’t avoid the shadows of all that’s come before: “We bring an in-gathering/ of exiles, taken from themselves/ scattered along the rivers of home.” So here are his brother, parents, first wife. Shining through is the simple fact of an abiding romance: “We make of time what we will… This wedding starts again, forever.” These poems are moonlight through a bedroom window. [To buy “Marriage Map” from Amazon, click here.]
American Jews in Israel. An inheritance, which means money and a lot more. Back in Los Angeles, a son’s alleged financial crime — what kind of crime did you expect? — has become a family scandal. Not promising material, when you consider how Jews are presented in American fiction. The writer loves them. Or the writer hates them (or, more correctly, hates herself/himself). And in a first novel yet! I ask you: What was the last great first novel you read about Jews? Goodbye, Columbus. Okay, what else?
Bethany Ball’s “What To Do About The Solomons” is my favorite length for fiction: blessedly short. But in those 235 pages, we get a large — there are so many characters that Ball starts the book with a Solomon family tree — and unruly clan. They’re like moose with antlers locked: They can’t get closer, they can’t get apart. But you’ll have no trouble telling them apart. And coming to like them, for very different reasons.
For a novel about Real and Serious Things, this is a very funny book. Bethany Ball writes with wit as sharp as the blade of a mohel. For once, I totally concur with a New York Times review: “I ended ‘What to Do About the Solomons’ absolutely swimming with affection, not just for the characters but for the multiple worlds that created them. Despite their collective penchant for psychodrama, there’s something profoundly lovely — and loving — about the Solomons. And about Bethany Ball’s debut.” [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
The so-called law of life says that you start winding it down as you hit the golden years, but Garland Jeffreys is 73, and at City Winery, he put on a 90-minute show that ranged from reggae to New York soul to sound-clouds that would have done Van Morrison proud — he and his raised fist of a band rocked hard. And then he delightedly signed CDs for a legion of adoring fans. More confounding: His new CD, “14 Steps to Harlem,” is just as strong as his 2011 classic, The King of In Between. As a brother on the Back 9, he’s inspiring. But he’s a pain in the ass for me as a reviewer — he sends me to the dictionary for fresh superlatives. To buy the CD of “14 Steps” from Amazon, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.
Every month has a cause. This month, Gretl Claggett has three. As a writer, Monsoon Solo: Voices Once Submerged more than qualifies her for prominence in National Poetry Month. And “Happy Hour,” a film she made of a poem from that book, fits right in to National Child Abuse Prevention and Sexual Assault Awareness Month. “Happy Hour” isn’t fiction; it’s a short, unsettling account of her childhood abuse by a family friend during cocktail parties while her parents socialized downstairs. Narrated by Julianne Moore, it won awards at film festivals. Here’s the trailer:
You can now download the film on Amazon and iTunes, with all proceeds on both platforms going to a small group of nonprofits whose focus is treating and preventing sexual abuse and promoting healthy relationships. For film buffs, there’s a bonus: an early look at a writer-director who’s moving on to features any minute now.
My nights are suddenly — and happily — filled with plays written or produced by friends. Like “Wink,” written by Neil Koeningsberg, who was once a legendary Hollywood publicist and then a brilliant talent manager. In his new incarnation, he’s writing about a teenager who’s got life challenges — homelessness and gender confusion — and an ex-A list actor doing B movies in Hollywood. Out of this unlikely alliance comes a transformative bond. Unconventional? Unlikely? Not at all: Neil Koeningsberg is reliably smart and creative. ”Wink” runs from April 13 to May 7. Thursday through Saturday@ 8 PM, Sunday @3 PM, at Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. For information and tickets, click here.
