Showing results by author "David Ritz" in All Categories

“Number One” was a phrase my father—and, for that matter, my mother—repeated time and time again. It was a phrase spoken by my parents’ friends and by their friends’ children. Whenever adults discussed the great Chinese painters and sculptors from the ancient dynasties, there was...

A remarkable story of friendship, love, and courage. When Maya Angelou and Tavis Smiley met in 1986, he was twenty-one and she was fifty-eight. For the next twenty-eight years, they shared an unlikely, special bond. Angelou was a teacher and a maternal figure to Smiley, and they talked often, of...

A Vulture Best Comedy Book of 2025 A wildly entertaining book by one of the world’s most obsessed and informed fans of TV icon Johnny Carson, setting the record straight on Carson's legacy and shining light on the personality behind the legendary comedian and talk show host Over the course of...

A memoir by Morris Day of The Time centering around his lifelong relationship and association with Prince"A vital, illuminating, and wildly entertaining autobiography." -Billboard "Great book! Great storytelling!" -LENNY KRAVITZ "Lean, slick, cooler than Santa Claus, and surprisingly tender...

Show biz memoir at its name-dropping, bridge-burning, profane best: the music industry’s most outspoken, outrageous, and phenomenally successful executive delivers a rollicking memoir of pop music’s heyday. During the 1970s and '80s the music business was dominated by a few major labels and...

A revealing and dramatic chronicle of the twelve months leading up to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. Martin Luther King, Jr. died in one of the most shocking assassinations the world has known, but little is remembered about the life he led in his final year. New York Times...

According to Eric Clapton, John Mayer, and the late Stevie Ray Vaughn, Buddy Guy is the greatest blues guitarist of all time. An enormous influence on these musicians as well as on Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, he is the living embodiment of Chicago blues.

In this intimate biography of the Prince of Soul, David Ritz provides a candid look at a star and a friend. Ritz had been collaborating with Marvin Gaye on his story for several years before the singer's tragic death and had conducted a series of extraordinary interviews in which Gaye discussed his deepest secrets. What emerges is a full-scale portrait of a charming but tortured artist, a brilliant singer with a divided soul.

A perfect Christmas gift for music lovers, Pretty Paper is Willie Nelson’s inspiring Christmas fable, based on his holiday classic “Pretty Paper.” More than fifty years ago, Willie Nelson’s beloved Christmas song “Pretty Paper” first hit the airwaves. And for all these years...

This "comprehensive and illuminating" biography of the Queen of Soul (USA Today) was hailed by Rolling Stone as "a remarkably complex portrait of Aretha Franklin's music and her tumultuous life." Aretha Franklin began life as the golden daughter of a progressive and promiscuous Baptist preacher...

A powerful chronicle of the sixteen weeks leading up to King of Pop Michael Jackson's death. Michael Jackson's final months were like the rest of his short and legendary life: filled with deep lows and soaring highs, a constant hunt for privacy, and the pressure and fame that made him socially...

The untold story of Willie Nelson and his sister, Bobbie, who, over the course of their lives together, supported each other through personal tragedies and triumphs and forged an unbreakable bond through their shared love of music “Tender and intimate.”—The New Yorker “Poignant...

A riveting cautionary tale about the ecstasy and dangers of loving Marvin Gaye, a performer passionately pursued by all—and a searing memoir of drugs, sex, and old school R&B from the wife of legendary soul icon Marvin Gaye. After her seventeenth birthday in 1973, Janis Hunter met Marvin...

For the first time ever, and to help celebrate his 90th birthday in 2023, American icon Willie Nelson provides the stories behind the lyrics of 160 of his favorite songs. From his earliest work in the 1950s to today, Willie looks back at the songs that have defined his career, from his days of...

A JUNIOR LIBRARY GUILD GOLD STANDARD SELECTION! From fourteen-year-old author Brayden Harrington, the young boy who electrified the nation when he spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2020, comes a fictional middle grade contemporary story about a boy named Jayson who stutters and the...

Tip Harris, better known as Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum selling hip-hop artist and actor T.I., is at the top of his game. Now he displays yet another side of his remarkable talents with Power & Beauty, a love story of life on the streets. Set in the dangerous shadows of Atlanta, Georgia...

For over half a century, Child has collaborated with the world’s most celebrated artists creating timeless classics, such as Bon Jovi’s “Livin' On A Prayer” and “You Give Love A Bad Name,” as well as Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca” and “The Cup Of Life,” amongst his vast catalog. But in his memoir, Child himself takes center stage to share his transformational story of a misfit outsider to cultural pacesetter.