Description One of the most original, influential, and commercially successful American songwriters, Doc Pomus (1927–1991) was a role model for several generations of composers, renowned for his mastery of virtually every popular style, and for the numerous hits he wrote during rock ’n’ roll’s first decade. But despite his successes, few knew that this writer of jukebox hits led one of the most dramatic lives of his time. Spanning the extremes of extravagant wealth and desperate poverty, suburban family life and the depths of New York’s underworld, enduring love and persistent loneliness, and touching on more than a half-century of American popular music, Lonely Avenue reveals, with novelistic flair, the whole of Doc’s experience—one of the great, hitherto untold American stories.
Alex Halberstadt's writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, GQ, the Los Angeles Times, Salon, the Oxford American and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
“Possibly the best rock biography ever.”—Dave Marsh, founder of Creem and author of Born to Run: The Bruce Springsteen Story
A New York Times Editor’s Choice
A Times (London) Best Book of 2007
"Fascinating"—Los Angeles Times
"Splendid"—Atlanta Journal and Constitution
"Rich"—San Francisco Chronicle
"Generous"—The Independent (London)
"Marvelous"—Bloomberg News
"Colourful"—MOJO
"Masterful"—Library Journal |
|
||||||||||||||
