Overview

"Captures seven hit-making decades during the American recording industry's glittering, freewheeling years. Tommy LiPuma was one of America's most successful record producers whose work with seminal artists like Miles Davis, Diana Krall, Barbra Streisand, Rickie Lee Jones, George Benson, and Willie Nelson went on to sell over seventy-five million records. It is also a picaresque journey that opens with the murder of a man on a dirt path in Sicily and concludes with five trips up the Grammy red carpet. The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma is real-life Horatio Alger adventure storied with bootleggers, gangsters, artists, hipsters, set in a revolutionary time in music history that changed popular culture around the world. Finally, it's a deeply personal account of how music saved one man's life, and how he went on to affect the lives of millions of others. ""Tommy was my best friend, my creative partner, my mentor, my confidant, and my producer for twenty-four years. As time goes on, I realize just how special he was.""--Diana Krall ""Tommy was a fantastic producer. He always had a great sense of humour . . . he would sit in the studio with us musicians and make every session a complete joy.""--Paul McCartney ""Tommy was always looking for ways to bring authentic jazz and blues to a larger audience.""--Donald Fagen ""He leaves a great legacy of great music that's going to stand the test of time . . . . I miss him every day.""--Al Schmitt ""Tommy was a great producer and a real friend.""--Willie Nelson I don't think that it's been noticed enough what he's done. He's been the most successfulperson, commercially, in the history of jazz.""--Randy Newman"

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9780578556604

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Reviews

I started Ben Sidran's Tommy LiPuma book at 1:15 in the afternoon, and I just finished it at 7:30 tonight. I could not put it down. I blew off everything else. . . . I was engrossed. --BOB LEFSETZ, The Lefsetz Letter An uncut gem, the music biography of the year. --KYLE OLEKSIUK, The New York City Jazz Record As I turn the pages, it seems I keep hearing long-forgotten melodies in my head. Here's a piece of music history vividly captured. --HARUKI MURAKAMI A beautiful surprise arrived through the letterbox from America, The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma. . . . I'm fascinated by the work of A&R, the mega producers, and the history of how it all joins up. Tommy was one of the real greats. . . . An amazing guy and a fabulous book. --GILLES PETERSON The fast-moving, entertaining early sections come over a bit like 'The Godfather Part II' rewritten by Lord Buckley. . . . [The book] is warm, witty and resolutely un-PC, initially a portrait of the music biz's bygone 'Wild West' era featuring an engaging roll call of shysters, hucksters and hipsters, but also encapsulating the whole history of modern recording techniques and philosophies. --movingtheriver.com Reads like Jimmy Breslin if the legendary journalist had an encyclopedic knowledge of recording. --CLIVE YOUNG, Prosound News

The world is full of biographies about fascinating musical figures, but none quite like this new one on super producer Tommy LiPuma. . . . A big part of this irresistible tale is musician Ben Sidran's writing. He knows exactly what made LiPuma's life tick, from the largest achievements to the most subtle details, and has the ability to paint the picture Tommy LiPuma's fascinating life deserves. . . . Much of this book might seem like inside baseball, but the facts are so real and righteous every chapter reads like you're peeking in on history in a game of World Series-size artistic proportions. . . . A page-burner. --Bill Bently, music executive / producer, musician [W]ritten in hip, conversational, and colorful prose. LiPuma's collaborators over the years add up to a 'Who's Who' of popular music . . . and they're all here, but Sidran tells an equally compelling story of how the young LiPuma overcame countless obstacles to become one of the most producers in pop and jazz history. Ballad is a breezy and engaging page-turner.--TheSecondDisc.com, 8 May 2020 For record buyers of a certain age, seeing the words 'produced by Tommy LiPuma' on the back cover of an LP was a guarantee of quality: an assurance that good taste and impeccable musicianship prevailed over marketing gimmicks and trends. LiPuma's forte was helping serious jazz musicians cross over into the pop realm (notably George Benson, Miles David, and Diana Krall), but he also worked his magic on Paul McCartney, Barbra Streisand, and Willie Nelson. Ben Sidran, who both knew and worked with the producer, is eminently qualified to write about the Sicilian-American's life. His eloquently-written biography charts LiPuma's unlikely but colorful journey from a Cleveland barbershop to Hollywood, where he became a Warner Bros mogul. It's an engrossing, quixotic tale that is packed with insight as well as hilarity. Ultimately, though, it serves as an elegy for a lost age, when the record business was driven by creative mavericks rather than dull corporate accountants. --Charles Waring, MOJO Magazine

Author Information

Ben Sidran was a major force in the contemporary history of jazz and rock & roll, having played keyboards with or produced such artists as Steve Miller, Mose Allison, Diana Ross, Boz Scaggs, Phil Upchurch, Tony Williams, Jon Hendricks, Richie Cole and Van Morrison. Though primarily renowned as a gifted pianist, composer, producer, among other music-related roles, Ben Sidran has also made a name for himself as a writer. Sidran's first book, Black Talk: How the Music of Black America Created a Radical Alternative to Western Literary Tradition (Da Capo Press), is based on his doctoral dissertation. Talking Jazz: An Oral History (Da Capo Press), published twenty-four years later, collects personal interviews with jazz greats such as Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins. His third literary endeavor, Ben Sidran: A Life in the Music (Unlimited Media), expresses his life-long affair with music and all its functions: as prayer, as community, as legacy, and as nothing but a party. He delves into the complex relationships between African-Americans and Jews, fathers and sons, history and hope, money and technology, ecstasy and transformation. His penultimate book, There Was a Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream, was a 2011 finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and remains a teaching text in Jewish Studies programs everywhere.

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