You Ain't Got No Easter Clothes: A Memoir

Black Issues Book Review, May-June, 2005 by Nicole Shaw

You Ain't Got No Easter Clothes: A Memoir by Laura Love Hyperion, September 2004 $23.95, ISBN 1-401-30011-1

Although Love is not a widely known name, she has myriad of fans in the United States and Europe, and was singing at Carnegie Hall long before Mercury Records signed her in 1997. You Ain't Got No Easter Clothes is also the title of her current CD on KOCH Records, and is her ninth recording.

The singer/songwriter has taken the spirit of what she describes as an "Afro-Celtic," or "Hip-Appalachian," "folk-funk" style of music to craft an impressive and engaging memoir.

Her journey began in the early 1960s in Omaha, Nebraska--a defining point in history for racial equality. Unsure of her own ethnicity, Love survived a nomadic and difficult family life, excelling academically and forming lifelong relationships with her peers and teachers, who proved to be the catalyst she needed to propel her into the next stages of life. She never had the benefit of knowing her famous musician father, Preston Love, who played saxophone for such heavy hitters Count Basie, Lucky Millander and Johnny Otis.

Love's matter-of-fact writing has the same fireside-chat feel that is portrayed in her music. Her story is familiar, in your face and often funny. It shows there is the possibility of genius as a result of struggle.

Nicole Shaw is a freelance writer, poet and manager of Books for Thought in Tampa, Florida.