music

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.

The least interesting thing about this book is the author. Unfortunately, this is an autobiography. Considering CBS Records' remarkable talent roster during Yetnikoff's tenure, including the Stones, Springsteen, Dylan and Michael Jackson, he recounts only a few rather uninteresting anecdotes about Wacko Jacko, and virtually nothing about the others, instead taking gratuitous potshots at former close associates. Even if you enjoy books about bitter, washed up, egotisical, former drunken cokehead lawyers, this book will put you to sleep. I'm sure there's a very interesting story somewhere in Walter Yetnikoff's experience with CBS. It's not in this book.

It is fitting that this book is not written in "perfect", smooth flowing format - because this is an accounting of a man who was swept up in excess and excitement without giving himself the time to truly "know himself", and thus his life did not unravel in "perfect" smooth flowing format. This is a great book because it relates what hundreds of thousands of people have experienced in the latter 21st century, only it does so in an exagerated and romantic way: an unrelenting climb and push to business success that moved so rapidly and excitedly that spiritual self-fulfillment was often remiss. This is an honest and direct chronicle of a very "hip" life. And now, at last, Yetnikoff is attempting to come to terms with himself, and - to his credit - with no lack of humour and a respectable but not overly synthetic underlying amount of remorse. You may not agree with his excesses and some of the decisions he has made in his life, but you have to admire the journey. The tidbits of info on the major music personalities emphasize the fact that no matter how famous (or infamous) people become - they share many of the same problems, needs, and desires we all have. Thanks, Walter - you produced a good, entertaining and honest read.