The Other Fab Four
by
For readers of Sheila Weller's Girls Like Us comes a fiercely feminist, heartwarming story of friendship and music about The Liverbirds, Britain's first all-female rock group. The idea for Britain's first female rock band, The Liverbirds, started one evening in 1962, when Mary McGlory, then age 16, saw The Beatles play live at The Cavern Club in Liverpool, the nightclub famously known as the "cradle of British pop music." Then and there, she decided she was going to be just like them--and be the first girl to do it. Joining ranks in 1963 with three other working-class girls from Liverpool--drummer Sylvia Saunders and guitarists Valerie Gell and Pamela Birch, also self-taught musicians determined to "break the male monopoly of the beat world"--The Liverbirds went on to tour alongside the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, and Chuck Berry, and were on track to hit international stardom--until life intervened, and the group was forced to disband just five years after forming in 1968. Now, Mary and Sylvia, the band's two surviving members, are ready to tell their stories. From that fateful night in 1962, when Mary, who once aspired to become a nun, decided to provide for her family by becoming a rich-and-famous rocker, to the circumstances that led to the band splitting up--Sylvia's dangerously complicated pregnancy, and the tragic accident that paralyzed Valerie's beau--The Other Fab Four tackles family, friendship, addiction, aging, and the forces--even destiny--that initially brought the four women together.
How Women Made Music
by
Drawn from NPR Music's acclaimed, groundbreaking series Turning the Tables, the definitive book on the vital role of Women in Music--from Beyoncé to Odetta, Taylor Swift to Joan Baez, Joan Jett to Dolly Parton--featuring archival interviews, essays, photographs, and illustrations. Turning the Tables, launched in 2017, has revolutionized recognition of female artists, whether it be in best album lists or in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame How Women Made Music: A Revolutionary History from NPR Music brings this impressive reshaping to the page and includes material from more than fifty years of NPR's coverage plus newly commissioned work. A must-have for music fans, songwriters, feminist historians, and those interested in how artists think and work, including: * Joan Baez talking about nonviolence as a musical principle in 1971 * Dolly Parton's favorite song and the story behind it * Patti Smith describing art as her "jealous mistress" in 1974 * Nina Simone, in 2001, explaining how she developed the edge in her voice as a tool against racism. * Taylor Swift talking about when she had no idea if her musical career might work * Odetta on how shifting from classical music to folk allowed her to express her fury over Jim Crow This incomparable hardcover volume is a vital record of history destined to become a classic and a great gift for any music fan or creative thinker.
Black Diamond Queens
by
African American women have played a pivotal part in rock and roll--from laying its foundations and singing chart-topping hits to influencing some of the genre's most iconic acts. Despite this, black women's importance to the music's history has been diminished by narratives of rock as a mostly white male enterprise. In Black Diamond Queens, Maureen Mahon draws on recordings, press coverage, archival materials, and interviews to document the history of African American women in rock and roll between the 1950s and the 1980s. Mahon details the musical contributions and cultural impact of Big Mama Thornton, LaVern Baker, Betty Davis, Tina Turner, Merry Clayton, Labelle, the Shirelles, and others, demonstrating how dominant views of gender, race, sexuality, and genre affected their careers. By uncovering this hidden history of black women in rock and roll, Mahon reveals a powerful sonic legacy that continues to reverberate into the twenty-first century.
Rock-And-Roll Woman
by
"A must for rock and roll and women's studies enthusiasts.--Library Journal Celebrate the women who rock, with this fully illustrated tribute to 50 iconic female musicians and bands. Award-winning radio personality Meredith Ochs takes an insightful look at 50 rock icons who indelibly shook up the music scene, whether solo or in a band. Profiling women from the 1950s to today, and from multiple genres, Ochs tells the dramatic stories behind their journeys to success, their music, and their enduring impact. More than 100 photographs make this a rich volume, and the idols include Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Grace Slick, Janis Joplin, Stevie Nicks, Heart, Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, Joan Jett and the Runaways, the Go-Go's, Karen O, Sleater-Kinney, Grace Potter, and more.
