ART PEPPER: STRAIGHT LIFE EVERY SUNDAY
by Laurie Pepper
Art Pepper Every Sunday. Laurie reads the book. Straight Life is a critical favorite and a cult classic. Praised for its honesty and poetry in the New Yorker, Time, The Village Voice, etc. and by fans everywhere, It's the story of a complicated man who really lived his life. Adventure, comic upsets, tragic losses, madness, passion, crime and punishment, all remembered and recalled in language as unique and powerful as the soulful jazz solos he improvised. I fell in love with Art's stories as I fell in love with the man. I fancied myself an oral historian and believed Art to be masterful storyteller with a style unlike any I had ever heard, and I became obsessed. I interviewed him for seven years, asking endless questions, researching and verifying details. Writing and rewriting. Straight Life was originally published by Schirmer/Macmillan in 1979. It's now available from Hachette as both paperback and ebook, I'm an audiobook fanatic and have decided that there need
Episodes
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Straight Life: Episode Fourteen Featuring Lee Young
Bandleader Lee Young hired seventeen year old Art Pepper to play in his band at the Club Alabam on Central Avenue in Los Angeles. Lee describes young Art, and what the world was like before the war on Central,
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Straight Life: Episodes Twelve and Thirteen
Art describes jamming and performing on Central Avenue in the Club Alabam. American musical history from someone who got to live right in the heart of it.
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Straight Life: Episodes Ten & Eleven
ART QUITS THE COBRAS AND GETS INTO THE MUSIC THING
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Straight Life: Episodes Eight & Nine
Art meets the love of his life (until me, of course). Incidental music is Art's tune, Patricia, performed in Nice in 1980. I'm pretty sure the band is Art, Milcho Leviev, Bob Magnusson, Carl Burnett
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Straight Life Episode Seven
Art describes his early sexual experiences
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Straight Life Episodes Five & Six
Art's "cousin" Johnny talks about Art as a child and as a young man. He gives a fuller picture of Art's adventurous father and difficult mother and has shows a different side of Grandma. I apologize for being a few days late with this episode. I'm just starting this...
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Straight Life: Episode Four
This is a long one, Interviews with Art's stepmother Thelma Pepper, and with Sarah Schecter Bartold, the woman who raised Art's mother, Ida AKA Millie. Thelma talks about Art's grandmother and then about his mother. This is American history, touching and inspiring.
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Straight Life: Episode 3
At 9, Art starts performing in waterfront bars and gets paid. He keeps his father from throttling his grandmother. This episode is "explicit" in that it includes violence, and dirty words. Author's note: This is one of my favorite episodes. Music snippets heard here: Straight Life by Art Pepper:...
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Straight Life: Episode 2
In episode 1 Art described his violent parents and leaving them to live with his grandmother. In episode 2 he talks about his family and begins music lessons. This episode is "explicit" in that it includes violence, and dirty words
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Straight Life: Episode One
"Straight Life" — slang: THE TRUTH This episode is "explicit" in that sex and abortion are mentioned and it includes violence, and dirty words
About this show
Art Pepper Every Sunday. Laurie reads the book.
Straight Life is a critical favorite and a cult classic. Praised for its honesty and poetry in the New Yorker, Time, The Village Voice, etc. and by fans everywhere, It's the story of a complicated man who really lived his life. Adventure, comic upsets, tragic losses, madness, passion, crime and punishment, all remembered and recalled in language as unique and powerful as the soulful jazz solos he improvised.
I fell in love with Art's stories as I fell in love with the man. I fancied myself an oral historian and believed Art to be masterful storyteller with a style unlike any I had ever heard, and I became obsessed. I interviewed him for seven years, asking endless questions, researching and verifying details. Writing and rewriting.
Straight Life was originally published by Schirmer/Macmillan in 1979. It's now available from Hachette as both paperback and ebook, I'm an audiobook fanatic and have decided that there need
Hosted by
Laurie Pepper