What a Wonderful World: A Lifetime of Recordings

By Bob Thiele

Book Overview

Music industry legend Bob Thiele will never forget the first time he heard a demo tape from a group of unknowns from New Mexico billed as Buddy Holly and the Crickets. "I was never as confident in my life anything would be a hit record as I was about 'That'll Be the Day'," remembers the record executive and producer who also worked with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jackie Wilson, Henry Mancini, and a constellation of other greats on some of their most memorable recordings. But Thiele's employers at Coral Records wouldn't touch Holly and his "hillbilly garbage," and neither would any of the big major labels. Finally Thiele convinced the powers that be at Coral that they just had to release "That'll Be the Day," if only to keep him happy. The result was a monster hit that launched Holly's career and stayed on the charts for half a year.
The discovery of Buddy Holly is just one of the riveting stories Thiele has to tell in What a Wonderful World, a rollicking, no-holds-barred account of an unforgettable life in music, as told to Thiele's friend and collaborator Bob Golden. Over a still-ongoing career spanning six decades, Thiele has been a musician, dance band leader, publisher of one of the first jazz magazines in the world, a record producer, a DJ, a record label owner (several times), an A & R man, and a songwriter. Indeed, Thiele's songwriting credits include the beloved Armstrong classic from which this book takes its title. From his precocious adolescence in Queens, where he began hosting his first radio jazz show at the tender age of 14, Thiele's career has been driven and defined by a genuine love and respect for great music. He tells how he discovered Jackie Wilson, jazz immortal Erroll Garner, Buddy Holly, and others, and takes readers behind-the-scenes to legendary recording sessions with Ellington, Armstrong, John Coltrane, Teresa Brewer (Thiele's wife of 26 years), Jack Kerouac, Steve Allen, the McGuire Sisters, Pat Boone, Frankie Laine, and many other artists. Thiele captures the free-wheeling, anything-could-happen-and-usually-did atmosphere of the jazz and pop recording worlds of decades gone by, and shares uproarious recollections of the heavy-hitting movers and shakers he has locked horns with over the years. Equally important, as an enduring and inventive force in American music, Thiele offers candid and perceptive observations on the increasing corporatization of the business he loves.
A fascinating journey from the days before rock 'n' roll to today, What a Wonderful World could only have been written by a true insider's insider. It will delight music lovers everywhere.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195086295
• ISBN13: 9780195086294
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 1.14 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

A nice ramble

I just re-read this book after several years and it is still an enjoyable and informative read. It's a memoir, a remenisance, not a history book or a scholarly effort. As such it is full of revealing anecdotes and amusing stories from one who has worked with some of the biggest (and smallest) artists and most powerful (and least) industry insiders through what may be considered pop recording's golden age. The chapters are short and topical, usually dedicated to some particular artist. It also has some of the usual failings. Thiele has axes to grind, old wounds that have not healed. But he is also justifiably proud of some of his accomplishments and painfully aware of some of his foibles. His style is occasionally full of the kind of bluster that must have helped him in his dealings with the music business and he can be just over the top pompous in describing some of the artists and recordings. Record producers are middle men, riding herd on cats and, at their best, trying to reconcile the often irreconcilable interest of the artists and the music business. They don't make music, they make records and in fact, if you talk to a recording engineer, they don't make recordings either. But the producer leaves his mark on recordings, especially over a body of recordings. Jazz producers, I think with some justification, are a breed apart. For those reasons, Thiele's book makes an interesting comparison to jazz producer Orrin Keepnews' memoir "The View from within" published nearly 10 years earlier. Both are music businessmen and consider themselves jazz lovers at heart. They share many experiences but they could not be more different in style (style of writing, and of producing). Both started small labels but Thiele went large scale corporate while Keepnews stayed in the bullpen of the big leagues. But where Thiele is wide open and effusive, Keepnews is thorny and buttoned down. Thiele rambles, Keepnews belabors. Both love the music, both experimented and pushed limits. But while Thiele had no compunction about producing a pop-jazz cash cow, Keepnews, though open-minded, was conservative and a purist at heart. Keepnews will talk to you about jazz music, Thiele will talk to you about jazz records. The difference in their style is as apparent in their recordings as it is in their books. Finally, both have produced some of the finest recorded jazz of the day and like them or not, we have the producers to thank for much of the recorded legacy that has come down to us.

TOP-FLIGHT BOOK ABOUT THE RECORD BUSINESS

Bob Thiele's career makes for very entertaining reading. Ranging from the great jazz artists of the 1940's to rock & rollers like Buddy Holly, Bob played a large part in many notable careers. I was especially touched by the love story of Bob and singer Teresa Brewer --- who eventually became Mrs. Thiele --- and thoroughly fascinated by the incredible behind the scenes machinations (sometimes funny, sometimes deadly), of the music business. Most particularly the attempts by mobsters to take control of popular singer Alan Dale, and Dale's stubborn refusal to submit. Thiele claims that this cost Dale his career, and almost his life. A fascinating book from one of show business' "good guys".