David Ritz: 25 books

As a ghostwriter, biographer, and lyricist, David Ritz has worked with some of the biggest names in music, such as Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Marvin Gaye. Now, in his inspiring memoir, he shares how writing for these legendary artists led him to faith. Over the last forty-five years,...

The definitive biography of the Queen of Soul from acclaimed music writer David Ritz. Aretha Franklin began life as the golden daughter of a progressive and promiscuous Baptist preacher. Raised without her mother, she was a gospel prodigy who gave birth to two sons in her teens and left them...

David Ritz presents his uniquely candid and and intimate account of the tumultuous life of the Prince of Soul music Marvin Gaye. Author Ritz has assembled years of conversations and interviews from his life as a close friend and lyricist to the gifted Soul sensation and tells the Marvin Gaye story...

Guillaume: A Life is the autobiography of esteemed Broadway, Hollywood, and television star Robert Guillaume. Ten months after suffering a stroke, Guillaume—perhaps best known as television’s Benson—began this autobiography with award-winning author and collaborator David Ritz. The book...

“Number One” was a phrase my father—and, for that matter, my mother—repeated time and time again. It was a phrase spoken by my parents’ friends and by their friends’ children. Whenever adults discussed the great Chinese painters and sculptors from the ancient dynasties, there was always...

Jemeker Thompson-Hairston paid a heavy price for her involvement in the drug game. Learning from her sources of a federal investigation, Jemeker went on the run. It was love for her young son that brought her back to Los Angeles, even though she knew she would be arrested. A subsequent 15-year sentence...

Paul Shaffer—born and bred music junkie and longtime leader of David Letterman’s Late Show band—opens up in this candid, endearing, hilarious, and star-studded memoir.  From playing seedy strip joints in Toronto, to being the first musical director of Saturday Night Live and helping to form...

ONE OF THE GREATEST ENTERTAINERS OF OUR TIME CANDIDLY REVEALS HER VERY PERSONAL STRUGGLE WITH AN ISSUE SO MANY OF US FACE EVERY DAY: SELF-ESTEEM Janet Jackson emerged from the shadows of an already famous family to become one of the most beloved, recognizable, and influential performers in...

Show biz memoir at its name-dropping, bridge-burning, profane best: the music industry’s most outspoken, outrageous, and phenomenally successful executive delivers a rollicking memoir of pop music’s heyday. During the 1970s and '80s the music business was dominated by a few major labels...

A riveting cautionary tale about the ecstasy and dangers of loving Marvin Gaye, a performer passionately pursued by all—and a searing memoir of drugs, sex, and old school R&B from the wife of legendary soul icon Marvin Gaye. After her seventeenth birthday in 1973, Janis Hunter met Marvin...

A powerful chronicle of the sixteen weeks leading up to King of Pop Michael Jackson's death Michael Jackson's final months were like the rest of his short and legendary life: filled with deep lows and soaring highs, a constant hunt for privacy, and the pressure and fame that made him socially fragile...

A no-holds-barred memoir from the primary architect of hip hop and one of the culture's most revered music icons—both the tale of his life and legacy and a testament to dogged determination. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five fomented the musical revolution known as hip hop. Theirs was...

Becoming a Major League ballplayer for Dwight and me, that was the dream. Dwight is Dwight Gooden. Most people know him for winning the Cy Young Award. To me, though, he’s family, an uncle, but at four years older, really a brother. I can still remember those games of catch with Dwight in...

Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist, producer, and actor T.I. proved himself a powerful storyteller as well with the publication of his debut novel Power & Beauty. Now he follows up with his second riveting street-lit epic, Trouble & Triumph. T.I.’s explosive sequel picks up the story...