This is jazz vocalist (or “song stylist” as she prefers) Anita O’Day’s story told in her own words. Although dedicated to her craft and highly respected as an innovator, O’Day’s use of alcohol and marijuana in her early years led to a fourteen-year heroin addiction which played havoc with her life and career. It was the missionary zeal that she brought to her art that ultimately saved her.

O’Day worked with many great bands--giving Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton their first big hits--and made a splash with Anita, recorded in 1955 with Buddy Bregman. She played or recorded with many jazz greats such as Benny Goodman, Roy Eldrige, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Cal Tjader, and Oscar Peterson, and played clubs from coast to coast.

The zigzag course of her life would have destroyed most people, but O’Day always landed on her feet although frequently without shoes. From the marathon dances of her youth that tested endurance to the grueling cross-country bus trips with big bands to her memorable performance at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival and her comeback at the 1970 Berlin Jazz Festival, O’Day tells it like it was, pulling no punches.

The book was first published in 1981 when O’Day was 62, and the 1989 edition contains a new epilogue. After recording her final album in 2006, O’Day died of cardiac arrest at the age of 87.

George Eells was a an editor, script writer, and biographer who collaborated on the autobiographies of Ethel Merman and Anita O’Day and who was best known for his biography of Cole Porter, The Life That Late He Led. His dual biography of Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons was made into the movie Malice in Wonderland.