Overview

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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9780349118901

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Reviews

'Yetnikoff regales us with tales of outrageous behaviour, mainly his own. The style he adopts is clipped macho, not so much kiss- and-tell as snort-and-yell, with enough Yiddish slang thrown in to justify a glossary...Howling at the Moon stands as a fable of a bygone era' Robert Sandall, Sunday Times 'Howling at the Moon is terrific bluff and bluster...a literary bull in a china shop. Richly narcissistic, it's heady with life, vigour and the most tremendous gall' Q '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 history of he music industry...Yetnikoff's chutzpah shines through this book in all its grotesque and hilarious guises' Observer * 'A blisteringly entertaining read' Independent *.

Author Information

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.

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