Upcoming Motown books

I thought perhaps I would update this thread as I hear about new Motown-related books being released, and would invite anyone else to update as they hear.

One is the new David Ruffin bio written by his family, being discussed on the forum here. Self-published and released by the family.

The other caught me by surprise...a new autobiography of Rick James co-written with David Ritz [[aka David Ritz wrote it and Rick James checked in one a month to see how it was going lol). This will be Rick's second memoir published since he passed away! Ritz's involvement is a plus though, definitely looking forward to this one.

Let's not forget about the forthcoming book on Rick James by the esteemed Peter Benjaminson. Remember he wrote the first real Story of Motown which by all means is the greatest book ever published on Motown as well as numerous books on Florence Ballard and Mary Wells. Peter is in my opinion the most knowledgeable person on Motown and don't forget he was working in Detroit during the golden era. I understand this book will be super colossal. Keep an eye out for it. You won't be disappointed.

I think Ritz is a great writer. His biography of Marvin Gaye was thoroughly researched and well written. I give Benjaminson a lot of credit for his early book "The Story of Motown," it probably was the first book I ever bought about Motown, but I think his biography of Wells was really just a recitation of facts and didn't help the reader understand Wells or what motivated her any better than before. I'll wait for the Ritz bio on James.

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Originally Posted by woodward

Let's not forget about the forthcoming book on Rick James by the esteemed Peter Benjaminson. Remember he wrote the first real Story of Motown which by all means is the greatest book ever published on Motown as well as numerous books on Florence Ballard and Mary Wells. Peter is in my opinion the most knowledgeable person on Motown and don't forget he was working in Detroit during the golden era. I understand this book will be super colossal. Keep an eye out for it. You won't be disappointed.

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Haven't heard a single thing about any upcoming books from him! Any idea on when his is coming out?

I dare ask: will we ever get a book from Cindy Birdsong?

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Originally Posted by kenneth

I think Ritz is a great writer

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You're right Kenneth, his biographies of Bettye Lavette and Etta James are the best ones I ever read, period.

Somebody needs to write a biography of Teena Marie, IMO...

So I read Glow last month...definitely worth checking out if you haven't already! Rick has a lot of nice things to say about his fellow Motown artists [[he saves his shade for Prince and George Clinton lol) and a lot of gossip as well.