Open Book

Collection of the American new waver's greatest musical achievements. The Promise You Made', 'When Your Heart Is Weak', 'Just Around the Corner' & many more.

Whenever there is some type of event where the DJ is spinning old-school soul, funk, and disco - an event that could be taking place anywhere from Cherry Hill, NJ to Newcastle, England - one question that inevitably comes up a lot is "Whatever happened to?" You know, whatever happened to McFadden & Whitehead (sadly, both died in the 2000s), or whatever happened to Teena Marie? ("Lady T" came out with an album called Sapphire in 2006.) And if the DJ is playing crowd-pleasers like 1977's "Shame" or 1982's "Love Come Down," someone inevitably wonders what Evelyn "Champagne" King has been up to. King flew under the radar in the '90s and early 2000s, but admirers of the Bronx native's '70s and '80s hits will be glad to know that she is in generally good form on her 2007 comeback album Open Book.

The Open Book is a radical genre blend: it is an experimental co-memoir exploring the role of writing in academia. It contains stories about life without censoring and without distinguishing between traditional work/life domains and academic/non-academic ways of writing. This is done through discussions of conferences, research collaborations, supervision, taboo pleasures of ‘fun’ writing projects, the temptations of other work, and the everyday life encounters and experiences that stimulate academic thought and writing.

At five, she took the stage by storm as Indira Gandhi. At eight, she was bullied. At ten, she hit rock bottom. At thirteen, she discovered a personality development programme that changed her life forever…