When I met Charlie Fink in 1996, he was head of the AOL venture capital division. He gave Carol Fitzgerald and me $3 million to start bookreporter.com, and I decided I liked him…a lot. (Just making sure you’re paying attention — it wasn’t $3 million.) Now Charlie is a force in the arts and is the producer of “Baghdaddy.” When he staged it Off-Broadway, the Times review called it “an important, cunning rock solid musical comedy.” Now that it’s moving to the St. Luke’s Theater on 46th Street, it’s not just bigger, but more timely: It begins with the only political-asylum specialist who speaks Arabic interviewing an Iraqi defector at the Frankfurt airport. And then – I know it sounds unlikely, but it is so — it rocks. Previews start April 6, the opening is May 1. Tickets and information here. And I’ll see you there.
Israeli cuisine — is that an oxymoron, like, say, Kosher fish? But as the American-born Israeli chef and restaurateur Michael Solomonov tours Israel in “In Search of Israeli Cuisine,” a feature-length documentary just opening somewhere near you (click for cities and theaters), we get a lot more than a Food Network make-them-hungry travelogue. Roger Sherman, the director: “I wanted to make a film about the Israeli people told through food that was neither a travelogue or polemic about failed government policies, which is all the media discusses. Yet, the conflict is ever present, even when discussing food, and could not be ignored. That every chef told me, ‘You cannot be my enemy when you’re sitting at my table’ resonated.” So you get restaurants and kitchens, beaches, deserts and olive groves — but you also get a debate about hummus (who knew?) and the larger culture. And, fair warning: you also get hungry.
Katrina Kenison is one of those people who would much rather get you talking than gas on about herself. Her life, she contends, is “ordinary.” Her writing, she’ll say, is about small things. But as I’ve learned, late in life but maybe just in time, the little moments are the big ones: watching TV with the kid, a postcard to a friend, the last words before sleep. In Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment, Kenison serves up her small moments so accurately and tenderly they read like one-act plays. Now she’s collected her blog posts and other writing in which she “searches for the story beneath the story” in “Moments of Seeing: Reflections from an Ordinary Life.” When I find myself in times of trouble, I read a take or two, and feel a smart, gentle hand on my forehead, and, more often than not, the fever cools. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here.]
Taylor Goldsmith, lead singer of Dawes, doesn’t have the look of a rock star, but this is Alternative Rock, a sub-genre that places a premium on writing. And here there are few better. Dawes once toured with Bob Dylan, an honor they hoped might turn into friendship. Dylan ignored them. After the final concert of the tour, as he was walking out, he nodded as he passed Goldsmith. “Nice song,” he said, and kept going. A very nice song indeed, performed here solo acoustic:
Dawes is making a major tour to promote its new release, “We’re All Gonna Die.” A friend and I went to the Beacon to see if they were as good live as they are on our home speakers. Verdict: just as good.
As you listen, you’ll do well to pay close attention to the lyrics. Samples:
Why are the people we love the same ones we can also hate?
The stars are just the holes punched in a shoebox/ That gives a creature all the air he needs to breathe.
Every promise was negotiable/ Most of all the ones they made alone/ When she finally forgave/ What he’ll take to his grave/ Learning not to pick up the phone
I’m asking now for reconciliation/ I’m asking now for what we have to say/ I’m asking now for both of us to do a little changing/ I wanna dance with you/ forever, in this one cabaret/ If we just allow ourselves, it’ll be okay
[To buy the CD and get a free MP3 download, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]
His mother worked in a Domino sugar plant. His father took the train from Sheepshead Bay to his job in a Harlem factory. Thanks to their dedication and love, their son was able to go to Syracuse. And in 1973, when Garland Jeffreys got a gold record for “Wild In the Streets,” he gave it to his parents. “That was fantastic,” he says. “They knew that was valuable, right in front of them, and that their investment in me had paid off.” Half a century later, the kid who grew up on doo-wop and used the sound of the streets to become one of the kings of New York soul music has recorded a CD that looks back to his heritage. “14 Steps To Harlem” won’t be out for months, but if it’s like the title song, you can see the movie in your head. [To pre-order the CD from Amazon, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]
