Customer Reviews

Me and Bobby D.: A Memoir

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Me and Bobby D." is a wonderfully detailed account of two ambitious teenagers who sweated for and got a shot at the big time. It's a great read for anyone who loved "Almost Famous"

Steve Karmen and Bobby Cassotto start as innocents with a faux Harry Belefonte act. But when Darin's talent, energy, and charisma are discovered by an agent, he quickly realizes there's no room for Karmen in his spotlight. So Darin moves on, almost immediately becoming a star on his own.

Left behind, bruised by the severed friendship, Karmen must deal with his feelings of betrayal and terrible disappointment. The reader feels Karmen's pain but at the same time is amused by his travails to establish himself in show business. He eventually finds himself writing advertising jingles and clicks, gaining the reputation of "King of the Jingles".

Karmen reaches his best form when he shares with us his dramatic reunion with Darin in Las Vegas. The final chapters are a sensitive and thorough weaving together of the writer's feelings. How splitting up with Darin caused him to go out on his own, leading to a full, financially successful, and loving life. Karmen portrays Darin's failing health with love and a sense of awe for how Bobby Cassotto, the boy, became Darin the entertainer.

This is THE BEST show business biography that I have EVER read !

Not withstanding that this is about Bobby Darin, this book gives the BEST account of how a Star is created...and yes, it isn't all just "Chance", it involves delicate construction, and LOTS of hard work.

For Bobby Darin fans, this is a treasure trove of information, that ONLY a Best Friend could share with us. The author's unvarnished account here is vividly written, so that the reader is "included", if you will, in this life-career, defining moment.

ATTENTION TO THOSE COMPLAINING ABOUT THE DETAILED CONVERSATIONS and RECOLLECTIONS: We all have experienced personal, life defining "moments", where we had to make choices, that we have had to live with, the rest of our lives. They will be forever, etched into our consciousness, like a jackhammer into granite.

To intimate, that the author could not state each word of a conversation, that was held decades ago, is a cheap shot and totally made without any foundation of fact or reality.

The book is awesome ! It may change your life, too !

Mr. Karmen's recollections are deeply, and personally felt. It's our privilege to relive them, with him.

I really like this book. Especially touching were the last few chapters.
Bobby Darin is a favorite of mine. He was so talented. His early death was such a loss to the music world.
Perhaps the author portrayed Bobby Darin too hard and cruel in his quest for stardom. It seemed at times like the author was feeling sorry for himself too much. He certainly portrayed himself as Bobby's "flunky".
But, all in all, I really liked the book

As much as Karmen tried to make Darin look mean and hateful, what he succeeded in doing was show that Darin knew exactly what he wanted and how to get it - add his extraordinary talent to the mix, and you have a star. Karmen had no guts, a thin skin, and couldn't believe that Darin wouldn't let him ride his coat tails to success.

This book, though, is mostly about the adventures leading up to Karmen's loss of virginity. At the end, he begrudgingly reunites with Darin prior to his death, and "feels better".

The book contains dialog you are supposed to believe is verbatim, and tries very hard to make Darin look like a mean spirited jerk that cast aside his friends on the way to stardom.

It didn't work. Instead, Darin looks smart, and Karmen is just another jealous guy whose claim to fame is that 'he was there'.

Karmen should have stuck to his very good jingles and left the past alone.

This book was published during the highly anticipated (and just as highly-disappointed) bio-pic on Bobby Darin was being released. Undoubtly Steve Karmen was a good friend of Bobby Darin's and this story is intended to take the reader along on a fateful summer as the two head out to promote Bob's latest song (Rock Island Line) and find fame and fortune in a nightclub. Although the story may be true, Karmen seems to want to reflect more about his being delegated to the back of the band rather than put more into the real character of Darin. From what I have read, Karmen was there during the real formative years of Darin's career, but I felt like he was telling only part of the story here.

I think this is one of the better bios of Bobby D (and Steve K, tho' I bought it for Bobby of course) in spite of some flaws. I liked that fact that, thanks to the level of detail and transcripts of conversations, Bobby Darin was a vivid presence in this book unlike in most bios of him. I also think it mostly rings true, since early BD was a very aggressive, confident, and determined individual who did not stumble into stardom but worked hard for it. Steve K is clearly jealous and bitter about Darin's success after leaving him behind, but he's also pretty honest about those emotions and acknowledging them earns him some credibility.

In addition, Steve K is honest enough to include passages where Darin and Darin's manager tell Steve K up front early on that he is *only* accompanying Darin to a Detroit night club engangement to help Darin with *his* act and *his* career and to reduce Darin's nervousness at his first engagement. So Steve was warned immediately that he was just along for Bobby's ride, at Bobby's personal expense in fact, and those were terms he readily agreed to up front. As a result he forfits a lot of the justification for his bitterness. He was not mislead or lied to unless he lied to himself. So he shouldn't have been horribly shocked when that's exactly how events unfolded, tho' I doubt that he expected to be so completely dismissed from Bobby's life. (And I think the reason for his total dismissal was jealousy on Darin's part because Karmen was more classically handsome and thereby a bit of a threat to upstage the more charismatic Darin.)

