The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, January 25, 1979, Image 24

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BOOKS
Michener mystified by success
By Peter Van Deventer
United Press International
James Michener visited
Chesapeake Bay in his childhood
and remembered as an adult that
its lush Eastern Shore “cried out
for literary form.” The result: his
current best-selling novel
“Chesapeake.”
“It has a thousand inlets and,
like Scheherazade, you could
spend a thousand nights explor
ing them," marveled the Pulitzer
Prize-winning author. “It cried out
for literary form.”
The novel, the story of three
families spanning four centuries,
has sold nearly a million copies.
Michener says he is mystified by
its success.
“I never thought such a regional
subject as the bay could have
such appeal," he said. “Perhaps I
touched things that were more
universal than I thought. The great
subjects in the book are religion,
slavery and watermen.”
Michener, who has penned
socio-historical fiction about such
diverse places and cultures as
Hawaii, Spain, Hungary, Israel,
and Japan, wrote “Chesapeake”
while living two miles outside the
quiet Chesapeake Bay resort
town of St. Michaels. He moved to
the Eastern Shore from his
Tinicum Township farm in Bucks
County, Pa., three years ago to
learn about watermen.
“I just moved in and waited six
months so that everybody would
get used to me, and then they
were knocking on my door to tell
me stories and I just listened,”
said Michener.
Michener went oystering, turtl-
ing and sailing and then, based on
those experiences and his own
knowledge, created fictitious is
lands, towns and people. He is a
Quaker with a strong sense of the
“brotherhood of man,” so he
made one of the three families in
the book a Quaker family that
fights for equal rights for blacks.
Michener said he gets his
deep-seated desire to travel from
his orphan childhood. After being
cared for by a poor seamstress
during his early years, he began a
hitch-hiking tour of America at 14.
Michener did not write his first
book until he was 40. Now, at 71,
he has 26 to his credit. He also has
taught in high school and college,
edited textbooks, done a stint in
the Navy and campaigned, un
successfully, for Congress.
“I never worried about the fact
that I came to writing late,” he
said. “It was always in the cards. I
jumped around early in life, but I
never left a job. Other jobs always
found me.”
Michener, who writes five hours
a day beginning early in the morn
ing, calls each one of his books a
“one-shot freak.”
“I come to write every book in
an arbitrary, personal way,” he
said.
“There are days I sit here writ
ing and every invitation that
comes in I would give a right arm
to do. I don’t always think writing
books is the most important thing.
But under the circumstances I’m
getting older.”
Michener, who claims he never
sermonizes, said the irony that a
modern-day descendant of the
Quaker family in “Chesapeake”
becomes involved in Watergate
and commits suicide is only “laid
out” for the reader.
Bestsellers
(UPI — Publishers’ Weekly)
NONFICTION
FICTION
1. War and Remembrance —
Herman Wouk
2. Chesapeake — James A.
Michener
3. Fools Die — Mario Puzo
4. The Coup — John Updike
5. The Stories of John Cheever
— John Cheever
6. Second Generation —
Howard Fast
7. Silmarillion —J.R.R. Tolkien
8. Illusions: the Adventures of
a Reluctant Messiah —
Richard Bach
9. Evergreen — Belva Plain
10. The Far Pavilions — M.M.
Kaye
1. Mommie Dearest — Christ
ina Crawford
2. A Distant Mirror — Barbara
Tuchman
3. American Caesar — William
Manchester
4. If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries,
What Am I Doing in the Pits —
Erma Bombeck
5. Faeries — Brian Froud and
Alan Lee
6. Gnomes — Wil Huygen
7. In Search of History —
Theodore White
8. The Complete Book of Run
ning — James Fixx
9. Nurse — Peggy Anderson
10. Jackie Oh! — Kitty Kelley
RECORD COLLECTION
33 1 /3 sale
All Albums & Tapes
Vs Off List Price
Sale Runs Through Jan. 31
211 University Drive
846-3901
MUSIC
Tanya Tucker grows up
By Bruce Meyer
United Press International
For some reason, it’s always a surprise when a child star grows
up. It’s a natural enough thing to happen, of course; it happens to all
of us. But for millions of movie-goers, Shirley Temple will always
have golden curls and a bow in her hair — and Judy Garland will
never grow out of those ruby slippers.
Musicians don’t get age-cast as readily as movie stars, but the
pattern is similar. It took a lot of fans years to figure out that Little
Stevie Wonder had grown up. He had acquired the image of a
precocious kid and, while that gave him a head start in the business,
it forced him to prove himself all over again for the audience as he
matured.
Now Tanya Tucker is going through that same difficult process.
Most people will probably remember Tanya as a 13-yearold coun
try singing sensation, a little cutie with a big, powerful voice and a
stage presence that never failed to startle the audience. Her first
record, “Delta Dawn,” was a smash and she followed that with a
string of impressively sophisticated country hits.
But now she’s 20 years old; that little girl image just doesn’t work
any more. And with her new album, “TNT” (MCA Records), she has
declared her independence from her past in a fashion almost as
startling as when she first appeared.
Tanya Tucker is now a rock ‘n’ roller — and she’s got the skin-tight
black leather jeans to prove it.
“When I first came to Nashville,” she says, “I was really happy to
be there. I was 13 and, of course, my roots were in country music. It
was all I ever listened to, back home in Wilcox, Arizona — Jimmy
Rogers, Hank Williams. But I went to high school in Vegas and
started listening to rock ‘n’ roll. I liked the way it felt, liked the way I
could move to it.”
