Product Description

In this entertaining biography, Levinson highlights Riddle's song-writing accomplishments that had singers topping the charts. By 1953, Frank Sinatra's record sales had plummeted, his TV show was canceled, and MGM dropped him. But his career took on new life and artistic depth after he recorded a series of albums with Riddle, whose intelligent, seductive arrangements have become American classics. Aside from Sinatra, Riddle worked with Nat King Cole (on almost all of his most famous singles) and Ella Fitzgerald (in her American Songbook collections), as well as with Judy Garland, Rosemary Clooney and Johnny Mathis. He scored such films as the original Ocean's 11, Can-Can and The Great Gatsby, for which he received an Oscar. Levinson, a longtime friend of Riddle and a respected jazz publicist, meticulously narrates Riddle's personal life and charts the importance and enormous breadth of the arranger's career. While the narrative covers salient aspects of Riddle's life (his relationship with his cold, autocratic mother, his affair with Rosemary Clooney, the disintegration of his once-happy marriage and an underlying depression throughout his life), Levinson's analysis of his work and the music industry give the book both its vitality and enormous value.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #577585 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-01
• Released on: 2001-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this entertaining biography, Levinson (Trumpet Blues: The Life of Harry James) highlights Riddle's song-writing accomplishments that had singers topping the charts. By 1953, Levinson writes, "the only thing about Frank Sinatra that sparkled was the superb cap job done on his teeth ten years earlier" record sales plummeted, his TV show was canceled, and MGM dropped him. But his career took on new life and artistic depth after he recorded a series of albums with Riddle, whose intelligent, seductive arrangements have become American classics. Aside from Sinatra, Riddle worked with Nat "King" Cole (on almost all of his most famous singles) and Ella Fitzgerald (in her American Songbook collections), as well as with Judy Garland, Rosemary Clooney and Johnny Mathis. He scored such films as the original Ocean's 11, Can-Can and The Great Gatsby, for which he received an Oscar. Levinson, a longtime friend of Riddle and a respected jazz publicist, meticulously narrates Riddle's often strife-torn personal life and charts the importance and enormous breadth of the arranger's career. While the narrative covers salient aspects of Riddle's life (his relationship with his cold, autocratic mother, his affair with Rosemary Clooney, the disintegration of his once-happy marriage and an underlying depression throughout his life), Levinson's analysis of his work and the music industry give the book both its vitality and enormous value. Always lively and written with a deep understanding of the economic, political and emotional complexities of the music business, this is an important addition to the history of American popular culture.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Levinson (Trumpet Blues: The Life of Harry James) has written the first full-length biography of the man The Encyclopedia of Popular Music calls "probably the finest arranger/leader of modern times." Well rounded and fascinating, the book charts Riddle's evolution from Big Band trombonist to premier arranger to film and TV composer. Much of Nat "King" Cole's and Frank Sinatra's best work was done in collaboration with Riddle. Since he worked with so many pop music icons, the book also serves as an important general history of popular music from the Big Band era to the mid-1980s, when Riddle worked with Linda Ronstadt. Riddle himself emerges as a sad, dour man who, while self-effacing in the main, was capable of viciousness in his relations with those nearest to him. The book is especially valuable for the light it sheds on the place of the arranger in pop music as well as the sometimes murky matter of credit (early in his career, Riddle ghostwrote several hit arrangements and later may have used ghostwriters himself). Recommended for all libraries with an interest in popular culture. Bruce R. Schueneman, Texas A&M Univ. Lib., Kingsville
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Steve Eddy, Orange County Register, October 1, 2001
"September in the Rain" is as much a work of art as were Riddle's splendid arrangements.

Customer Reviews

A Long Overdue Tribute to the Greatest Arranger
This is a long-overdue biography of the greatest of the musical arrangers of the great period of adult pop music in the 1950s and 1960s. Much has been made of Riddle's contribution to the careers of Sinatra, Cole, Fitzgerald in re-issued album liner notes, but little has been said about Riddle the man and musician independently in his own right. This book goes a long way to redressing the balance.

Unfortunately, arrangers are often the unsung heroes of pop music. They received little public recognition for their outstanding work which is often as intrinsically important to the interpretation of a song as the sheet music, lyrics and the singer themselves. It is nice that Riddle receives a lot of praise here.

The information in the book is mostly cogent and informative. Levinson unfortunately makes some errors that indicates that he (and the editor) is not familiar with all Riddle's work i.e. he says that Riddle's arrangement of "When You're Lover Has Gone" for Sue Raney is upbeat in contrast to Keely Smith's 'downer' arrangement. In fact, the opposite is true; mistakes like this are annoying to a music fan as these works are great Riddle arrangements.

Levinson also glosses over certain pieces of work; Nelson's arrangements for Shirley Bassey and Danny Williams are hardly mentioned. Nelson's arrangement of "What Now My Love" played a big part in Bassey's first breakthrough into pop's top echelon.

Generally, however, this book is a good overview of Riddle's life and career. A detailed discography (LP and CD-reissues) would have been a nice touch and certain areas would have benefitted from more detail but on the whole this is a very worthy endeavour.

Based on over two hundred personal interviews
Few may recall Nelson Riddle, but he produced the music which made Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and other vocalists famous. Peter Levinson's September In The Rain is based on over two hundred personal interviews with Riddle's friends and family and discusses his life and many contributions.

Disappointing
In comparison with Levinson's book on Harry James (superb) this is disappointing. Levinson admittedly has a problem with Riddle himself, who comes across as a dour, insecure, often bitter, man. He turns-out not to be a great subject, which is a pity, given his undeniable influence on some of the best American popular music of the century. There are some interesting insights into his work with Dorsey, Cole and Sinatra in particular, though I felt the book concentrated too much on the difficulties of his relationship with Sinatra. I don't think any Sinatra fan would deny Riddle's enormous influence on Sinatra's work. Without Sinatra, however, it seems unlikely Riddle would be remembered as he is today. Sinatra, probably more than any other performer, took pains to compliment the work of his arrangers, especially on stage. Riddle and Peter Levinson, unfortunately, appear to have undervalued this. It's certainly worth a read as a contribution to the, fortunately, growing body of literature on the swing era and the big bands, but Trumpet Blues is far superior.