But mostly ringing true means that some rang false. Most significant is that Karmen's timeline sometimes doesn't jibe with reality, esp in the last chapter. For example he describes meeting with "Bob" Darin (Bobby's late life folk incarnation in which he spurned the show biz plastic tux and toupee in favor of denim and accustic guitars and protest songs) November of 1972 - a year before Darin's death.

Sorry but that's impossible. "Bob" Darin was retired by 1970 at the latest - a full two years earlier. And by the time Karmen claims to have reunited with "Bob" Darin at the Desert Inn, Darin was again in tux and toupee and doing middle of the road material mixed with his beloved folk and R&B material. It's very distracting when he's describing a scenario that couldn't have taken place when and as described.

Along the same lines, he claims that he basically never saw Darin from 1956 to 1973 (aside from attending Polly's funeral and a copa show), yet numerous accounts in other books, and his appearance in photos, have him in Darin's presence in the late 50's.

I also share the scepticism of those who doubt he could remember hundreds of pages of verbatim converstation decades later. It's just a bit of a red flag, but I think he probably remembers the gist of it. And the conversation is so instrumental in bringing the characters to life that I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

He also takes a few cheap shots, implying that there was something pathetic about the later day Darin when in fact he was a superstar whose body, through no fault of his own, was simply wearing out and betraying him.

Regardless of these quibbles, this books provides one of the most vivid portrayals, along with Dream Lover, of Bobby Darin - who earned his superstar status in spite of bad health and in spite of sour grapes from Steve Karmen.

I can understand this memoir from the authors perspective. We all know Darin like everyone had his faults but his talent was unmeasureable. Steve had talent also but his forte was another area. Still an informative book on the very early years when Darin was trying to get off the bottom rung. I guess we would all be a little obnowious if we knew we only had a few years to make a mark, and what a mark it happened to be,

If your idea of an insightful biography is a book filled with real life events and real life dialog between two teenagers who breakout into the world beyond their youth for the first time, innocently sharing ALL of their thoughts and feelings as only teenage boys can, then this book is for you.

If you expect more, there is more. You'll feel what it was like in the early days of rock 'n' roll as these two young men break into the music business. One finds the entry point on the road to stardom, and at the same time the other doesn't, and sadly has to head home to start all over again.

And if you want even more, there is more! The author takes you through the years to the present day and what ended up happening to both of them as they both reached their own heights of success. One of the best, most honestly written stories I've ever read. A real keeper, and one to pass on to friends who you know are dying to read a true life adventure in the world of rock 'n' roll.

When I purchased "Me and Bobby D.", I'm sure I was a bit biased to begin with as I am an avid fan of Bobby Darin and absorb as much of his musical and human contributions to life as possible. Therefore, Mr. Karmen's book was no exception.

As I read the opening two chapters, which I guess was supposed to capture my curiosity, I was saddened as I felt the overtones of the author painting a picture of Bobby Darin, not near as important as his gift to the entertainment world.

I felt the book went on chapter after chapter with a tale of two boyhood friends who set out on a venture to find out who they really were and where their dreams for life would take them.

I was hoping there would be an enormous emphasis on Bobby Darin as he emerged at this point in his his life from Robert Cassotto into the multi-talented Bobby Darin but instead it focused on Bobby's childish improprieties with only dribs and drabs of his growth into the mature performer he was to become. If you read carefully through wordy dialect and the language of city street kids you can see the inventive Bobby test the waters of his talents and begin to shape each of his performances to enhance his appearance and show the audience the gifts he had to offer.

I feel Mr. Karmen was using the opportunity of this book to address his own insecurities and his fear of life's challenges which awaited him in the world of music which he loved. I felt throughout this book a jealousy as he watched Bobby challenge his every move with confidence and determination.

The book was so filled with details of conversation that I felt it almost on the brink of fabrication. Page after page of this clutter and nonsense, I found distracting especially where the emphasis was on sexual escapades and everyday movement.

I fought my way to what I thought would be a bitter ending but still optimistically looking for resolution but resigned to what the conclusion might leave in my heart.

When I reached the final chapter I was pleasantly suprised as Mr. Karmen drew nicely together the niche in society he had successfully accomplished for himself and the love he deeply shared in his heart for his boyhood friend Bobby D.

I would recommend this book for Bobby Darin fans, if only for the most beautifully written last chapter. Personally, again I am interested in all I can know about Bobby and these memoirs are certainly an important part of his life.

Now a word for Mr. Karmen. I can see from this final chapter that you have the capability to write with clarity and emotion and would hope maybe someday you would write again on your life with Bobby and what you remember of him from his infancy at the Bronx Science High School to his emergence as a great performer.

Your musical success is to be commended as this is your forte in life and you have certainly met with great success. I feel you have more that you can offer we fans of Bobby Darin's in the future and I look forward to any further contribution you can make to his legacy.

If your idea of insightful biography is page after page of mundane conversations--presented supposedly verbatim, decades after the fact!--this one's for you. Anyone expecting anything more should consider themselves warned.