Peter Benjaminson

Maybe

In case any of you are interested in the Motown Record Company, my book on Motown vocalist Mary Wells ("Mary Wells: The Tumultuous Life of Motown's First Superstar") has just been issued in paperback by Chicago Review Press. It's available on Amazon and elsewhere and got rave reviews in the Wall Street Journal and on other pubs and websites. My biography of Rick James will be published by the same publisher in March 2017. Naturally, it's called "Super Freak: The Life of Rick James." I'm open to all ideas for additional books.

Since leaving M-A, and living for substantial periods of time in Washington, D.C., Detroit, Miami, Atlanta, and Binghamton, NY, I've been living in Manhattan for the past 30 years and in Harlem for the past five. I've also written the books "The Story of Motown," (Grove Press, 1979) "The Lost Supreme: The Life of Dreamgirl Florence Ballard," (Lawrence Hill Books, 2008), "Investigative Reporting" (Indiana University Press, 1976), "Death in the Afternoon: America's Newspaper Giants Struggle for Survival" (Andrews, McMeel, 1984) and "Secret Police: Inside the NYC Department of Investigation" (Barricade Books, 1997.) I also got married, divorced, and remarried and now have a grown up daughter and two grandchildren.

Speaking of tumultuous, I still remember the time John Brigham and I ran for M-A President and Vice-President (he now teaches at U Mass - we see each other from time to time); the time Greil Marcus and I went to Boys State and I got creamed for Governor; the time Barry Franklin and I drove to the Seattle World's Fair from Menlo Park; the time I was editor of Bear Tracks and printed the story of Bob Burnett's victory in the election for Class President before he won; and the time Roger Allen and I threatened each other with the Bear Tracks probe (a vicious looking gardening tool.) Roger, now an attorney, recently made up for his unprovoked assault on me by helping me with my Rick James bio.