A Golden Voice
How Faith, Hard Work, and Humility Brought Me from the Streets to Salvation
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4.6 • 29 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
YouTube sensation Ted William's memoir of addiction, homelessness, and unlikely redemption, cowritten by #1 New York Times bestselling author Bret Witter
Ted Williams was panhandling in December 2010 when a passerby taped him and posted a clip of his gorgeous radio voice on YouTube. The video went viral, and overnight, launched him—the homeless man with a golden voice—into the hearts of millions.
Since then, millions have heard pieces of his story: his successful radio career, his crack addiction, his multiple arrests, and his heartbreaking relationship with his ninety-year-old mother. But in A Golden Voice, Ted Williams finally puts all the pieces together to give an unforgettable, searingly honest account of life on the streets. Nothing is held back, as Williams takes the reader through prostitution, theft, crack houses, and homeless shelters in a search, ultimately, for redemption and hope. Along the way, we see his relationship with his long-term girlfriend, Kathy, grow into an unlikely and inspiring love story, and we hear the Golden Voice of God lead Ted from the selfishness of crime to the humility of the street corner—almost a year before he was “discovered” on that highway entrance ramp.
But this memoir isn’t just an exploration of wrongs and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to give homelessness a voice. It is a deeply American, from-the-heart comeback story about the power of hope, faith, and personal responsibility. With the innate charisma that has won him millions of fans, Ted Williams proves that no one, no matter how degraded, is too lost for a second chance.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Homeless in 2011, ex radio announcer Williams, aka "The Man with the Golden Voice," found overnight fame when a video of him holding a cardboard sign and panhandling on a street corner went viral. Within days, Williams was a guest on major network talk shows and juggling job offers, with the original video scoring more than 40 million hits in the months that followed. But during the 20 years that crack cocaine was Williams's "constant companion," his life was a raw wound. Teaming with bestselling author Witter (Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched a Nation), he documents peaks, pitfalls, wild ways, a failed marriage, self-destruction, depression, drugs, thefts, arrests, backsliding, and rehab. Born and raised in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant, the Army was his ticket out of the projects. On Columbus, Ohio, radio stations in the 1980s, he used his voice "to make it feel like a nonstop party for a million people" and became the area's charismatic popular DJ despite heavy drinking. Going into a downward spiral, he lived in shelters, crack houses, and the street. In the woods behind a grocery store, his home was a tent he made by taping children's raincoats together. The notion of a "second chance at life" generated a huge interest in Williams, and those who followed last year's media accounts of his struggles will appreciate the insights and brutal honesty expressed in this powerful career comeback story.
Customer Reviews
Wonderful book
I work at a rehab clinic and I suggest this book to all my clients. It's a story of hope and humility. It one of those books you can't put down. I love it
A Golden Voice
This book was so inspirational. No matter what happens, you can make it on broken pieces. Just hold on and stay afloat. You will make it to shore. I encourage all to read this book and think of the bible story of Joseph. He went from the pit to the place. It is not where you've been but where you are going. This book uplifting and teaches you to never judge a book by it's cover. For one day you may be reading the book.