Art Pepper's Widow Laurie
Tells the Rest of the Story
In the Companion Volume to
Classic Jazz Bio Straight Life,"ART: Why I Stuck with a Junkie Jazzman,"
To Be Published May 16
Tells the Rest of the Story
In the Companion Volume to
Classic Jazz Bio Straight Life,"ART: Why I Stuck with a Junkie Jazzman,"
To Be Published May 16
May 5, 2014
Art Pepper
told his sexy, sordid, and exciting true adventure stories to his
lover, Laurie, who put them in a book. She quizzed him (and those who
knew him) unrelentingly over seven years, editing and structuring a
narrative to which she dedicated all her energy.
Straight Life by Art and Laurie Pepper
(Da Capo) was published in 1979. It was a critical success and remains a
classic of its kind, the subject of college literary and music studies.
Laurie went on to marry Art and manage his resurgent career, touring
the world with his band. "Why I Stuck with a Junkie Jazzman" was the
headline some editor gave a newspaper interview Laurie did while the
band was in Australia in 1981, and she's now stolen "that perfect title"
for her memoir.
ART: Why I Stuck with a Junkie Jazzman
(APMCorp) describes her marriage to the deeply troubled, drug-addicted,
madly gifted artist. "That marriage was the making of me," says Laurie.
"Some people go to grad school or join the Marines. I married a genius
who valued and inspired me and challenged me to use MY gifts. We had a
difficult, powerful partnership. I had to tell that story." She says she
also needs to set the record straight and clarify her role: "People
think I was some kind of little wifey-saint who rescued him. And Art
encouraged them in that. But he knew how truly crazy I could be. We
rescued each other."
Laurie Pepper
was born in 1940 in Los Angeles to a family of radicals and artists.
She grew up in New York and Los Angeles, attended U.C. Berkeley, and was
photographer for the legendary L.A. Free Press during the
1960s but went astray and wound up in rehab where she met Art Pepper.
Since Art's death in 1982, she has continued to produce and promote his
music. Her very small label, Widow's Taste, has released a new album of previously unreleased Art Pepper performances every year since 2006.
ART will be available from Amazon in paperback on May 16
-- on Art and Laurie's wedding anniversary. It consists of 382 pages,
with approximately 100 photos and a complete index. It will sell, in the
U.S., for $20.00. An E-book version will be available on June 16, and a downloadable audiobook will be released on November 16 along with a CD release of some of the key Art Pepper performances Laurie describes in the memoir. *
Advance Praise for ART
--Michael Connelly, Author of the Harry Bosch series of novels
"I was no angel," Laurie Pepper advises at the start of this stingingly
candid memoir, and in truth she is a wonderfully devilish writer, her
pen a razor dipped in sulfur, her memory a lead-lined cave from which
nothing escapes or goes unexamined. Everyone who knows the skillful
craftsmanship she brought to Straight Life, the masterpiece she
made of Art Pepper's life, will find it here again, in service to her
own story, which would be reason enough to celebrate this gripping book.
But there is another: a wittingly different perspective on Art's
tale--this good wife was every inch his match.
--Gary Giddins, Author of Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams and Celebrating Bird
Music,
love, gossip--along with mania and addiction, pain and calamity: Laurie
Pepper writes with grace and candor about all of it. Joining Straight Life
as one of the best jazz lives, and telling the story behind that great
story, her new book deserves all the meanings of "Art" in its title.
--Robert Pinsky, Poet
Read the introduction to ART here.
Photo credits: Phil Bray (book cover), Hugh Kenny (Laurie), Herb Nolan (Laurie & Art).
Web Sites:artpepper.net
Follow Laurie:
Media Contact:
510-234-8781
hudba@sbcglobal.net
www.terrihinte.com
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