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Gerard Plecki

Born: Chicago, Illinois
Connection to Illinois: Plecki was born in Chicago.

Biography: Gerry Plecki received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1979 and was awarded an NEH Post-Doctoral Fellowship at New York University. He has written articles on music and film criticism. He currently serves as the President of The Society of Midland Authors.


Awards:

Primary Literary Genre(s): Non-Fiction

Primary Audience(s): Adult readers

WorldCat: http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=Gerard++Plecki


Selected Titles

Singing in the Rain: The Definitive Story of Woodstock at Fifty
ISBN: 1545668779 OCLC: 1108547409

Mill City Press, Inc 2019

Woodstock has often been called the coming of age of a generation, but that was a convenient spin. Woodstock was the opportunity that a half-million people took to show the world that they were of age, and quite capable of demonstrating that living in peace, love, and kindness was a model the world should follow, that theirs were the footsteps that could change everything, for the better. Singing in the Rain: The Definitive Story of Woodstock at Fifty is an inside look at the creative energy and performances that formed the legacy of Woodstock. Citing hundreds of sources, Singing in the Rain provides a delightfully-meticulous rendering of one of the most important events in living history. It can take decades for all the details of a transformational event such as Woodstock to come to the forefront, and it takes a patient, rock-loving investigator to frame it with the same sardonic humor that characterized much of the events of that weekend in August, 1969. Any student of rock history, anyone interested in popular music, any Woodstock attendee, anyone who has seen the movie will have wondered “what else took place?” from August 15-18, 1969. Readers will be astounded by the chronology of events that shaped the festival. The trials and tribulations the producers and staff faced, the songs that were played during that wonderful weekend, the comments made by lucky fans who attended the festival have been mapped out and presented in this fascinating, critical and historical analysis. This book clarifies what happened before, during, and after a festival that has withstood the test of time, and remains one of the iconic events in our history. The author brings the event back for us in ways we did not consider, demonstrating why Woodstock was the shooting star that remains forever etched in our memories. Plecki counters the erroneous concepts fostered by mass media, by other Woodstock authors, by statements of musicians who performed and did not perform at Woodstock, by politicians bent on preserving what they viewed to be a “healthier” status quo, and by some of the festival’s producers themselves. This book connects the dots, dispelling fake news from fact, combining first-hand accounts of the festival’s chronology with stories that will delight readers, easing them back into a time before rain delays would have been so micro-managed that they would have been sponsored by the weather channel. It is within this fascinating milieu that the reader will come to understand and appreciate all the music, magic, and hijinks that formed the nonpolitical, political tableau that was Woodstock. Singing in the Rain gives us a very specific, humorous, and heart-warming look at a never-to-be-forgotten era, when, for a brief moment, horizons were unlimited and possibilities were endless—a time when all people, hippies or straight, draft resisters and war veterans, lived for four days in peace and harmony, while being entertained by the best music the rock world has ever witnessed. This is the Woodstock that comes to life when reading Singing in the Rain.

Test Positive: Surviving COVID-19 in the Reign of Trump
ISBN: 1662805748 OCLC:

Mill City Press, Inc 2021

Test Positive: Surviving COVID-19 in the Reign of Trump is the true account of how the author survived COVID-19 after testing positive in March 2020. The manuscript also analyzes the historical and the political contexts within which this pandemic has raged in our country. The book provides a step-by-step account of the actions the author took to overcome the debilitating symptoms of the disease. Test Positive is an extensively documented indictment of the Trump Administration's failure to control the pandemic keep Americans safe. The author pulls no punches when proving that the death of nearly two hundred thousand Americans could have been avoided if President Trump had viewed the pandemic as a health problem, not as a political problem that he could solve by offering his facile and convenient spin that the pandemic would simply disappear.

 

 

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