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Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--And the Journey of a Generation
written by Sheila Weller
Studio : Atria
by Atria
Publisher : Atria
Released : 2008-04-08
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780743491471
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 79 reviews)
List Price : $27.95
Our Price : $17.04
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Product Description |
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A groundbreaking and irresistible biography of three of America's most important musical artists -- Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon -- charts their lives as women at a magical moment in time. Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon remain among the most enduring and important women in popular music. Each woman is distinct. Carole King is the product of outer-borough, middle-class New York City; Joni Mitchell is a granddaughter of Canadian farmers; and Carly Simon is a child of the Manhattan intellectual upper crust. They collectively represent, in their lives and their songs, a great swath of American girls who came of age in the late 1960s. Their stories trace the arc of the now mythic sixties generation -- female version -- but in a bracingly specific and deeply recalled way, far from cliché. The history of the women of that generation has never been written -- until now, through their resonant lives and emblematic songs. Filled with the voices of many dozens of these women's intimates, who are speaking in these pages for the first time, this alternating biography reads like a novel -- except it's all true, and the heroines are famous and beloved. Sheila Weller captures the character of each woman and gives a balanced portrayal enriched by a wealth of new information. Girls Like Us is an epic treatment of midcentury women who dared to break tradition and become what none had been before them -- confessors in song, rock superstars, and adventurers of heart and soul. |
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A Fantastic Women's Read !!!!! |
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I absolutely loved this book. We all remember the music, have the dusty old albums, but this gave me a real insight into that time. How they were living their lives, what the songs were really about. Being a James Taylor fan also, it's interesting to see how he was intertwined in all their lives. Three amazing women with three amazing distinct voices and three amazing lives. A fantastic read !!! Really well written without being too 'factual and boring' . Recommended !!!!! |
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Absolutely Terrible. Needs Immediate Editing. AWFUL. |
I have just given up after slogging through 99 pages. This book is harder to read than a statistics text and a complete waste of time.
First of all, the writing is ponderously pretentious. Secondly, the unending and amateurish use of parentheses makes it impossible to enjoy or even read. You have to see it to believe it. It's hard to find a page that is not covered with them. After a while, the parentheses became nails dragged on a chalkboard. I wanted to throw the book in the garbage.
I believe this was edited by someone who never learned composition or possibly does not speak English. Parentheses are to be used sparingly, not as a substitute for either commas or basic sentence structure. Just look at this sample sentence, nowhere near the worst, and tell me why there are parentheses.
"Rather, he is a (handsome, blond) laparoscopic surgeon and former combat Marine, some years Carly's junior."
I cannot express how hard it is to read this monstrosity, truly one of the most poorly-written books ever printed on any subject. I cannot believe that anyone has actually read all 527 pages of this piece of junk. |
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They changed women's lives |
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I must admit, when I started this book I was reading it because I loved the music and I remember many of these songs from my mom singing them, and from listening to them on the oldies and classic rock stations. I also admired the ladies, this is true. But once I got into it, I didn't realize it would be this way, but it was like a documentary on feminism, a most enjoyable one. The way the author linked the little (and big) things that happened in the songwriter's lives with what was happening in the headlines, and behind them, made me see connections I had not seen before. I also felt I got way more into the psychology and the motivations than any rock and roll book or general music book I have ever read. What made me respet this the most was the sources. The author seems to have gone out of her way to find as many people as she could who were in these womens lives, and even though some of them were people I had know about before, such as Graham Nash for Joni, so many more were sideline people, names you just wouldnt have heard of if you followed music, but obviously these were the people who really knew. Many sections were just plain riveting and the system of going from one singer to the next kept me wanting to get ahead of myself but I just said, no, no, wait. There were also parts that were heartbreaking, like when Joni gave up her child. The music is so fresh even today but the times were really long ago, and that's the magic of the book. We have taken things for granted that another generation had to struggle for. Food for thought as well as pleasure. I recommend. |
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Repetitive, Repetitive, Repetitive... |
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I was so looking forward to this book because I am a huge fan of all three women and the author. Unfortunately, much of it is recycled stories that have been in the many other books and articles written about this time period. There is also constant repetition among the chapters. Unlike other reviewers, I admit I was looking for something a little gossipy and light but instead, it appears Weller is trying to create some type of faux-feminist piece by constantly bringing up the plight of women during this unenlightened time period. I wanted to read about the artists, not a piece on the birth of feminism. Carly Simon definitely makes for the most interesting read and in spite of being a Joni Mitchell worshiper, I got really bored reading about her long blonde hair and unique voice and stoic yet goofy ways- over and over and over again. Insight please! I also agree with the comments on the editing- or lack thereof. I devoured the excerpt in Vanity Fair and this is what prompted me to buy the book. However, tack on another 100 pages to that Vanity Fair article and you could have added all the new (as opposed to regurgitated) information and saved a few trees in the process!I think she had a good idea but the execution I found was pretty poor. |
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Worth it for the footnotes alone |
As a gossip-fest, good time this book would rate 7 stars for the footnotes alone. Three singer-songwriter coming of age in the 60s and 70s, each trying to figure out what it means to be an independent female artist in a world where all the old rules are gone; this material is gold. Their career struggles, love lives, success and failures are all detailed here.
And what details! See nearly every significant male musician of the early 70s fall at Joni Mitchell's feet. Watch Carole King go from dutiful 60s wife to California hippie to Idaho back-to-nature recluse. Observe Carly Simon try to establish herself as a serious songwriter while struggling to hang on to her marriage to James Taylor.
Weller clearly believes these women's lives say alot about the lives of their generation. That's a tougher sell for me, especially when Weller seems unwilling to question whether "sexual freedom" really was freedom for these women or just a different way to be exploited. The choices they faced - career or motherhood, equal partners or supportive wive, etc - still ring true.
What keeps this book a 5 and not a 7 though is Weller's creeping bias. By the middle of the book her disapproval of Joni Mitchell is as obvious as her impassioned defense of Jackson Browne is inexplicable. I couldn't help feeling that Weller would have given, say, Bob Dylan a pass for the behavior she tut-tuts over in Mitchell. Then there's Carly Simon. Perhaps because Simon is the only subject who cooperated or perhaps because Weller identifies with her, Carly Simon gets a pass on numerous occasions for things you just know Mitchell would get globbbered for. Stopping by the table where your recently separated husband, his new girlfriend and his best friend are having dinner only to ask the best friend out on a date? It's a "sign of the times." No, dear, it's seriously bad taste. Being hurt because someone suggests that Joni Mitchell wouldn't appear on her album cover in lingerie and boots? Poor sensitive, insecure Carly. How about getting in touch with reality? Whether Joni would or wouldn't appear in lingerie and boots, you can bet she'd own her decision to do it. Weller so treats Simon with kid gloves that bad reviews get relegated to the footnotes.
Which brings me back to the footnotes. I've read entire books which are less interesting than a single footnote in this book. Weller did her research and if you're wondering what happened to a minor character, just hop on the footnotes and you'll get their life story. You'll also get a few magical mystery tours like the one that starts with disco music empowering gays and ends with Jann Wenner and his partner Matt Nye throwing themselves a baby shower.
This book is great summer reading but like me, you may find yourself sympathesizing with the concert reviewer who notes "Carly Simon has been getting on my nerves for years."
Kindle Notes: On the Kindle version you can easily access the footnotes without skipping a beat on the main text. There are no photos in the Kindle version. |
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