Earth Wind and Fire frontman Bailey’s “Shining Star” a shining example of ghostwriting gone awry

book cover - shining starBeing familiar with pop culture memoirs, I understand the purpose of the the “with” which comes after the ostensible author’s name. The celebrity, musician, actor, whomever — it’s their story. They sit down with a computer, knock out some stories, do an interview with their collaborator, and then that person shapes everything into a narrative. Some are better than others, allowing the voice of the subject to come through, while authors are basically cranking out something.

Word to the wise: if an “autobiography” has not one, but two “with” credits on it … it will suck. Terribly. Oh my god. Philip Bailey‘s Shining Star: Braving the Elements of Earth, Wind & Fire was written with Keith and Kent Zimmerman, and I just don’t know what happened. It’s written in such a way that the historical context often takes over the story, because while Bailey’s story is the constant, every other page features some sort of historical digression. You’ll go from a fine piece of malapropism like “her nice round booty ass” to a stentorian explanation of Juneteent which might as well have been taken directly from a textbook: “an American holiday celebrated by African Americans in more than forty states, commemorating the abolition of slavery in Texas in 1865.

Bailey’s voice never has a chance to “shine” through — a pun made even more awful by the fact that the phrase “shining star” is shoehorned in at every possible opportunity. “Our studio output would spiral to gigantic proportions” is not a sentence than anyone would ever speak — and there’s your issue, really. An autobiography should, at its core, be the life story of an individual, in their own words. If you read it aloud, Shining Star should, in theory, sound like Bailey speaking. Obviously, it does not, which is sad, because that’s pretty much a basic tenet of any freshman composition class.

It’s rare that I just flat-out dislike a book, but Shining Star is worth a read, if only as an example how a memoir shouldn’t be done. It’s out today from Viking. More details can be found on <b their website.