Parachute Women
by
Discover the true story of the four women who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to help shape and curate the image of The Rolling Stones--perfect for fans of Girls Like Us. The Rolling Stones have long been considered one of the greatest rock-and-roll bands of all time. At the forefront of the British Invasion and heading up the counterculture movement of the 1960s, the Stones' innovative music and iconic performances defined a generation, and fifty years later, they're still performing to sold-out stadiums around the globe. Yet, as the saying goes, behind every great man is a greater woman, and behind these larger-than-life rockstars were four incredible women whose stories have yet to be fully unpacked . . . until now. In Parachute Women, Elizabeth Winder introduces us to the four women who inspired, styled, wrote for, remixed, and ultimately helped create the legend of the Rolling Stones. Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, and Anita Pallenberg put the glimmer in the Glimmer Twins and taught a group of straight-laced boys to be bad. They opened the doors to subterranean art and alternative lifestyles, turned them on to Russian literature, occult practices, and LSD. They connected them to cutting edge directors and writers, won them roles in art house films that renewed their appeal. They often acted as unpaid stylists, providing provocative looks from their personal wardrobes. They remixed tracks for chart-topping albums, and sometimes even wrote the actual songs. More hip to the times than the rockers themselves, they consciously (and unconsciously) kept the band current--and confident--with that mythic lasting power they still have today. Lush in detail and insight, and long overdue, Parachute Women is a group portrait of the four audacious women who transformed the Stones into international stars, but who were themselves marginalized by the male-dominated rock world of the late '60s and early '70s. Written in the tradition of Sheila Weller's Girls Like Us, it's a story of lust and rivalries, friendships and betrayals, hope and degradation, and the birth of rock and roll.
Rebel Rebel
by
David Bowie- every single song. Everything you want to know, everything you didn't know. The legacy of David Bowie is roughly 450 songs, which he recorded or performed over half a century. They range from cabaret to psychedelia to folk rock to glam rock to Philadelphia soul, from avant-garde instrumentals to stadium anthems. Cataloging Bowie's songs from the dawn of his career in 1963 to his Hollywood stardom in 1976, examining them in the order of their composition and recording, and digging into what makes them work, Rebel Rebel and its sequel Ashes to Ashes have become standard references for Bowie fans. The new edition of Rebel Rebel is a fully-updated revision, taking into account Bowie demos and alternate takes released in the years after his death. It's enhanced by a decade's worth of new information about Bowie's recording process, his influences, his contemporaries, and his live performances, all of which shed light onto the evolution of his songwriting. It shows how Bowie exploited studio innovations, and delves into the roles of his supporting musicians, particularly major collaborators like Mick Ronson and Tony Visconti. This book aligns Bowie's music with his times, planting his work in the context of its era. You'll see what Bowie's work owes to novelists like Keith Waterhouse, Jack Kerouac, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, and William S. Burroughs. To films like Performance, 2001- A Space Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange. To rival songwriters and performers like Marc Bolan, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Elvis Presley, the Bee Gees, Isaac Hayes, James Brown, Pete Townshend, and John Lennon. With guest appearances by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Cher.
