“After her third orgasm, Jackie O. looked at me with a mixture of gratitude and awe.” That apocryphal tale begins Yetnikoff’s memoir, yet its true stories prove even wilder. As president of CBS Records during its ’70s and ’80s boom years, he presided over an empire that included Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand. He has the war stories to prove it, but what makes
Howling at the Moon such a blast is Yetnikoff himself, a Brooklyn-born bootstrapper who rose to the summit (and had a lot of sex- and booze-fueled fun while he was at it).
The ultimate showbiz insider's expose, Howling at the Moon is the wildly entertaining and brilliantly narrated autobiography of Walter Yetnikoff, head of CBS Records during its heyday in the 1980s, and then the most powerful man in the music industry. Yetnikoff knew most of the stars and embraced all the excesses of this era: he was mentor to Streisand, father confessor to Michael Jackson, shared a mistress with Marvin Gaye and came to blows with Mick Jagger. He feuded with David Geffen and outmanoeuvred Rupert Murdoch. He was also addicted to cocaine and alcohol - until his doctor gave him just 3 months to live. Yetnikoff came from a working-class Jewish family from Brooklyn; he graduated from law school in the 1950s and proceeded to climb the corporate ladder to the very top. His high-flying ended in breakdown, but throughout his rise and fall, Yetnikoff remained a man of huge charisma and disarming charm. Howling at the Moon is written with David Ritz, the only 4-time winner of the Ralph J Gleason Music Book award, who has collaborated on the autobiographies of such stars as Ray Charles, BB King, Aretha Franklin and Etta James.
