Product Description

Piano Girl is the story of a young woman’s accidental career as a cocktail lounge piano player. This entertaining memoir provides a glimpse into the comedies, tragedies, and mundane miracles witnessed from the business side of the eighty-eights. Showing how she had connected with people she has met while touring the world, Robin Goldsby is full of insights into the art of piano playing as well as inspiring life lessons. Piano Girl shows that anything can happen as people wander through Robin’s real-time soundtrack to life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #378763 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-01
• Released on: 2006-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 278 pages

Customer Reviews

Misty water-colored memoir (now available in paperback)
This is the paperback edition of Piano Girl: Lessons in Life, Music, and the Perfect Blue Hawaiian

Like the good old Barbra Streisand staple, Robin Meloy Goldsby shares with us the memories that light the corners of her mind, and true to the lyrics, it's the laughter we will remember, whenever we remember this personal and funny autobiography.

Beginning her working career as a waitress, the author's inability to balance food and beverages without causing grievous bodily harm quickly prompted a switch to another occupation. When practice sessions on the piano at the Club Car lead to an offer to play for the patrons five nights a week, Ms. Goldsby exchanges her hair net for beach-blanket Barbie attire, and delights the audience with her collection of 12 songs and her "fake book" which is used when you need to bluff your way through a musical request.

Eventually, tube tops evolve into cocktail dresses, and cocktail lounges become ritzy hotel lobbies, luxury island resorts and even castles, but Ms. Goldsby continues to amaze and amuse with her observations from the business side of the piano.

Designing agents, questionable bookings and embarrassing situations are all described here in glorious detail, but above all, the colorful, eccentric and certifiably crazy characters encountered make for an enjoyable reading experience.

It's obvious that if Ms. Goldsby had the chance to do it all again, she certainly would.


Amanda Richards

Compelling Cocktail Hour Stories From a Smart Charmer Who Knows Her Way Across the 88s
You won't learn anything technical about piano playing from reading this memoir, nor is there an abundance of great profundity, but darn if I didn't breeze right through this book, not missing a beat and enjoying every page.

Here's how it is: Imagine meeting a smart, attractive woman at a party, learning she makes a respectable living playing piano in lounges, lobbies and private parties around the world, and finding she can tell charming, frequently quite funny stories about her most memorable adventures and misadventures plying her trade, dealing with a colorful mix of memorable clients, bosses, co-workers and weirdos.

Never boring, this woman--with her compelling yin-yang mix of insecurity, spunk, humbleness and bravado--knows how to tell a bright, tight story, keeping things light-hearted with her sharp sense of irony, but grounded in a passion for her work and the artistry she struggles to refine, understand and appreciate amidst the jumble and chatter of cocktail hours with an audience that may or may not be listening to, let alone care about, the beauty and witty nuances (or occasional stumbles) of craft she shares with the world.

If you think you'd enjoy spending a few hours with that kind of woman--content in knowing she's never going home with you and that her most intimate and revealing stories are bound to be reserved for that someone very special who is not you--then you will likely enjoy this book as I have. And from ever on you will feel a special connection when you come across a piano girl plying her art. You will be one of those who listens in a knowing way, having a special respect for her work, respect she deserves and will likely truly appreciate.

(And don't forget to make note of the Piano Girl's large brandy snifter tip jar: It's for no-obligation cash, not damp napkins with your hotel room number scrawled on it!)

DON'T MISS THIS BOOK!!!
If you like to laugh, and enjoy sightseeing, Piano Girl is a journey I would highly recommend! This collection of anecdotes will introduce you to unforgettable people and places. What's more, even though you'll often find yourself laughing out loud, you might also shed a few tears. You don't have to be a musician to relate to the stories, either. This book is so brilliantly written, that even though the stories are told from a piano player's perspective, you will still undoubtedly catch glimpses of your own life. In fact, reading Piano Girl is essentially reading life. As you travel through her memories, you will have a sense of witnessing the author's own transformation and growth. When you finish this book, which you won't be in a hurry to do, you will have the satisfaction of just having leafed through someone's cherished scrap-book. Most likely, you'll want to keep it on the same shelf as your own.