<div>Hip-hop artist Tip "T.I." Harris has received every acclaim the music world has to offer. Now, working with bestselling celebrity collaborator David Ritz, T.I. applies all his talent and experience to the world of fiction by creating the epic love story of Power and Beauty.After the death of his mother, Charlotte, Paul &#8220;Power&#8221; Clay allows himself to be guided by Slim, a local businessman. Slim always has the best of everything, and Power is sure that if he learns Slim's ways, he'll make something of himself--and perhaps be worthy of Tanya &#8220;Beauty&#8221; Long. From Chicago to Miami to New York, through drugs, women, and violence, Power makes the difficult transition from boy to man and, in doing so, begins to question if those who have taught him--including Slim--truly have his best interests at heart.Beauty has always known that the only person she can rely on is herself. After her mother died when she was eleven years old, she was adopted by close family friend Charlotte Clay. But with Charlotte's death, Beauty knows she's no longer safe and protected--especially as Power gets sucked into a new kind of life. As soon as she can, she turns her back on Atlanta--and the growing love she feels for Power--for a chance to make it in the Big Apple. With a successful fashion career on the horizon, Beauty takes New York by storm with her wit, business savvy, and breathtaking good looks. But she's never forgotten those she left behind. And when it becomes clear that Power needs her, Beauty will risk everything to save the man she loves.</div>

Power & Beauty

<div>Renowned songwriter, singer, and wife of Waylon Jennings writes an intimate, enormously entertaining memoir of American music, of life with Waylon and the Outlaws, and of faith lost and found.The daughter of a Pentecostal evangelist and a race-car driver, Jessi Colter played piano and sang in church before leaving Arizona to tour with rock-n-roll pioneer Duane Eddy, whom she married. Colter became a successful recording artist, appearing on American Bandstand and befriending stars such as the Everly Brothers and Chet Atkins, while her songs were recorded by Nancy Sinatra, Dottie West, and others. Her marriage to Eddy didn&rsquo;t last, however, and in 1969 she married the electrifying Waylon Jennings. Together, they made their home in Nashville which, in the 1970s, was ground zero for roots music, drawing Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Shel Silverstein, and others to the Nashville Sound. And Jessi was at the center of it all, the only woman on the landmark Wanted: The Outlaws album, therecord that launched the Outlaw Country genre and was the first country album to go platinum. She also tasted personal commercial success with the #1-single &ldquo;I&rsquo;m Not Lisa.&rdquo;But offstage, life was a challenge, as Waylon pursued his addictions and battled his demons. Having drifted from the church as a young woman, Jessi returned to her faith and found in it a source of strength in the turmoil of living with Waylon. In the 1980s, Waylon helped launch the super group The Highwaymen with Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson, and the hits kept rolling, as did Waylon&rsquo;s reckless living. Amid it all, Jessi faithfully prayed for her husband until finally, at Thanksgiving 2001, Waylon found Jesus, just months before he died. An Outlaw and a Lady is a powerful story of American music, of love in the midst of heartache, and of faith that sustains.</div>

An Outlaw and a Lady

<div>The hitmakers behind Elvis Presley&rsquo;s &ldquo;Hound Dog&rdquo; and &ldquo;Jailhouse Rock&rdquo; recount their rise to songwriting stardom while authoring the classic American R&amp;B sound of countless chart-topping singles. In 1950 a couple of rhythm and blues&#8211;loving teenagers named Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller met for the first time. They discovered their mutual affection for R&amp;B and, as Jerry and Mike put it in this fascinating autobiography, began an argument that has been going on for over fifty years with no resolution in sight. Leiber and Stoller were still in their teens when they started working with some of the pioneers of rock and roll, writing such hits as "Hound Dog," which eventually became a #1 record for Elvis Presley. Jerry and Mike became the King&rsquo;s favorite songwriters, giving him "Jailhouse Rock" and other #1 songs. Their string of hits with the Coasters, including "Yakety Yak," "Poison Ivy," and "Charlie Brown," is a part of rock &rsquo;n&rsquo; roll history. They founded their own music label and introduced novel instrumentation into their hits for the Drifters and Ben E. King, including "On Broadway" and "Stand by Me." They worked with everyone from Phil Spector to Burt Bacharach and Peggy Lee. Their smash musical Smokey Joe&rsquo;s Caf&#233; became the longest-running musical revue in Broadway history. Lively, colorful, and irreverent, Hound Dog describes how two youngsters with an insatiable love of good old American R&amp;B created the soundtrack for a generation.</div>

