CARSON THE MAGNIFICENT

Bill Zehme began his Carson biography in 2005, and with Zehme's death last year, friend Mike Thomas completed the final third. Johnny Heller delivers a consistently solid, dry, yet folksy newscaster performance of the audiobook. Heller's style is nasal and gravelly, exerting sporadic underplayed enthusiasm. The work contains facts aplenty associated with the Nebraska boy who would become the late-night television king with "The Tonight Show." But while the matters of record surrounding Carson's life are here, there is little explanation of the man himself, who was introverted and moody except in front of the cameras. The production's opening and closing big-band music is a weak imitation of the stylish "Doc" Severinsen and his NBC orchestra. Carson, the man, remains a magnificent and inscrutable mystery. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2024]