Anyone who has seen Tanya in concert can attest to the fact that
she moves to it very well indeed. And the new record demonstrates
once and for all that she can rock in the studio just as well as she
does on stage.
Produced by the decidedly non-country Jerry Goldstein of Far Out
Productions, “TNT” mixes rock standards like Buddy Holly’s “Not
Fade Away” and Elvis’ “Heartbreak Hotel” with some newer mate
rial, including a fine version of “Texas (When I Die),” a tune that
proves she isn’t about to forget her established country audience.
The band is tight and there are a variety of guests on the clean,
well-produced album, including John Prine and Seals and Crofts.
The whole thing may seem sudden to anyone who was still think
ing of Tanya as a kid — but she doesn’t see it that way.
“It’s just a growing experience — I’m growing up in my music. And
people that are close to me don’t think it’s such a drastic change. My
stage presence hasn't changed, it’s just that now people who buy my
records will have a better idea of what I’m like in concert.”
Jazz stars McPartland,
Jamal produce new albums
By William D. Laffler
United Press International
Marian McPartland is an outstanding jazz musician who can stand
a piano on end, and her stylings blend nicely with other artists.
In 1977 she brought four other women together into a jazz session
and pulled off a musical coup, even though only two of them had
known each other before the meeting.
Eight of the tunes may be heard on “Now’s the Time!” (Halcyon
HAL 115), a jazz record that belongs in every collector’s library.
The quintet consists of McPartland on piano, Mary Osborne on
guitar, Vi Redd on sax, Lynn Milano on bass and Dottie Dodgion on
drums. Dodgion had played with McPartland previously in a trio.
Each of the five artists gets into the action but there is no tendency
among any of them to dominate. The result is almost an hour of good
jazz. The McPartland piano is always ready to enhance a melody
and create an opening for a fellow musician to move in.
One of the standout numbers is “Sophisticated Lady,” with Mary
Osborne offering a stunning performance on guitar. And Vi Redd’s
sax is really sensaational on the album title tune and “But Beautiful.”
With Lynn Milano and Dottie Dodgion feeling the pulse with the base
and drums, the jazz beat heightens.
Most of this concert is based on pop-type compositions, such as
“Laura” and “I’ll Remember April.” There is only one slightly far-out
number, Thelonius Monk’s “Straight, No Chaser,” but the quintet
holds it within melodious bounds.
Ahmad Jamal is another superstar of jazz who is flexible musi
cally. For more than two decades Jamal has kept his imprint on the
flow of progressive music, fascinating listeners with his imaginative
improvisations on the keyboard.
Jamal also has a compatibility with groups, heading his own
sextet. His latest recording, “One” (20th Century-Fox T555), is cast
in this mold.
Although the cerebral impressions are not as deep as in his solo
recordings, “One” comes off as an excellent session worth many
playbacks.
The opening number, the title tune, is a bit ostentatious but not
obsequious. With Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are,” Jamal moves
up front with a fine solo. From then on, the music is compelling. The
final numbers — “Dynamo,” “Sumayah,” and “Festival” are Jamal
compositions, and good ones.
Top 20
(Based on Billboard’s survey of sales
and broadcast play)
SINGLES
Pop Music
1. Le Freak — Chic
2. Too Much Heaven — Bee
Gees
3. Y.M.C.A. — Village People
4. Do You Think I’m Sexy —
Rod Stewart
5. My Life — Billy Joel
6. A Little More Love — Olivia
Newton-John
7. Ooh Baby, Baby — Linda
Ronstadt
8. Hold The Line — Toto
9. Every 1’s A Winner — Hot
Chocolate
10. September — Earth, Wind
And Fire
11. Fire — Pointer Sisters
12. You Don’t Bring Me Flow
ers — Barbra Streisand And
Neil Diamond
13. Lotta Love — Nicolette
Carson
14. New York Groove — Ace
Frehley
15. Somewhere In the Night
— Barry Manilow
16.1 Was Made For Dancing
— Leif Garrett
17. Got To Be Real — Cheryl
Lynn
18. Shake It — Ian Matthews
19. Soul Man — Blues
Brothers
20. / Will Survive — Gloria
Gaynor
Country and
Western
1. Why Have You Left The
One You Left Me For — Crys
tal Gayle
2. Every Which Way But
Loose — Eddie Rabbitt
3. Back On My Mind Again-
Santa Barbara — Ronnie Mil-
sap
4. Come On In — Oak Ridge
Boys
5. The Official Historian On
Shirley-Jean Berrell — The
Statler Brothers
6. / Really Got The Feeling-
Baby I’m Burning — Dolly
Parton
7. Your Love Had Taken Me
That High — Conway Twitty
8. Texas — Tanya Tucker
9. Maybelline — George
Jones And Johnny Paycheck
10. You Don’t Bring Me Flow
ers — Jim Ed Brown And
Helen Cornelius
11. / Just Can’t Stay Married
To You — Crusty Lane
12. It’s Time We Talk Things
Over — Rex Allen Jr. And The
Boys
13. The Song We Made Love
To — Mickey Gilley
14. Happy Together — T.G.
Sheppard
15. Fall In Love With Me —
Randy Barlow
16. Lovin’ On — Bellamy
Brothers
17. Tonight She’s Gonna
Love Me — Razzy Bailey
18. I’ll Wake You When I Get
Home — Charlie Rich
19. Alibis — Johnny Rod
riguez
20. Mr. Jones — Big Al Down
ing