The Birth of Loud
by
"A hot-rod joy ride through mid-20th-century American history" (The New York Times Book Review), this one-of-a-kind narrative masterfully recreates the rivalry between the two men who innovated the electric guitar's amplified sound--Leo Fender and Les Paul--and their intense competition to convince rock stars like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton to play the instruments they built. In the years after World War II, music was evolving from big-band jazz into rock 'n' roll--and these louder styles demanded revolutionary instruments. When Leo Fender's tiny firm marketed the first solid-body electric guitar, the Esquire, musicians immediately saw its appeal. Not to be out-maneuvered, Gibson, the largest guitar manufacturer, raced to build a competitive product. The company designed an "axe" that would make Fender's Esquire look cheap and convinced Les Paul--whose endorsement Leo Fender had sought--to put his name on it. Thus was born the guitar world's most heated rivalry: Gibson versus Fender, Les versus Leo. While Fender was a quiet, half-blind, self-taught radio repairman, Paul was a brilliant but headstrong pop star and guitarist who spent years toying with new musical technologies. Their contest turned into an arms race as the most inventive musicians of the 1950s and 1960s--including bluesman Muddy Waters, rocker Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton--adopted one maker's guitar or another. By 1969 it was clear that these new electric instruments had launched music into a radical new age, empowering artists with a vibrancy and volume never before attainable. In "an excellent dual portrait" (The Wall Street Journal), Ian S. Port tells the full story in The Birth of Loud, offering "spot-on human characterizations, and erotic paeans to the bodies of guitars" (The Atlantic). "The story of these instruments is the story of America in the postwar era: loud, cocky, brash, aggressively new" (The Washington Post).
Legends, Icons and Rebels
by
Music industry veterans Robbie Robertson, Jim Guerinot, Jared Levine and Sebastian Robertson invite younger readers to share the celebration of 27 musical legends. Carefully compiled like a great playlist, the line-up features originators, rebels and risk-takers across diverse genres. From Ray Charles to Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry to Bob Dylan, Robertson shares anecdotes about these artists and the influence they had on his own musical journey. Filled with personal stories of creativity and collaboration that will fascinate, enlighten and inspire music fans of all ages.
Woodstock
by
"We're all still at Woodstock" --Richie Havens The year was 1969. Richard Nixon was in the White House. Neil Armstrong was on the Moon. And revolution was in the air. In that backdrop, 500,000 young people gathered on a mid-August weekend in upstate New York for the promise of three days of peace and music. What they experienced at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was something far greater. Celebrating "the greatest peaceful event in history," Woodstock 50th Anniversary: Back to Yasgur's Farm offers a dazzlingly and compelling front-row seat to the most important concert in rock history, an implausible happening filled with trials and triumphs that defined a generation. Author and Woodstock attendee Mike Greenblatt brilliantly captures the power of music's greatest performers such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Santana and the Who, while sharing stories both personal and audacious from the crowd of a half million strong who embraced not only the music but each other. The book features a Foreword by Country Joe McDonald, whose rousing solo acoustic version of "The Fish Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" was one of the most memorable performances at Woodstock. In addition, all 32 performances at the festival are showcased. Equal parts circus and surreal, Woodstock 50th Anniversary: Back to Yasgur's Farm tells a transcendent tale of a musical and mythical moment in time.
Rock on Film
by
For rock music and film buffs alike, this is the ultimate guide exploring the electrifying, entertaining, and often daring marriage of rock & roll and cinema. When the use of Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" turned 1955's Blackboard Jungle into a teen sensation and a box-office smash, it proved the opening shot in a cinematic and cultural revolution. Starting with Elvis Presley and the teensploitation films of the '50s and '60s, in Rock on Film award-winning author and former Rolling Stone editor Fred Goodman takes readers on a wide-ranging journey through film and pop history. Along the way, he measures the transformative impact of the mid-'60s landmarks A Hard Day's Night and Dont Look Back and how they seeded an almost unbelievably broad genre of films made by increasingly ambitious musicians and filmmakers across the past seven decades. From the carefree to the complex, the mindless to the mind-bending, rock films have staked out their own turf by simultaneously celebrating innocence and challenging artistic and social conventions. With an insightful round-up of fifty must-see rock films spanning crowd-pleasers, art-house favorites, underground gems, and undisputed classics, Rock on Film surveys the nearly seventy-year canon of a genre like no other. A series of original interviews with Cameron Crowe, Jim Jarmusch, Penelope Spheeris, Taylor Hackford, and John Waters illuminates how rock has influenced the work of some of the most divergent and thoughtful directors in movie history. Illustrated throughout by more than 150 full-color and black-and-white images, Rock on Film brings the history of music in the movies to vivid life.
