Billy Vera: Harlem to Hollywood

Show business veteran Vera tells all in a chatty memoir that chronicles the ups and downs of a life in the ever-changing music industry. Vera, who grew up in Riverside, Calif., was influenced by his mother’s love of music (she sang with the Ray Charles Singers, who backed Perry Como), Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, and rock and roll’s “racial ambiguity.” Vera recorded his first hit, “My Heart Cries,” as a teenager in 1962, and later he wrote songs for such artists as Bobby Goldsboro, Barbara Lewis, Ricky Nelson, and Dolly Parton. As a performer, he teamed with gospel singer Judy Clay in a groundbreaking interracial duo at Harlem’s Apollo Theater; but the “blue-eyed soul singer” struggled musically in the late 1960s and ’70s. Vera boldly dishes the dirt on various celebrities, producers, and romances, and he’s brutally honest about fickle show business, which eventually forced him into a side career in TV and film. In Vera’s revealing book, the Grammy-winning entertainer comes off as the real deal, wearing every hat available in the music industry. (Apr.)