Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Apple
Android
Windows Phone
Android
To get the free app, enter your email address or mobile phone number.
See the Best Books of the Month
Want to know our Editors' picks for the best books of the month? Browse Best Books of the Month, featuring our favorite new books in more than a dozen categories.
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
This could have been a tired collection of name-dropping and anecdotes, but it is not - Yetnikoff offers a gripping tale of driving in ultra-fast lane with no brakes. Many books of this type are reduced to sorry self-important ramblings because their esteemed authors take themselves too seriously and view "stories of their lives" as something approaching gospels. They want every word in their folios to be significant. Some of them are under impression that they did not simply live their lives but went from one revelation of supreme truth to another. Yetnikoff, meanwhile, is endearingly immune to all this. His story of excess and permanent alcohol-, drug- and sex-induced stupor is told in a relaxed and unassuming way. And, of course, famous names and their albums and songs really put this into the context of the era. I enjoyed every bit of the book.
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
"There is the scum of the earth, and what lives under the scum of the earth, and under this we have music lawyers," fictional touring musician Vernon Shakely often remarked in Laurie Colwin's novel, "Goodbye Without Leaving." Walter Yetnikoff might have been perversely proud to be included in the fictitious Shakely's asssessment of music industry lawyers. Unfortunately, his attempt to present himself as a formerly nice Jewish boy/Columbia Law grad turned baaaaaad example of Seventies excess keeps falling flat, despite the potential richness of material. Given that his co-author is the gifted David Ritz, whose other biography subjects include Marvin Gaye, B.B. King, and Aretha Franklin, one can only imagine how incoherent Yetnikoff's prose was before Ritz attempted to take it in hand. It appears that at some point, Ritz must have given up in despair. The book begins with a detailed sexual fantasy about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis ("Jack was a powerful lover, Ari was a passionate man, but you, Walter... you're nothing short of astounding," she cooes), followed by a suspiciously well-organized three-page "recollection" of a business luncheon Yetnikoff holds, just the two of them, at "21" with Mrs. Onassis. There she recaps his entire career in highly flattering terms, and urges him to write a "highbrow" memoir. Well, poor Mrs. Onassis is dead and can't defend herself. But putting those words--if indeed she said them--into her mouth demonstrates the size of Yetnikoff's ego, which overwhelms what could have been a fascinating book. It is sort of fascinating, but for all the wrong reasons.Read more ›
2 Comments
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
My all-time favorite music business story involves a conversation between Walter Yetnikoff and David Geffen. It is a story that is both hysterically funny and, in its own way, appalling. I had considered it to be apocryphal but there it is, confirmed not once but twice, in HOWLING AT THE MOON, Walter Yetnikoff's autobiography. Yetnikoff joined CBS Records Group as legal counsel in 1961 when its primary label imprints were Columbia and Epic. If you rummage through your record collection you undoubtedly have discs bearing Columbia's red label (Johnny Mathis, Mitch Miller, The Byrds, Simon and Garfunkel, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan) and Epic's yellow one (The Dave Clark Five, The Yardbirds). He was by 1975 President of the CBS Record Group, having transformed it into one of the most successful record labels in music history. The deal Yetnikoff brokered between CBS Records and a Japanese company named Sony continues to influence the music industry for good and for ill to this very day. It also, in part, contributed to Yetnikoff's downfall. HOWLING AT THE MOON is the story of Yetnikoff's meteoric rise and fall, and personal resurrection. It doesn't matter if you have never cared a whit about how records are made or rarely get to the shelves of your favorite retailer --- this book is an absolute joy to read on every conceivable level. Yetnikoff brought about the success of CBS Records with a combination of brilliance and belligerence, uniting vision and business sense with a single-minded, obsessive pursuit of success. HOWLING AT THE MOON traces Yetnikoff's life, from his humble beginnings --- his family was what would now be called "working poor" --- to his ultimate, dazzling success.Read more ›
1 Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Walter Yetnikoff's "Howling at the Moon" is a great read. The author is stone-cold honest about his history - morphing from a poor kid in Brooklyn to Columbia Law graduate to "Jimmy Olsen greenhorn" in the music business to master business builder to *the* out-of-control legendary wildman of the music business to abrupt sobriety to betrayal, fall, a period in the wilderness and redemption. What a tale. Where else are you going to get insights on Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Marvin Gaye and Mick Jagger mixed with equally eye-opening passages on Tom Wyman, Norio Ohga, Akio Morita and Bill Paley? The Paley passages are especially enlightening - the controlling, secretive builder of the Tiffany network and the wildman of CBS/Columbia records were as unlikely a pairing as you could imagine, but Paley appreciated Yetnikoff's undeniable ability to make money and, as Paley says upon taking his leave from CBS, "in this office, that did not go unnoticed." Despite Yetnikoff's well-documented demons, his track record in the business is unassaible: when he left, CBS/Columbia was still pulling in $450 million a year in *net* profits. True, Yetnikoff's successors had to deal with a more vexing set of assaults on the recorded music business model, but you need to give the guy his due.
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
![]({"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51igMGeXNQL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[233,346],"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51igMGeXNQL._SX334_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[336,499]})
