About the Author

Blair Tindall is a regular contributor to The New York Times, Sierra Magazine, and the San Francisco Examiner; her work has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal and Art & Antiques. The recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, Tindall holds an M.A. in journalism from Stanford University. She lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Reviews

Journalist and oboist Tindall has fashioned a tell-all memoir of her life from the 1960s to today, tracing her years at the North Carolina School of the Arts, study at the Manhattan School of Music, experiences playing in chamber groups like Orpheus, and making a Carnegie Recital Hall debut before heading off to Stanford for graduate work in journalism. Famous and less well known musicians invariably come across badly in the author's estimation, as either impolite, unfriendly, or downright lecherous. The book would have been much better had Tindall decided which audience she was trying to reach. While her discourses on the role of the arts in America during different decades, the travails of the audition process, the life of a traveling musician, and the role of unions engage and inform, she spends a lot of time on her sexual exploits, drinking, drug use, and "casting couch" encounters-content not for the faint of constitution. Public libraries in the New York City area serving patrons who lap up this sort of thing might consider, but all others can skip.-Barry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.