Additional information
by Ben Sidrin (Author), Georgie Fame
Cool Cat Blues tells the story of singer / pianist Georgie Fame, his dramatic rise from modest beginnings in the industrial North of England to become one of the first musicians to deliver black American music to the British scene during the swinging '60s. Born Clive Powell, in Leigh, Lancashire, Fame left school at 16 to work in a cotton mill and play this new music, arriving in a few short years at the top of the British pop charts, a radio and television celebrity married to a marchioness and a fixture in the rooms where swinging London happened. Fame's life is history lived large.
Through conversations and correspondence, Ben Sidran traces Fame's story from his long days touring the back roads of England and his early residency at London's infamous Flamingo Club, where the future members of the "British invasion" gathered to hear the musical news from the U.S. Fame went on to gain three UK No. 1 chart hits and become a musical avatar to generations of British musicians, combining his distinguished solo career with numerous collaborators, including Alan Price, Jon Hendricks, Mose Allison, Van Morrison and Bill Wyman, recording with Muddy Waters, touring with the Count Basie Orchestra, and being memorialised in song by jazz singer Blossom Dearie.
As Sidran writes, "what emerges here is a picture of a man launched into the heart of a cultural revolution, holding close to music, his first passion and the object of his desire, for survival, legitimacy and honour. It is, at bottom, a tale about coming home, long after all the addresses have been changed."
Author Biography
Ben Sidran is widely recognized as the host of National Public Radio's landmark jazz series "Jazz Alive", which received a Peabody Award, and as the host of VH-1 television's "New Visions" series, which received the Ace Award for best music series. A pianist, producer, singer and composer, he has recorded forty solo albums, including the Grammy nominated Concert for Garcia Lorca, and produced recordings for such noted artists as Van Morrison, Diana Ross, Michael Franks, Rickie Lee Jones, Mose Allison and Steve Miller (with whom he co-wrote the hit song "Space Cowboy"). He is the composer of the soundtrack for the acclaimed film Hoop Dreams, and scored the documentary Vietnam: Long Time Coming, which won both the Aspen Film Festival audience award and an Emmy. Sidran has authored two books on the subject of jazz, Black Talk, a cultural history of the music, and Talking Jazz, a series of conversations with inspirational musicians. He holds a PhD. in American Studies from Sussex University, Brighton, England, but has studiously avoided the academic life, preferring instead to spend his time performing, producing and writing. His written works include the memoir, A Life in the Music, the groundbreaking sociology text There Was a Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream and the acclaimed biography, The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma; his most recent recordings include Dylan Different, Don't Cry For No Hipster, Picture Him Happy, Ben There Done That, Who's the Old Guy Now, and Swing State.
