Billion dollar baby / Bob Greene.
| Author/creator | Greene, Bob, 1947- |
| Format | Book |
| Edition | First edition. |
| Publication Info | New York : Atheneum, 1974. |
| Description | 364 pages, 4 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Subjects |
| Abstract | Most of the gaudy aspects of our future-shocked world--the sexuality, the titillation of forbidden pleasures, the triumph of money over taste, the fascination with travel--are seen in their harshest light on a rock-and-roll tour by a giant band. To experience this phenomenon firsthand, Bob Greene, the prodigious 27-year-old columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, joined the infamous Alice Cooper band in the winter of 1973 as a performing member of their Holiday Tour stage show. From the inside, and with an uncanny eye for the wild comedy, the surprising pathos and the rambunctious drama of the spectacle, Mr. Greene draws the reader into the middle of an incredible world: a world of marathon recording sessions in New York studios, of dope and liquor and lavish hotel suites and thousands of fans screaming your name and nocturnal raps on the door from teen-age girls who adore you; a world of charter flights on luxurious private jets, of conniving and cruelty and planned outrage. All the while, we are moved to share Mr. Greene's divided feelings of guilt and relation, repulsion and camaraderie, as he becomes an intimate and confidant of the band, and his sense of pride as he masters his role on stage--that of Santa Claus, whom the band beats and stomps to death as a finale. Rock-and-roll stardom is the most modern of success stories, and Mr. Green demonstrates convincingly that the Alice Cooper band is the most significant and revealing success of all. |
| General note | Includes brief biography of Bob Greene on page following text. |
| Biographical note | Bob Greene is a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. His thrice-weekly reports and commentary are distributed to more than 100 other newspapers. He is the author of Running: A Nixon-McGovern Campaign Journal, and of We Didn't Have None of Them Fat Funky Angels on the Wall of Heartbreak Hotel, and Other Reports from America. His articles have appeared in Newsweek, Harper's, Audience, Rolling Stone, New Times, Sport, and The New York Times, and his commentary has been featured on the CBS radio and television networks. |