The Last Great Dream
by
"McNally masterfully combines many disparate lineages of political, social, art, and pop history into one singular, sweeping portrait. The result is a stunning vision of a broad and powerful idealism that gripped the world for more than two decades."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) From the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Strange Trip and the publicist of the Grateful Dead, a riveting social history of everything that led up to the 1960s counterculture movement. Few cities represent the countercultural movement of the 1960s more than San Francisco. By that decade, the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood was home to self-branded "freaks" (dubbed "hippies" by the media) who created the world's first psychedelic neighborhood--an alchemical chamber for social transformation. They rejected a large part of the traditional American identity, passing over American exceptionalism, consumerism, misogyny, and militarism in favor of creativity, mind-body connection, peace, and love of all things. The Last Great Dream is a history of everything that led to the 1960s counterculture, when long-simmering resistance to American mainstream values birthed the hippie. It begins with the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, peaks with the Human Be-in in Golden Gate Park, and ends with the Monterey Pop Festival that introduced Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin to the world. It tells of several micro-histories, including beat poetry, visual arts, underground publishing, electronic/contemporary compositional music, experimental theater, psychedelics, and more. Fascinating and definitive, The Last Great Dream is the ultimate guide to a generation-defining countercultural movement--an Underground 101 course for newcomers and aficionados alike.
Nöthin' but a Good Time
by
From the early days of D.I.Y. concert productions that were as flashy as they were foolhardy, to the multi-Platinum, MTV-powered glory years of stadium-shaking anthems and chart-topping power ballads, to the ultimate crash when grunge bands like Nirvana forever altered the entire climate of the business, Nothin' But a Good Time captures the energy and excess of the hair metal years in the words of the musicians, managers, producers, engineers, stylists, costume designers, photographers, journalists, magazine publishers, video directors, club bookers, roadies, groupies, and hangers-on who lived it.
Hotel California
by
Hoskyns brings a genuine love as well as an outsider's keen eye to the rise and fall of the California scene. . . . This is a riveting story, sensitively told. --Anthony DeCurtis, Contributing Editor, Rolling Stone From enduring musical achievements to drug-fueled chaos and bed-hopping antics, the L.A. pop music scene in the sixties and seventies was like no other, and journalist Barney Hoskyns re-creates all the excitement and mayhem. Hotel California brings to life the genesis of Crosby, Stills, and Nash at Joni Mitchell's house; the Eagles' backstage fistfights after the success of "Hotel California"; the drama of David Geffen and the other money men who transformed the L.A. music scene; and more.
Altamont
by
In this breathtaking cultural history filled with exclusive, never-before-revealed details, celebrated rock journalist Joel Selvin tells the definitive story of the Rolling Stones' infamous Altamont concert, the disastrous historic event that marked the end of the idealistic 1960s. In the annals of rock history, the Altamont Speedway Free Festival on December 6, 1969, has long been seen as the distorted twin of Woodstock--the day that shattered the Sixties' promise of peace and love when a concertgoer was killed by a member of the Hells Angels, the notorious biker club acting as security. While most people know of the events from the film Gimme Shelter, the whole story has remained buried in varied accounts, rumor, and myth--until now. Altamont explores rock's darkest day, a fiasco that began well before the climactic death of Meredith Hunter and continued beyond that infamous December night. Joel Selvin probes every aspect of the show--from the Stones' hastily planned tour preceding the concert to the bad acid that swept through the audience to other deaths that also occurred that evening--to capture the full scope of the tragedy and its aftermath. He also provides an in-depth look at the Grateful Dead's role in the events leading to Altamont, examining the band's behind-the-scenes presence in both arranging the show and hiring the Hells Angels as security. The product of twenty years of exhaustive research and dozens of interviews with many key players, including medical staff, Hells Angels members, the stage crew, and the musicians who were there, and featuring sixteen pages of color photos, Altamont is the ultimate account of the final event in rock's formative and most turbulent decade.
