Stories to Tell: A Memoir

by Richard Marx

Overview

National Bestseller

Legendary musician Richard Marx offers an enlightening, entertaining look at his life and career.

Richard Marx is one of the most accomplished singer-songwriters in the history of popular music. His self-titled 1987 album went triple platinum and made him the first male solo artist (and second solo artist overall after Whitney Houston) to have four singles from their debut crack the top three on the Billboard Hot 100. His follow-up, 1989’s Repeat Offender, was an even bigger smash, going quadruple platinum and landing two singles at number one. He has written fourteen number one songs in total, shared a Song of the Year Grammy with Luther Vandross, and collaborated with a variety of artists including NSYNC, Josh Groban, Natalie Cole, and Keith Urban. Lately, he’s also become a Twitter celebrity thanks to his outspokenness on social issues and his ability to out-troll his trolls.

In Stories to Tell, Marx uses this same engaging, straight-talking style to look back on his life and career. He writes of how Kenny Rogers changed a single line of a song he’d written for him then asked for a 50% cut—which inspired Marx to write one of his biggest hits. He tells the uncanny story of how he wound up curled up on the couch of Olivia Newton-John, his childhood crush, watching Xanadu. He shares the tribulations of working with the all-female hair metal band Vixen and appearing in their video. Yet amid these entertaining celebrity encounters, Marx offers a more sobering assessment of the music business as he’s experienced it over four decades—the challenges of navigating greedy executives and grueling tour schedules, and the rewards of connecting with thousands of fans at sold-out shows that make all the drama worthwhile. He also provides an illuminating look at his songwriting process and talks honestly about how his personal life has inspired his work, including finding love with wife Daisy Fuentes and the mystery illness that recently struck him—and that doctors haven’t been able to solve.

Stories to Tell is a remarkably candid, wildly entertaining memoir about the art and business of music.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982169435
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	07/12/2022
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	186,110
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Richard Marx has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide over the course of his career. He is the only male artist whose first seven singles reached the Top 5 on the Billboard charts, and he has written on a number one single in each of the last four decades—an accolade previously only reached by Michael Jackson. He won a 2004 Song of the Year Grammy and has scored fourteen number-one singles, both as a performer and as a songwriter/producer. He is also a committed philanthropist, supporting charitable causes such as the American Cancer Society and the Ronald McDonald House Charities, Mercy For Animals, ASPCA, Humane Society, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and the charity closest to his heart, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. He lives in Malibu, California, with his wife, Daisy Fuentes.

Table of Contents

Prologue October 2019 1

1 Where Do I Begin? 15

2 "I Wanna Be Free" 19

3 "The One You Need" 25

4 "You Are" 29

5 "Crazy" 35

6 "Guilty" (Barbra, Part I) 43

7 "She's a Beauty" 49

8 "White Heat" 55

9 "Should've Known Better" 59

10 "Manhunt" 71

11 "Somebody Loves You" 73

12 "If I Turn You Away" 79

13 "Endless Summer Nights" 87

14 "Don't Mean Nothing" 93

15 "Hold On to the Nights" 103

16 Riding the Speedwagon 107

17 "Edge of a Broken Heart" 111

18 "Burning of the Heart" (The Richard Marx Amendment) 121

19 "Right Here Waiting" (Barbra, Part II) 125

20 "Angelia" 131

21 The Elvis Incident 137

22 "You're the Voice" 141

23 The Tale of Taipei 145

24 It's a Boy, It's a Boy, It's a Boy 159

25 "Keep Coming Back" 165

26 "Hazard" 173

27 "Suddenly" 179

28 Elton and the Disappearing Tooth 183

29 "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" 187

30 "The Way She Loves Me" 191

31 Oprah, O.J., and Me 197

32 "Through My Veins" 201

33 "The One That Got Away" 209

34 "If You Ever Leave Me" (Barbra, Part III) 225

35 "This I Promise You" 231

36 "To Where You Are" (The Mistake That Went to Number 1) 237

37 "Dance with My Father" 243

38 The Perfect Man's Imperfection 251

39 "Gone Country" 257

40 "Better Life" 265

41 A Successful Marriage 277

42 "Eyes on Me" 281

43 "Always" 289

44 "Limitless" 293

Epilogue November 2020 299

Acknowledgments 309

Editorial Reviews

[Marx] takes readers on a rollercoaster ride of a rock and roll story...Marx has led a fascinating life; fans of his music and those less familiar with him will be absorbed.” –Traci Glass, Library Journal

From the Publisher