Anything for a Hit
An A & R Woman's Story of Surviving the Music Industry
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3.7 • 35 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Dorothy Carvello knows all about the music biz. She was the first female A&R executive at Atlantic Records, and one of the few in the room at RCA and Columbia. But before that, she was secretary to Ahmet Ertegun, Atlantic's infamous president, who signed acts like Aretha Franklin and Led Zeppelin, negotiated distribution deals with Mick Jagger, and added Neil Young to Crosby, Stills & Nash. The stories she tells about the kingmakers of the music biz are outrageous, but it is her sinuous friendship with Ahmet that frames her narrative. He was notoriously abusive, sexually harassing Dorothy on a daily basis. Still, when he neared his end, sad and alone, Dorothy had no hatred toward him—only a strange kind of loyalty.Carvello reveals here how she flipped the script and showed Ertegun and every other man who tried to control her that a woman can be just as willing to do what it takes to get a hit. Never-before-heard stories about artists like Michael Jackson, Madonna, Steven Tyler, Bon Jovi, INXS, Marc Anthony, and many more make this book a must-read for anyone looking for the real stories on what it takes for a woman to make it in a male-dominated industry.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this hard-hitting, profanity-laced tell-all recounting 19 years at some of the biggest recording companies, Carvello takes readers inside the pre-digital music industry of the 1980s and '90s. At age 24, Carvello became secretary to Ahmet Ertegun, the founder of Atlantic Records, and describes his tirades that fostered a company culture of "toxic masculinity." Though Carvello rose to become Atlantic's first female A&R executive, she never broke through the glass ceiling ("In a man's world I had to work twice as hard for half as much"), and the book reads as a means of settling scores. When Carvello was a teenager, a teacher told her that "Men are going to try to break you"; here she reveals the truth in that statement as she describes the music industry as "a circus mixed with an orgy" run by men who thought nothing of steeling royalty payments and engaging in payola with radio stations. Tales of parties (Skid Row, on tour in Ft. Lauderdale, are described as "animals, running and jumping over everything") occasionally lighten the litany of dark stories in which Carvello helps male colleagues succeed in their careers only to receive no credit and, soon after, be fired. Carvello is piercingly honest in this discouraging look inside the music industry. Correction: An earlier version of this review misstated the years covered in the book.
Customer Reviews
Great read
How interesting but not surprising the perils a woman has to endure to create a career.
Well written with lots of laughs. I loved her blunt honesty.
Woman’s perspective
Wild tales of the record industry from a plugged in woman’s perspective. Very easy interesting read.