|  |
| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 5 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
A must read for all Drum Corp fans Apr 23, 2008
By S. Stone
I saw this book on amazon and I was able to read an exert from the book. It caught my eye and after a few days I decided I had to buy it. Its a touching story that I don't want to give away-- but needless to say I was touched. I grew up more of a fan of the Santa Clara Vanguard, the rivals of the Blue Devils, but this story, though fictional, has given me a new respect for the Blue Devils. For those that love the activity of Drum Corp, a love story that doesn't overshadow the corp aspects of the book, and/or an easy read-- This book is definitely for you.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Chuck Edwards died August 12, 2010 Oct 14, 2010
By Tracy Edwards
Chuck Edwards died on August 12, 2010. He was my father and best friend. I was lucky enough to have traveled with my dad and the Blue Devils while he was researching this book. He fell so in love with drum corps that he decided to start the Hollywood Knights Drum and Bugle Corps. It took three years and his life savings, but he told me he had no regrets. I was in the HK color guard and loved every moment. The Lorin Solo is a love story but it is much more. Anybody that knows anything about drum corps will love this book. As you can tell I am not the writer my father was, I just want everyone to know how much this book meant to him and how drum corps changed and forever touched his life.
3 of 4 found the following review helpful:
What a read! What a writer! What a story! MORE! MORE! MORE! Apr 29, 2006
By Richard Carbajal
"Richard Pimentel Carbajal"
There are those few gifted writers who shine to brighten our mundane lives every epoch. THIS IS THE ONE FOR THE NEXT CENTURY. A call to read this first will make you understand why, and thus you will ask not only for more but will be BOASTING that you discovered him. Look out New York BEST SELLER LIST, make room for this and anything this man writes as it will top your lists for years to come.
A SIMPLE bugle starts the story, causing goose bumps to rise from toes to cranium. And as I turned the pages, the delightful way in which his pros drew me in caused a lump that soon wouldn't go away no matter how hard I chocked and swallowed. I read, then I read some more, then the lives in those words became real...I heard, and heard some more, it was as if the sound of this world rang in my ears...I tasted, and yearned for more ...I smelled, and smelled some more, I was there and I wanted to be there and nowhere else. Then as the emotional range drew me further, there was no turning back. I was putty within the Lorin's world as every turn of the page grew into something wonderful. I box of tissues wasn't enough. The phone rang...I ignored it. The boss came to the door, I said I was ill. The day turned into night and as the morning came I couldn't stop until I devoured the last word. Will this make a GREAT MOVIE? Yes, yes, yes and every SMART AGENT will be clamoring to bring it to the BIG SCREEN. Leaving us with wanting more, more, more.
Mr. Edwards, if you would please write a sequel, heck write anything and make sure to let me know as I will forever be a fan of your work. You took to long in coming out with this MAGNIFICENT STORY. You had me with Snow Shadows, a masterpiece in itself, and now I'm no longer able to wait for too long for another CLASSIC. So, hurry with the next will you!
2 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Finally, A drum corps novel! Dec 16, 2006
By D. W. Rogers
Last week, I was at home cataloging all my drum corps recordings in my media player so I figured it would help to visit corpsreps so I could remind myself what I have. Toward the bottom of the screen I see an ad for a book called The Lorin Solo. So I click on the link and it takes me to Amazon. Ooh cool. It turns out that it's a novel about drum corps, namely a story centered around '86 BD. OK. So I have to have it.
I finally received the book this afternoon. I immediately tore it open and started reading. It's about a rookie learning of and joining a corps with a healthy dose of romance. The story line begins in the fall of '85 and leads us through the '86 Championship. Along the way, we get to meet Mike Moxley, former director of the Blue Devils and Wayne Downey, including a number of fictional characters who could be any corps mom or dad who happen to be running a souvie booth, an equipment truck, or cooking on Devil's Food. We even get to read a little about SCV's pants change and Garfield's "82" member hornline--though I think it was really 72, I can't remember.
The beginning of the book drew me in right away, with Lorin (the hero)giving an impromptu audition for Wayne Downey, on Wayne's own trumpet at the corps hall. While on the starting line for BD's first show of the season, Lorin puts-into-words the first show "nerves" a rookie gets as only a person who has actually performed would be able. We follow Lorin across the country with the Blue Devils on the road to Championships, all the while wondering if he'll get the girl, a veteran soprano soloist, named Tracy...
From here, you're on your own. I would hate to ruin it for you guys.
I think I spent a whopping four hours reading the book cover-to-cover, compleatly enthralled with the story. I found myself smirking, laughing and even crying a couple of times(just a little of course). The most incredible part is how the author, Chuck Edwards, accurately portrays the drum corps family and usual happenings of a touring drum corps through the eyes of a member. Although it is a very short book, it will take you back to your early days of corps--I think I even smelled wool uniforms and bus fumes a couple of times.
2 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Living the Lorin Solo Jul 09, 2006
By Gregory Grant
I haven't read the novel of The Lorin Solo, but read the original stageplay over twenty years ago. It debuted as an original play at LA City College, and in 1983 gave rise to the fictional nemisis of the story: the Hollywood Knights Drum and Bugle Corps. The real story of the Knights itself would make for a good story and would be, like The Lorin Solo, "a bittersweet love story,"--with a good amount of farcical comedy, a story where "the show must go on," and indeed, sometimes just making it through the show was the biggest victory.
I marched HK during its two seasons, although I wouldn't exactly call it "two seasons," because we never made it on the road the second season. The first season, 1983, one of our used buses broke down in Kingman, Arizona. Sounds like a bummer, but what happened ended up being an affirmation of the good in people, the generosity, both material and spiritual, of which people are capable. They fed us, they housed us, and we gave the only thing we could: a stand-still dress rehearsal of our show. We made it to our debut, Denver's "Drums Along the Rockies" show, and with only half the drill learned we still avoided placing dead-last. We played only three more competitions that year, placing no higher than sixth. After rehearsing for the second season through part of spring 1984, the sad word came: we were broke and the corps had gone belly-up. I marched a season at UNLV, then hung up my horn and marching shoes.
Sounds like a raw deal, doesn't it? At the time it seemed so, and I carried a certain bitterness in my heart about it for years. However, as the years have passed, the bitterness has been replaced by a sweetness, not nostalgia, but a sense of gratitude and wonder at all I learned during my time with the Knights, especially when we were on the road. It's also led to an intense love for the drum corps activity and a desparate search for any touchstone to that manic, wonderful summer of 1983. Finding The Lorin Solo was a wonderful affirmation that it wasn't all just a dream.
|
| | |
|
|
