Somebody to Love? by Andrea Cagan, Grace Slick (1999, Paperback)

Is it OK that I don't love this book? No, really! I loved Grace. I found the book fascinating. But it was sorely lacking a vital aspect.

I'm not a celebrity-worshipping kind of dude. I love music, and I love singers who sing, not who babble on the media. It used to be that I couldn't avoid hearing their opinions, since I used to watch the teevee. But I've learned to avoid it and the babblers with my advancing age and more practiced tunnel vision. Grace is different! I had to read her autobiography because she was the most fascinating artist, both musically and politically, in a certain period of my life. The book is far more recent than that "certain period," and I had some checking up to do...

Seems Grace had a youth, too. She has a brother (he's a banker!). She went to school. She had a life, some problems, some resolutions, some men (alright, a lot of men), some alcohol and some drugs, and managed to survive long enough to write the book and beyond. I think she's making arts now, but, sadly, she is no longer singing.

Which brings me to the point: Grace Slick is one of the best EVER rock and roll singers. Maybe not the bluesiest (fortunately) but she had an amazing voice, one which even the exquisite Darby Gould and equally exquisite Diana Mangano, her "replacements" in the current generation of Jefferson Starship can't quite equal. (Emphasis on that "quite" - they are both spectacular.) Which has what to do with the book I'm reviewing? Well, amidst all the babble and the gossip, Grace, in effect, talks about her singing thus:

"I stated singing with this band, see, and they liked me..."

I paid to find that out? The best singer of her age, and that's all we read about her talent? What kind of autobiography is that? It answered all my other questions (and MANY that I didn't have and didn't "need to know.") But it didn't answer the most important one: Where did she learn to sing like that? With what anti-deity did she strike a bargain? And so, Grace - and I know how devastated you will be when you discover this - I'm only issuing a "good" instead of an "excellent" in this review.

But I still worship you, OK?