THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 15, 1996 TAG: 9602150047
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
SHOW-BUSINESS memoirs abound, but few are as down to earth as ``Miss Rhythm: The Autobiography of Ruth Brown, Rhythm and Blues Legend'' (Donald I. Fine, 360 pp., $23.95).
Whether recalling her glory days as one of the most beloved R&B artists of the '50s, or her long slide back into near-poverty in the '60s and '70s, the Portsmouth native tells it all with humor and pride. By the time her narrative reaches the second wind that her career conjured in the late '80s, her tenacity makes her return seem all but inevitable. The strength that radiates from these pages (coauthored with Andrew Yule) also fuels the battle she waged against the music business for royalty reform to benefit older stars.
Brown's stories of dishonest industry practices are likely to widen the eyes of even those familiar with past accounts of record-company venality. She tells of slipshod and outright negligent accounting on the part of Atlantic, a major label. Her contributions to the corporation's well-being largely ignored, Brown pressed on with the aid of lawyer Howell Begle. Their campaign led to the birth of the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, and tolarge-scale reparations.
While all this was going on, Brown also experienceda career renaissance she might never have imagined. Grammy and Tony awards came her way for the album ``Blues on Broadway'' and a role in the musical ``Black and Blue.'' Despite such trophies, heartache and ill health dogged her trail. The deaths of her mother and ex-husband Willis ``Gator Tail'' Jackson add a melancholy tint to her remembrances of finding the limelight again. Even here, though, Brown knows the difference between sorrow and simply feeling sorry for oneself. She bears it all with characteristic dignity.
``Miss Rhythm,'' in the end, speaks not only for Ruth Brown but for the long list of colleagues who have benefited from her never-say-die approach to righting business wrongs. Despite her pain, it's a remarkably buoyant book, one that reflects the 68-year-old singer's embrace of life. Packed with vivid glimpses of life in Portsmouth and her later years on the road with the likes of Count Basie and Clyde McPhatter, it fills the reader with awe at those bygone days - and all they contributed to our own lives.
- Rickey Wright by CNB