Ballyhoo! Backstage Big Top, Tent Show Memorywars of the Song and Chance Man

Lake Superior Big Top Chautauqua impresario and host Warren Nelson brings to the lights his 23 years of being top hat of this Wisconsin treasured tent show. It was his dream that led to raising the canvas in 1986, and his wit, humor, song writing and pen stood at the centerpole of Chautauqua's shows. He is a born celebrator and this book takes you from backstage to spotlight, from song work to opening nights, from the famous performers who played the tent. With his self-admitted "lust for canvas," Warren steps you to the heart of "The Carnegie Hall of Tent Shows." Ballyhoo! Backstage Big Top is a personal, storytelling scrapbook of all things Chautauqua large and small, on and off stage over the years. With a lively singing prose and humor, Nelson, known as Mr. Chautauqua, brings to the light anecdotes and the genius history of how Big Top Chautauqua rose to it's well-earned reputation. "I have a carny heart when it comes to music and show business...step right up..this tent show is the greatest venue in the history of the universe! I was the luckiest of showmen to be the offered the gift to lift up a real deal old-fashioned all-canvas American tent show and the stories of it are herein. I honestly feel there isn't a better theatre for sound and intimacy than BTC.." In the pages of the book you'll spend summer nights with The Blue Canvas Orchestra and Singers, Chautauqua's troupe, hang out with Johnny Cash, The Smothers Brothers, The Kingston Trio, Robert Bly and many more and sit with Warren at his songwriting table while he writes a new one. Mason Williams, composer of Classical Gas and performer at the Big Top many times, "Your skill at writing songs and poetry is evident in your prosy text and that's what makes your book a good read...it flows like music!" Illustrated with 16 pages of photos gleaned from Warren's years standing the boards.