A Curious Mix of People
by
A twisting path through Austin's underground music scene in the twentieth century's last decade, narrated by the people who were there. It?s 1990 in Austin, Texas. The next decade will be a tipping point in the city's metamorphosis from sleepy college town to major city. Beneath the increasingly slick exterior, though, a group of like-minded contrarians were reimagining an underground music scene. Embracing a do-it-yourself ethos, record labels emerged to release local music, zines cheered and jeered acts beneath the radar of mainstream media outlets, and upstart clubs provided a home venue for new bands to build their sound. This vibrant scene valued expression over erudition, from the razor-sharp songcraft of Spoon to the fuzzed-out poptones of Sixteen Deluxe, and blurred the boundaries between observer and participant. Evolving in tandem with the city?s emergence on the national stage via the film Slacker and the SXSW conference and festivals, Austin?s musical underground became a spiritual crucible for the uneasy balance between commercial success and cultural authenticity, a tension that still resonates today. The first book about Austin underground music in the ?90s, A Curious Mix of People is an oral history that tells the story of this transformative decade through the eyes of the musicians, writers, DJs, club owners, record-store employees, and other key figures who were there.
Backbeat Gangsters
by
During the early days of rock and roll the mob used every tactic they could, from creating their own record labels, bribing radio DJs and stacking jukeboxes with their own artists, to exploiting and intimidating performers, and creating their own black market of bootlegged records, to make millions. In the 1950s, when rock and roll music burst upon the scene, the major established record companies thought that the new music was a passing teenage trend, but mobsters were there and pounced on the new business opportunity. They opened small independent record companies, signed ambitious young singers and musicians, and produced truckloads of 45 rpm records. To make sure that their records would be successful, the mob bribed disc jockeys in major cities to play the records and made sure jukeboxes, which were already mob-controlled, were filled to capacity with the new music. Whatever it took to gain airtime and repeated plays of their songs, the mob made sure it happened. Backbeat Gangsters includes the stories of the most sinister people who took control of the record business during the early days of rock and roll, as well as those of the numerous, young performers who were exploited and received threats and beatings instead of the compensation they were promised. The Mafia used intimidation and violence to achieve their ends and made millions from denying royalties, maintaining copyrights and trademarks, bribing DJs, and numerous scams like flooding the market with counterfeit records which didn't have the burden of paying royalties. In yet another well-researched and thorough account, Jeffrey Sussman, details how the mob was able to infiltrate and control another aspect of American culture with devastating results.
Buzz Me In
by
The inside story of Record Plant studios - the real 'Hotel California' - that reveals how the greatest music of the seventies was recorded and why the artists checked out but rarely left. In the 1970s, Record Plant Studios was ground zero for the largest boom in record production in music history. With complexes in New York, Los Angeles and Sausalito, and a fleet of remote recording trucks, Record Plant was everywhere there was music. In 1976 alone, the studio produced three number-one albums: Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life, the Eagles' Hotel California and Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. Written by two veteran music journalists, this engrossing book tells the incredible story of the evolution of Record Plant Studios tape by tape. Starting on the westside of New York in 1968 with the recording of Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland, Record Plant expanded to LA, where Stevie Wonder produced his greatest hits, and then to Sausalito where Sly Stone, Bob Marley and Fleetwood Mac encamped; John Lennon made New York his post-Beatles home, and the Eagles conceived Hotel California while working in LA. Each location showcased the founders' proven formula of combining state-of-the-art audio, fantasy bedrooms and group jacuzzis, with sex, drugs and celebrity jams. Largely based on the memoirs and archives of studio co-founder Chris Stone, and supplemented by interviews with over 100 studio employees, music producers and recording artists, this is the untold story, in all its brazen glory, of the recording of classic rock'n'roll as told by the insiders who gladly toiled behind the locked doors of the most prolific recording factory of all time.
