At this time last week, I didn’t know Doc Pomus from Papa Doc. The name wasn’t vaguely familiar, and I didn’t recognize the close-up on the front of the Pomus biography. If anything, the cover photo reminded me of Robert De Niro, De Niro as he appeared in Alfonso Cuaron’s Great Expectations adaptation, mysterious eyes peering out from a salt and pepper beard. Immediately an idea of Pomus shaped up in my head. Here was an enigmatic type, like De Niro’s Lustig, tough talking and rough around the edges, but deeply well meaning- the kind of guy who’s seen it all, too. Mind you, this was before I turned the book over. In the photo on the back of the jacket- a much earlier photo - Pomus looks more like John Polito’s rotund con artist in The Man Who Wasn’t There, black hair thoroughly greased, and I could hear the voice, practically register Polito’s rasp coming through the black and white. As it turns out, Pomus had qualities of both characters, and then some, and lived a life neither Cuaron nor the Coens could’ve cooked up. If I didn’t know Pomus, six days ago, when I cracked open Lonely Avenue, Times scribe Alex Halberstadt’s intimate, intricate prose-portrait, I certainly won’t forget him any time soon. Doc, as every reader of Halberstadt's book will tell you, is the type of guy, with the type of chops that demand to be remembered.
At a young age, Pomus (born Jerome Felder) lost the use of both legs to polio. Rather than staying in, feeling bad for himself, the teenage Doc went all out, pursuing a career jazz singing. The lone Brooklyn Jew in seedy Harlem Jazz dives, he made a reputation among black crowds and black musicians, belting out jazz tunes with all the guts of a four-legged man. Before becoming a songwriter for Elvis, Ray Charles, and BB King (to name a handful), Doc managed to bed a washed-up Veronica Lake, rub elbows with the likes of Billy Holiday and do stage time with Duke Ellington. He spent time in run down hotel rooms, wrestled against weeklong fits of loneliness, and the limits of his physical condition. The details of Pomus’ experience are weaved anecdote by anecdote through Lonely Avenue, which also includes direct excerpts from Pomus’ journal. So much is packed in to each page of the book that the reader feels a year has passed in ten pages, only to be informed by the author it is now the morning, when ten pages ago it was just last night.
Reviewing the lyrics of songs like “Save the Last Dance for Me” and “There Must Be a Better World Somewhere,” having learned Doc’s story, is an honest treat. The reader feels as if he knew this writer and why he wrote what he did; how often do readers get that lucky? Lonely Avenue is a true and affectionate look at the lives of Doc Pomus, and the lives Doc improved.
- Ian Grody
