Ace Collins Books

This is a great little book. It tells the origins of 65 famous gospel songs as well as inspiring stories about the songwriters. There are no actual music scores or lyrics, but the song titles are all familiar tunes to Christian gospel lovers, young and old. When friends of Albert Burnley would hear his songs on the radio, they would call him and say, "Albert, turn your radio on." Soon, he wrote one of his best loved songs, "Turn Your Radio On"; and hence the title of this collection of stories. If you love gospel music, you will love this book. Stories are told about Andrae Crouch, Dottie Rambo, Bill and Gloria Gaither, George Beverly Shea, Rusty Goodman, just to mention a few. All the great gospel songwriters are here. Order now for youself or as a great gift. Lynn Rouse

In scanning the book's index, I was surprised that there was no reference to Fred Waring and his musical organization, the Pennsylvanians, and their relationship with "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Having been a member of the Pennsylvanians, I know for a fact that it was Waring and his choral arranger Roy Ringwald who are responsible for re-discovering this obscure Civil War hymn and featuring it on one of their Chesterfield Pleasure Time broadcasts in the early 1940's. Singlehandedly, Waring brought this stirring patriotic anthem to the public consciousness, and from that point on he featured "Battle Hymn" as the closing song in all of his live concerts. Yet, there is no hint that these accounts are even mentioned in the book, which makes me doubt the research done by the author. I will pass on purchasing it.

Wonderful little book, a joy to read about all the great hymns.

The stories are accurate and interesting. There is no sheet music and I do not miss it. I have found the stories useful as fodder for comments I make when playing music for audiences. There are several other similar books, all good, but I sure wish there were a lot more by this author. There is one about Christmas music, but two are still not enough.

As a previous reviewer mentioned, this book contains some factual errors that make its overall accuracy seem questionable. This is a shame, since it's a fun little read-- each song gets two or three pages that describe how it was written, who recorded it (including alternate covers that weren't as successul as its best-known version), how it became popular, and what became of the singers' and songwriters' careers afterward.

I would've liked to give it another star, but I was really disappointed that it didn't have more supporting material-- at the very least, an index would've made it easier to look up specific songwriters/artists; a brief appendix rearranging the songs into chronological order also would've been nice. A discography definitely would've made it easier to actually find recordings of individual songs, and it's too bad the author didn't team up with Rhino Records or someone else who could've assembled a companion CD set.

Sorry for the title, but if you like pathetic quips like that, you may enjoy this book. However, if you really want to learn about novelty music and pop culture, look somewhere else. The chapters that I have read (i dont intend to read more) were either poorly researched or just poorly written.

For example, the section on Weird Al Yankovic's song Eat It, Yankovic was incorrectly said to be from New York, the chronology of his music career was mis-represented, and the author actually confused the video of Yankovic's Eat It with his video for Fat.

The chapter on Shel Silverstein gave a lot of vague comments, but said nothing about his work as a poet or his work with Dr. Hook.

Other chapters also confused or neglected facts, although I admittedly did not bother to read many of them. I am sure that some of the information in this book is acurate, but why bother with a halfway attempt at a biography. Anyone siting facts from this book to a real expert will probably look very foolish.
If you want mildly amusing fiction, then here you go, but if you want to know un-dilluted facts, forget it.

This book gives the backstory for dozens of novelty songs and one hit wonders. The writer tells their stories with a marvelous sense of irony and delight: that the singers of Lions Sleep Tonight used to sing the Zulu lyrics without a clue what the song was about, that Convoy was sung by a classically trained art director, that La Macarena was big in South America in the early 1990's (well before it become big in Europe or the US), or that the Hokey Pokey was the B-Side for the Bunny Hop.

Reading this story gives an appreciation for the effort to produce these one-hit wonders and the sheer surprise that was involved in their becoming famous. Interestingly, throughout the book, Collins alludes to dj's and local radio stations that took a chance with one of these songs, something that is difficult to do when clearchannel uses carefully controlled market-driven playlists. This is one of these books with fascinating stories that you will not want to put down.

Parts of Lorrie's life are described in this book. It's not as in-depth as her own biography, of course. I like the description of her relationship with her Dad. It's touching. I also like the description of Tanya Tucker's early fame and how she seemed to overshadow Lorrie - although Lorrie had more Opry experience under her belt at the time. Lorrie's pretty awesome. This book tells of that.

I'm going to assume that you have more than a passing interest in country music or you wouldn't be reading this, so I'll make this simple. Each of the 100 songs that Collins has chosen gets a writeup of about 2-3 pages each. Collins' emphasis is on the songs themselves, so he doesn't spend as much time talking about the artists who recorded them as the songsmiths who came up with them (unless they're one and the same, as in Charlie Daniels' case for "The Devil Went Down to Georgia").

PROS:
Lots of little-known tidbits for all but dyed in the wool country fanatics such as Vernon Dalhart, the first country superstar, was actually opera singer Marion Slaughter. Did you realize "I'm Thinking Tonight of my Blue Eyes" (1929),"The Great Speckled Bird" (1938) ,"The Wild Side of Life" (1952), and "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels" (1952) are all based around the same music? Did you know "Orange Blossom Special" is more or less an ad?

CONS:
In attempting to include some "modern songs", Collins has written about tunes of dubious "all-time greatest" value:
Alabama's "Tennessee River" and Hank Jr's "Are You Ready for Some Football?" are two of the most glaring examples.