Hound Dog

<div>The “shockingly honest” memoir by the iconic musician who fronted Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, including personal photographs (Rolling Stone). In the early 1990s, Stone Temple Pilots—not U2, not Nirvana, not Pearl Jam—was the hottest band in the world. STP toppled such mega-bands as Aerosmith and Guns N’ Roses on MTV and the Billboard charts, and lead singer Scott Weiland became a compellingly charismatic front man in the tradition of Mick Jagger, David Bowie, and Robert Plant. Then, when STP imploded, it was Weiland who emerged as the emblem of rock star excess, with his well-publicized drug busts and trips to rehab. Written just a few years before his tragic death, this raw and revealing memoir delves into these experiences and more—his early years as an altar boy, his yearning for his father after his parents’ divorce, his complex relationship with the love of his life, Mary Forsberg Weiland, his traumas and heartbreaks. Readers also learn the fascinating stories behind his most well-known songs and what it was like to be there at the beginning of the grunge phenomenon. Not Dead &amp; Not for Sale is a hard rock memoir to be reckoned with—a passionate, insightful, and at times humorous book that reads with extraordinary narrative force. “The tales he sketches out often are as poignant as they are cautionary.” —USA Today “A compelling and worthwhile read.” —Associated Press</div>

Not Dead & Not for Sale

<div>Joe Perry&#8217;s New York Times bestselling memoir of life in the rock-and-roll band Aerosmith: &#8220;An insightful and harrowing roller coaster ride through the career of one of rock and roll&#8217;s greatest guitarists. Strap yourself in&#8221; (Slash). Before the platinum records or the Super Bowl half-time show or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Joe Perry was a boy growing up in small-town Massachusetts. He idolized Jacques Cousteau and built his own diving rig that he used to explore a local lake. He dreamed of becoming a marine biologist. But Perry&#8217;s neighbors had teenage sons, and those sons had electric guitars, and the noise he heard when they started playing would change his life. The guitar became his passion, an object of lust, an outlet for his restlessness and his rebellious soul. That passion quickly blossomed into an obsession, and he got a band together. One night after a performance he met a brash young musician named Steven Tyler; before long, Aerosmith was born. What happened over the next forty-five years has become the stuff of legend: the knockdown, drag-out, band-splintering fights; the drugs, the booze, the rehab; the packed arenas and timeless hits; the reconciliations and the comebacks. Rocks is an unusually searching memoir of a life that spans from the top of the world to the bottom of the barrel&#8212;several times. It is a study of endurance and brotherhood, with Perry providing remarkable candor about Tyler, as well as new insights into their powerful but troubled relationship. It is an insider&#8217;s portrait of the rock and roll family, featuring everyone from Jimmy Page to Alice Cooper, Bette Midler to Chuck Berry, John Belushi to Al Hirschfeld. It takes us behind the scenes at unbelievable moments such as Joe and Steven&#8217;s appearance in the movie of Sgt. Pepper&#8217;s Lonely Hearts Club Band (they act out the murders of Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees). Full of humor, insight, and brutal honesty about life in and out of one of the biggest bands in the world, Rocks is &#8220;well-paced, well-plotted&#8230;a mini-masterpiece&#8221; (The Boston Globe).</div>

Rocks

<div>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, David Ritz has collaborated with some of the biggest stars in music. Working to give a voice to these iconic musicians, he found his own, and following the sacred pulse he calls &ldquo;The God Groove,&rdquo; he also found belief in Christ. In his moving memoir, he recalls growing up as a secular Jew in New York and Dallas, and finding himself drawn to the smoky jazz clubs and Pentecostal churches where the music touched something deep in his soul, unlike anything he&rsquo;d ever felt before. It was this love of music, coupled with an equal passion for words&#8212;both language that flowed across the page and language sung out loud&#8212;that led him, against all odds, to convince Ray Charles to hire him as a ghostwriter. Through this first project, David learned the art of capturing another&rsquo;s voice. As Marvin Gaye&rsquo;s biographer and cowriter of &ldquo;Sexual Healing,&rdquo; David learned about Marvin&rsquo;s father, a charismatic storefront preacher in an ultra-strict Christian sect, but he also saw the visceral love Marvin had for Jesus. David&rsquo;s conversations with Aretha Franklin, conducted during the two-year process of writing her memoir, yielded further insights into Christianity. Threaded throughout David&rsquo;s story are in-depth conversations with Willie Nelson, BB King, Janet Jackson, Smokey Robinson, Etta James, Buddy Guy, and Jessi Colter, all of whom shaped his thinking about faith. The God Groove is a moving, deeply personal, and inspiring memoir about the unlikely ways God works&#8212;if we listen to Him.</div>

David Ritz
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Books By David Ritz (1 Book)

The God Groove

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