Bookmarks: Memoirs

Kenny Rogers and John Rowles are two very different singers with something in common - each is marking 50 years in the entertainment industry with a book.

• In Luck or Something Like It, his first memoir, Rogers tells of his early years in the projects of Houston, his family's pride when he became the first to graduate with a high school diploma and his long road to musical success.

Quote: "For as long as I could remember I had been married. I have to admit I was pretty good at it, as I had been married four times."

 

 

 

 

• In If I Only Had Time, Rowles, with the assistance of a ghost writer, tells of his journey from small-town New Zealand to London in the swinging '60s and his years as a cabaret star based in Hawaii but travelling the globe, performing with the best entertainers on stage, television and radio.

Quote: "Night after night you never knew what celebrity would be in the audience: anyone from Tiny Tim to the secretary of state Henry Kissinger, not to mention our own prime ministers, Norman Kirk and Rob Muldoon."

 

 

 

 

• Another to have clocked up 50 years in the music industry is Led Zeppelin mastermind, guitarist and producer Jimmy Page, who is notoriously media-shy.

Brad Tolinski, of Guitar World, Revolver and Guitar Aficionado magazines, has drawn on his more than 50 hours of interviews with the rock legend to write Light & Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page, which may be as close as we get to a complete picture of the man and his music.

Quote: "I wanted artistic control in a vice grip, because I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the band. In fact, I financed and completely recorded the first album before going to Atlantic."