Wrestling with Elephants

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SMT, Jun 7, 2010 - Biography & Autobiography - 320 pages
How do you get from the poverty of London's East End to the glitz and glamour of the Oscars? From doing stand-up comedy at strip joint to writing hit songs for the likes of Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand and Tom Jones? From Hackney to Hollywood? Wrestling With Elephants is the real-life adventure of a working-class London boy who wanted to write songs. Born to humble beginnings in the 1930s, over the last 40 years Don Black has written hundreds of lyrics for some of the most enduring hits of screen and stage - classics such as The Italian Job, Diamonds Are Forever, Born Free and Sunset Boulevard.

With frank and entertaining tales of Black's experiences as one of 007's regular songwriters, the trials and triumphs of musicals such as Tell Me On A Sunday and Bombay Dreams, and featuring fascinating accounts of his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Michael Jackon, Elaine Paige, John Barry, Denise Van Outen and many more, Wrestling With Elephants chronicles the astonishing life of the first British songwriter ever to win an Oscar.
 

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Contents

Information Page Foreword
Introduction
Overture
The Boy From Hackney
The Living Joke
Enter Matt Monro
Barry Black And Born Free
Hand In Hand With Brian Epstein The Trials Of An Agent
Hollywood Bullshit And Getting Close To Michael Jackson
Jule Styne And The Demolition Of A Musical
Meeting Lloyd Webber And The Birth Of Tell Me On A Sunday
Farewell To A Friend And On To Aspects
Sunsets Sunrise
Salaam Bombay Working With Rahman
The Making Of A Lyricist
Don Blacks Ten Golden Rules Of LyricWriting

Blowing The Bloody Doors
Premature Ejaculation And A Killer
The Battles Of Billy And A New James Bond
Don Black Musicals
Don Black Filmography
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