Instrument of War
by
An original history of music in the lives of American soldiers. Since the Civil War, music has coursed through the United States military. Soldiers have sung while marching, listened to phonographs and armed forces radio, and packed the seats at large-scale USO shows. "Reveille" has roused soldiers in the morning and "Taps" has marked the end of a long day. Whether the sounds came from brass instruments, weary and homesick singers, or a pair of heavily used earbuds, where there was war, there was music, too. Instrument of War is a first-of-its-kind study of music in the lives of American soldiers. Although musical activity has been part of war since time immemorial, the significance of the US military as a musical institution has generally gone unnoticed. Historian David Suisman traces how the US military used--and continues to use--music to train soldiers and regulate military life, and how soldiers themselves have turned to music to cope with war's emotional and psychological realities. Opening our ears to these practices, Suisman reveals how music has enabled more than a century and a half of American war-making. Instrument of War unsettles assumptions about music as a force of uplift and beauty, demonstrating how it has also been entangled in large-scale state violence. Whether it involves chanting "Sound off!" in basic training, switching on a phonograph or radio, or cueing up an iPod playlist while out on patrol, the sound of music has long resonated in soldiers' wartime experiences. Now we all can finally hear it.
I Want My MTV
by
Remember the first time you saw Michael Jackson dance with zombies in 'Thriller'? Diamond Dave karate kick with Van Halen in 'Jump'? Tawny Kitaen turning cartwheels on a Jaguar to Whitesnake's 'Here I Go Again'? The Beastie Boys spray beer in '(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)'? Axl Rose step off the bus in 'Welcome to the Jungle'? Remember When All You Wanted Was Your MTV? It was a pretty radical idea-a channel for teenagers, showing nothing but music videos. It was such a radical idea that almost no one thought it would actually succeed, much less become a force in the worlds of music, television, film, fashion, sports, and even politics. But it did work. MTV became more than anyone had ever imagined. I Want My MTVtells the story of the first decade of MTV, the golden era when MTV's programming was all videos, all the time, and kids watched religiously to see their favorite bands, learn about new music, and have something to talk about at parties. From its start in 1981 with a small cache of videos by mostly unknown British new wave acts to the launch of the reality-television craze with The Real Worldin 1992, MTV grew into a tastemaker, a career maker, and a mammoth business. Featuring interviews with nearly four hundred artists, directors, VJs, and television and music executives, I Want My MTVis a testament to the channel that changed popular culture forever.
The History of Rock in Fifty Guitars
by
Popular music in the 1920s called out for a guitar sound that was more dominant. Early experiments with steel cones or resonators, Hawaiian electric guitars and the first Electric Spanish style 6-string guitar in 1936 made musicians suddenly realise that it was possible to produce notes that could be amplified to any desired volume and this gave birth to the new less restrained style of playing. Finally the guitar could take the lead part and as rock music evolved the guitar was a natural choice of instrument. This stunning book traces the development of the instrument and the artists who achieved fame with it over seven decades, from Bill Haley to Jimi Hendrix.
Haight-Ashbury, Psychedelics, and the Birth of Acid Rock
by
Illuminates the beginnings, downfall, and legacy of the acid-inspired, spontaneous, and playful approach to life and music in Haight-Ashbury from 1964-1967. Combining literature, social history, and personal experience, author Robert J. Campbell traces the birth, downfall, and legacy of the innovative, playful, and spontaneous counterculture launched in 1960s Haight-Ashbury. In a lively writing style, Campbell describes the discovery of LSD, its slow adoption, and the promotion of it by Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey, who each became missionaries for the drug. Campbell relates how LSD allowed users to enhance the perception of alternative realities and describes its wide-scale use in the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco from 1964 to 1967 that led to imaginative and creative change, including collaborative behavior, a new way of looking at the world, acid rock, and a host of other paradigm shifts. Haight-Ashbury, Psychedelics, and the Birth of Acid Rock concludes by examining the inherent dangers of constant drug use as well as the positive legacy of the 1960s, including a focus on health food, cooperative living arrangements, recycling, battling climate change, free medical help, and personal responsibility. The book incorporates ideas from a broad range of disciplines for general readers for a unique and fresh look at this impactful era.
