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Angels Along the Way: My Life with Help from Above by Della Reese, Franklin Lett, Mimi Eichler
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Della Reese, Franklin Lett, Mimi Eichler Edition: Mass Market Paperback Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 2001-09-01 ISBN: 0425178390 Number of pages: 352 Publisher: Berkley Trade
Book Reviews of Angels Along the Way: My Life with Help from AboveBook Review: Inspiration Station, Spellbound Express Summary: 5 Stars
Della Reese is like a streetcar to ecstatic experience. She knows the way to abundance consciousness and she will stop at whatever stop you need to get you there, because it's on her route. This is no airy fairy lady. She tells it totally like it is in this earthy, raw, absolutely beautiful and hilarious tale of her life adventure from Detroit's "Black Bottom" slums to the hills of Bel Air. If you have ever felt excluded or ridiculed, had a jones for the wrong person or the wrong lifestyle, suffered a broken heart or known there was something great in you, no matter what anyone had to say about it, her words will pick you up and put you right on the trolley! Like her early mentor, Mahalia Jackson, she fills herself with God-Essence and breathes it out sweetly and powerfully, right to your center, taking you on a trip to exactly the place she wants for you, which is home. Where you are comfortable in your own body and where you know that you are loved. So, I guess that makes her an "angel", her loving word for people who appear with exactly what you need when you need it, like Nat King Cole, Ed Sullivan and many others did for her. In reading her account, it naturally makes you more aware of how people in your life serve as angels, even when you aren't aware of it at the time. I first Della's voice when I was a hurtin' little kid, hanging on for dear life, literally, seeking solace in in art and music. Her jazz voice got me and got me good. Her author's voice, like her voice in gospel, blues, "pop", TV and ministry, it is a voice that tells you of the WHOLE journey from despair to full-out happiness. And that telling causes resonance, so you can feel it, remember it and find your own way to it. Read this juicy, juicy book! "Period. The end."
Summary of Angels Along the Way: My Life with Help from Above"Reese's career spans more than 50 years. She began as a church singer at age 6, and by age 13 had her first professional job. But she's never enjoyed a larger, more adoring audience than she has today." (Liz Smith)
Entertainer, TV pioneer, and ordained minister, Della Reese has faced life's difficulties with a strong, enduring faith. Here is the powerful story of a woman quick to credit her life's many miracles to human "angels", as well as her "partner" above. Star of the hit television series Touched by an Angel, Della Reese has had a long career in entertainment. Like many black artists, she began in church, singing in the choir in her hometown of Detroit. At age 13, she was accomplished enough to go on tour with the great Mahalia Jackson, one of the "angels" Reese credits with helping her along the way. Jackson, she writes, gave her "a foundation in the art of communication.... It's about filling yourself with the spirit of whatever you're singing about, of really going to that place and letting listeners go with you." Other angels include the comedian who taught her the elements of comedy and helped her hone her act, and the waitress who encouraged her to sing in a nightclub, years after Reese's mother had died and Reese had left home to live on her own. The road to stardom wasn't entirely smooth--she tells of dishonest managers and lawyers and troubles with the IRS--but Reese makes clear that she has always been sustained by her faith.
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