George Michael

Gavins engrossing biography of the singer takes the measure of a gifted, tragic, and infuriating man. New York Times Book Review George Michael was an extravagantly gifted, openhearted soul singer whose work was both pained and smolderingly erotic. He was a songwriter of true craft and substance, and his music swept the world, starting in the mid-1980s. His fabricated imagethat of a hypermacho sex godloomed large in the pop culture of his day. It also hidfor a timethe secret he fought against revealing: Michael was gay. Soon his obsession with fame would start to backfire. As one of the industrys most privileged yet tortured men began to self-destruct, the press showed little sympathy. George Michael: A Life explores the compelling story of a superstar whose struggles, as well as his songs, continue to touch fans all over the world. Acclaimed music biographer James Gavin traces Michaels metamorphosis from the shy and awkward Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou into the swaggering, dominant half of the leading British pop duo of the 1980s Wham!; he then details Michaels sensational solo career and its subsequent unraveling. With deep analysis of the creative process behind Michaels albums, tours, and music videos, as well as interviews with hundreds of his friends and colleagues, George Michael: A Life is a probing, definitive portrait of a pop legend.