Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne »

James Gavin has written about some of the most significant black musical figures of our time, including Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte, and Miriam Makeba. His 300+ CD liner note essays include Grammy-nominated article for the box set Ella Fitzgerald - The Legendary Decca Recordings. He is the author of Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker and Intimate Nights: The Golden Age of New York Cabaret.

THE “DEFINITIVE” (VANITY FAIR ) BIOGRAPHY OF LEGEND LENA HORNE—THE CELEBRATED STAR OF STAGE, MUSIC, AND FILM WHO BLAZED A TRAIL FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS IN HOLLYWOOD AND BEYOND

Drawing on a wealth of unmined material and hundreds of interviews— one of them with Lena Horne herself—critically acclaimed author James Gavin gives us a “deftly researched” (The Boston Globe) and authoritative portrait of the American icon. Horne broke down racial barriers in the entertainment industry in the 1940s and ’50s even as she was limited mostly to guest singing appearances in splashy Hollywood musicals. Incorporating insights from the likes of Ruby Dee, Tony Bennett, Diahann Carroll, and Bobby Short, Stormy Weather reveals the many faces of this luminous, complex, strong-willed, passionate, even tragic woman—a stunning talent who inspired such giants as Barbra Streisand, Eartha Kitt, and Aretha Franklin.

The New York Times - John Simon

There is good reason for James Gavin's Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne to take up—when you count the notes, bibliography, discography, filmography and index—nearly 600 pages. This Lena (or these Lenas), born in 1917 and still hanging in, has had a life so rich in ups and downs as to make page after page eventful and suspenseful. This all the more so since the book is also two books in one: a thorough and fluent biography and a history of the slow social rise of black people despite crippling discrimination and stinging humiliations—a history in which Horne's story is embedded, notwithstanding some personal jumps ahead.