Author:Alan Jones,Jussi Kantonen
If all disco means to you is records like 'I Will Survive' and 'YMCA', tacky fashions and glitter eyeshadow, this book will be a real revelation. For Alan Jones and Jussi Kantonen, disco was an essential soundtrack to their lives. They loved its total hedonistic excess, its drive, its punch and its sweet, catchy melodies. For every chart hit that pounded into the public's consciousness, countless other better tracks were causing hair-raising highs on dance floors where Alan and Jussi and thousands of aficionados like them were strutting their funky stuff.
Disco started in obscure underground clubs as a glamour-filled reaction to the plodding, self-indulgent rock music of the late '60s and really took off in the excitement-parched early '70s. Created by people marginalised by their colour (black), race (Latino), sexuality (gay) or class (working), the music and its attendant lifestyle inevitably became watered down and distorted once it slipped from the control of small independent labels and became a worldwide craze. The massive popularity of films such as Saturday Night Fever and the accompanying Bee Gees soundtrack led people to believe that this was disco. But the authors, by exploring such diverse strands as Eurodisco and roller disco, gay disco, and disco fashions, drugs and clubs, show this to be untrue, and instead uncover the magical, multi-layered genre in all its shining, strobe-lit glory. They believe in mirror balls.
You Send Me is an excellent work - compelling
—— Financial TimesYou won't buy a better biography all year
—— NME"The best book I've read in a long while. I read it twice in one sitting - it made me howl with laughter and burst into tears."
—— Paul O'Grady"Such a fun read."
Who wouldn't feel a rush of delight to see the stand-up and perennial panel show host Jason Manford peeking out of their Christmas stocking?
—— Independent on SundayCallow's precise prose and sober judgement make this second volume of biography one to be cherished and leaves one eagerly anticipating volume three
—— Michael Arditti , Daily MailCallow's riveting and superlative biography satisfies at every level, and I for one cannot wait for the next volume
—— Frank McLynn , Literary ReviewA vivid, sympathetic account... provides a definitive explanation of Welles's ultimate, lingering downfall
—— Financial TimesI am already looking forward to [the third volume] such is Callow's sympathetic absorption in the mass of material, which he handles with a light and ironic touch, that I found myself utterly hooked... As an actor himself Callow writes illuminatingly about Welles's performances
—— Mail on SundayCallow's enterprise is one of the rarest in publishing. It leaves the reader dry-mouthed with anticipation for his final, third volume
—— Alan Warner , GuardianThe only biog really worth it's salt this year...reliably entertaining, wise and sane
—— Catherine Shoard , Evening StandardWelles’s packed schedule is rifled through with chatty elegance
—— Catherine Shoard , Sunday Telegraph