Notes from a Battered Grand: A Memoir/Fifty Years of Music, from Honky-Tonk to High Society

Rating:
Summary: Excellent personal story of musical adventures!
Review: Don Asher's memoir is a fascinating story of a life which has covered miles of wearying road trips, decades of performances, and thousands of performers, well-known and obscure. I felt as though I were traveling with him and his musical cohorts as they moved from party to party, club to club. I felt his drive to experience all that he could of black musicians' unique styles, even whether it meant risking life and limb in unsavory parts of town or playing his best for acceptance on those stages where his idols performed. A simply wonderful book which will stay with the reader for its memorable descriptions of decrepit pianos, drunken, yet talented musicians, and a changing musical scene.

Rating:
Summary: Well written -- the life of a working musician!
Review: I read this book in two days. It is an outstanding slice of life. Don Asher has spent his whole working life as a piano player (50 yrs plus). You'll be entertained by the story: from music lessons at age nine, to playing dives in and around Worcester, Mass. as a teenager, to a tour through small town resorts with a well-lubricated Providence, RI dance band ("Alvie Drake and His Rythm Ducks") in his twenties, and more. An enjoyable, often humorous, self-effacing and believable portrait of life as a professional piano player. As a writer -- Asher has chops!

Rating:
Summary: Well written -- the life of a working musician!
Review: I read this book in two days. It is an outstanding slice of life. Don Asher has spent his whole working life as a piano player (50 yrs plus). You'll be entertained by the story: from music lessons at age nine, to playing dives in and around Worcester, Mass. as a teenager, to a tour through small town resorts with a well-lubricated Providence, RI dance band ("Alvie Drake and His Rythm Ducks") in his twenties, and more. An enjoyable, often humorous, self-effacing and believable portrait of life as a professional piano player. As a writer -- Asher has chops!