He also tends to include songs for what he feels is their "importance" in breaking new ground, which may or may not coincide with their relative worth as country classics. Barbara Mandrell may have bust a taboo for women singing "cheating" songs with 1973 hit "Midnight Oil" as Collins says but that doesn't mean it's legitimately one of the 100 best country songs EVER penned.

I would also say the inclusion of Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire" and the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love" are suspect too. They may be great SONGS but they're not great COUNTRY songs, regardless of the Everlys' occasional country cuts (on other songs) and the Killer's later turn to twang after his marriage to Myra sabotaged his rock career.

BOTTOM LINE:
It's good for a one time read but probably not one you'll feel a compelling need to own.

Though the songs may not be the 100 I would have chosen, I love this little book. The stories behind them are well-written, with background on both the writer and the original performer(s). The only problem I can see is that there are only 100! Here's hoping Mr. Collins produces a second volume, because the first is great.

The book was a little rough to read, it's not for light hearted readers.

I'm a big fan of the natural disaster genre. In fact, I may be writing my thesis on it. It isn't as though I was expecting a scholarly, exact, detailed retelling of the events in "Tragedies of American History"; I think it's clear from the beginning that the book is intended for popular audiences, and there's nothing wrong with that.

However, there is something wrong with the disrespectful writing style in this book. Bad writing either fails to convey the author's intent, or it can strip all meaning from serious events. In this case, I am speaking of the latter. Collins may well be a good writer - anyone who hammers out that many decapitations of children in such detail that I, viewer of a thousand Triangle Shirtwaist photos, actually get nauseous reading it must be skilled at description. But part of writing, particularly in nonfiction, is also maintaining a level of decency in your prose. Not only does Collins fail to do this in such a degree as to potentially be emotionally scarring to anyone who reads the book, but the lurid narration destroys any possible meaning one can take from this book or the tragedies the narratives are based on. (I say "based on" because there is many a conjecture made that any responsible nonfiction writer would avoid making.) What is so frustrating about all of this is that if Collins can convey horror this well, he should drop the pretense and just write prose. He'd outsell Stephen King in a minute, and manage to not be disrespectful to the memories of those who died in these tragedies.

If you really enjoy detail on what it must feel like for a terrified 7-year-old to be roasted alive, by all means, pick up the book. If decapitations turn you on, this is perfect. But this book has no value; it is merely an exercise in the pornography of human frailty.

The biography is detailed, interesting, and there are many pictures. I don't know what "lazy writing" means, but my focus was on the man, not the author.

Clearly Evel knew his faults, but he found a way to make a living knowing his physical health would suffer and he'd be in pain for the rest of his life. His last stunt was taking a baseball bat to his promoter, who was also his lawyer, a mistake he would regret for the rest of his life. (The lawyer is going after what remains of Evel's estate.)

I can't say the writing is bad, just the subject. An American Hero ? A womenizing, boozing, petty thief and con-man a hero, I don't think so, probably a fun guy to hang out with.. but no hero.

Nobody's demanding Boswell's Life of Johnson here, but Collins has fashioned a hazily-remembered, lazily-written biography of one of the 1970s most singular public figures. Where's the index or bibliography? Where's the list of sources? Who proofread this book (the word "athlete" is misspelled -- on the back cover, yet!)? I never thought I'd utter this phrase in public, but: Evel Knievel deserves better.

Evel Knevel has written a lively and engaging book that tells about his halcyon days stealing money from people cracking safes in the 1960s.The cops knew I did it, he says, but never caught him. Now he and his son charge the culturally deprived a lot of money to see motorcycle stunts. What a country! What a hero!

I agree with a previous reviewer who said this was a completely lazily-written book. Whether or not you approve of Evel's behavior, his life was anything but boring. Yet the tedious and poor writing style of this author tells Knievel's story in a way that's about as interesting as reading the White Pages upside down. It's unbelievable that a national publisher would print a book this sloppy. In addition to being poorly-written, it appears as though no one even proofread it. Repetition and typos abound. And it seems to be based on not much more than re-hashed facts from a few feature articles written about Knievel in big magazines in the 1970s (and maybe the foggy recollection of the hokey Evel Knievel biopic from 1971). Grammatically, this is possibly the most poorly-written book I have read in my adult life. As far as telling a story in general, it gets even worse marks. I can't believe someone got paid to write this. It really is THAT bad. And I LIKE Evel Knievel!

Hard to say where the author got his information, since he doesn't bother with a bibliography, but he would have benefitted from reading actual scholarship on calendar customs rather than reproducing such popular claptrap as the so-called Celtic Tree Calendar and the notion of a goddess named Easter/Eostre--speculation by Bede more than verified tradition. To his credit, the author embraces traditional non-Christian customs of the seasons such as eggs and bunnies by saying they are appropriate celebrations of renewal, helping the celebrants to the "true" message of the Resurrection. A quibbler might point out that the Resurrection itself can be seen as merely symbolic of Spring renewal, just like any of these other customs, but Collins's way does allow for the protection of such secular traditions. He appears to be on firmer ground with his chapters on hymns, and provides a number of interesting stories of their origins.

After reading the book, I felt very sorry for Pam. Not because of anything that did or did not happen in her life, but rather because she's the victim of a poorly written bio. There's very little personal revelation, particularly with regard to her adult life. There's just a lot of repetitive stuff about her professional work and the struggle getting to the top - "Oh woe is me, no one in country wants to accept me as a rocker. Why can't Reba paint the way for me" Whatever. The author really does an injustice to Pam making her sound like a whiny little follower.

Pam is a great talent. I don't believe the book is an accurate record of her life.