Melba Moore, Tony award-winning actress and three-time Grammy-nominated R&B singer, chatted about her new book “This Is It — Marvelous And Getting Better.”
In this book, she recalls the highs and lows of her career, touching on the challenging times when the phone wasn’t ringing with job offers, thus making her wonder what to do next.
Moore won a Tony Award for playing Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins in “Purlie” on Broadway. She has also starred in such Broadway musicals as “Hair,” “Timbuktu!” and “Les Miserables.”
Her biggest smash hits in music include “You Stepped Into My Life,” “Read My Lips,” “Fallin,” and “This Is It.”
Moore on the idea for her new book
On her new memoir, she exclaimed, “I am very excited about it. This is my first book.”
Her favorite part of the writing process was “getting through with it.” She acknowledged that she had some “good help” in writing this book, which included Kevin Taylor, her co-writer.
“Basically, it was my daughter’s idea to do this book,” she admitted. “My daughter told me ‘Everybody has a book, but you’ so it was time to get started with that.”
“So, she really put together the team, and then we started laying out some time to speak, talk together on a regular basis and we found out what we wanted it to talks about,” she explained.
“There were borders and guidelines that we would keep and stay within, and that was going to be the basic feel of the book. So, I had some good help,” she noted.
“I hope the fans get my new book,” she admitted. “I think it will be interesting for them, because I’ve so public, but they will find out that what they’ve seen is just little snapshots of my life. It will be interesting for them to find out new things about me.”
Lessons learned from this book
Particularly impressive about this memoir is that each chapter is named after one of her hit records, and the book contains references to several famous names from her experiences in the entertainment industry.
On the lessons learned from this book, she reflected, “It showed me that I’ve had a really good life. I’ve had some good accomplishments, and I think I’ve been pretty focused.”
“I’ve been fairly courageous because I’ve had some really difficult challenges to overcome, and I’ve met some good people along the way,” she noted.
“The hardest part was trying to figure out what not to include and any story that is not interesting and exciting. You can’t only talk about your achievements, you have to talk about some of your downfalls, and I think that’s a difficult thing because some of them are embarrassing and you feel like some of them should stay private because you are not so proud of them,” she elaborated.
The digital age
On being a book author in the digital age, she said, “Well, I’m very proud. I’m excited because books are very important; they are a great way of communicating. They are an effective way to express your feelings, opinions or just the ideas that you have.”
Future plans
On her future plans, Ms. Moore revealed that there will be “more books” in the future. “I’m seeing now that it’s a re-surging kind of platform for people,” she said. “There are lots of reasons that you might write a book.”
“What I’m seeing is that books are another way to communicate with the public or with people than just music or my art,” she acknowledged.
Her new book is available on Amazon by clicking here.
For more information on Melba Moore, follow her on Instagram.