Brothers and Sisters: the Allman Brothers Band and the inside story of the album that defined the '70s
by
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER New York Times bestselling author Alan Paul's in-depth narrative look at the Allman Brothers' most successful album, and a portrait of an era in rock and roll and American history. The Allman Brothers Band's Brothers and Sisters was not only the band's bestselling album, at over seven million copies sold, but it was also a powerfully influential release, both musically and culturally, one whose influence continues to be profoundly felt. Celebrating the album's fiftieth anniversary, Brothers and Sisters the book delves into the making of the album, while also presenting a broader cultural history of the era, based on first-person interviews, historical documents, and in-depth research. Brothers and Sisters traces the making of the template-shaping record alongside the stories of how the Allman Brothers came to the rescue of a flailing Jimmy Carter presidential campaign and helped get the former governor of Georgia elected president; how Gregg Allman's marriage to Cher was an early harbinger of an emerging celebrity media culture; and how the band's success led to internal fissures. The book also examines the Allman Brothers' relationship with the Grateful Dead--including the most in-depth reporting ever on the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen, the largest rock festival ever--and describes how they inspired bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, helping create the southern rock genre. With exclusive access to hundreds of hours of never-before-heard interviews with every major player, including Dickey Betts and Gregg Allman, conducted by Allman Brothers Band archivist, photographer, and "Tour Mystic" Kirk West, Brothers and Sisters is an honest assessment of the band's career, history, and highs and lows.
Fleetwood Mac on Fleetwood Mac
by
Fleetwood Mac was a triumph from the beginning--their first album was the UK's bestselling album of 1968. After some low points--when founder Peter Green left, some fans felt that the band continuing was sacrilege--Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined, and their 1977 album, Rumours, became one of history's immortals, a true classic that remained on the charts for years and in the public's affection forever. In the press, the ethereal Californian Stevie Nicks, the tormented rocker Lindsey Buckingham, the dignified English rose Christine McVie, the blunt-speaking John McVie, and the loquacious Mick Fleetwood have all regularly been astoundingly candid. This collection of interviews across the entirety of Fleetwood Mac's career features articles from such celebrated publications as Crawdaddy, New Musical Express, Circus, Creem, Mojo, Goldmine, Classic Rock, Blender, and Elle, as well as interviews that have never previously appeared in print. Here is the only place you can learn the Fleetwood Mac story from the band members' own mouths.
All You Need Is Love: the Beatles in Their Own Words
by
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An oral history of The Beatles from never-before-seen interviews. All You Need Is Love is a groundbreaking oral history of the one of the most enduring musical acts of all time. The material is comprised of intimate interviews with Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, their families, friends and business associates that were conducted by Beatles intimate Peter Brown and author Steven Gaines in 1980-1981 during the preparation of their international bestseller, The Love You Make, which spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list in 1983 and remains the biggest selling biography worldwide about the Beatles Only a small portion of the contents of these transcribed interviews have ever been revealed. The interviews are unique and candid. The information, stories, and experiences, and the authority of the people who relate to them, have historic value. No collection like this can ever be assembled again. In addition to interviews with Paul, Yoko, Ringo and George, Brown and Gaines also include interviews from ex-wives Cynthia Lennon, Pattie Harrison Clapton, and Maureen Starkey, as well as the major social and business figures of the Beatles' inner circle. Among other sought-after information the interviews contribute definitively as to why the Beatles broke up.
Led Zeppelin
by
The definitive oral history of the iconic, bestselling rock band Led Zeppelin With Robert Plant on lead vocal and Jimmy Page on guitar, Led Zeppelin is one of the most iconic, legendary, and influential rock bands in musical history. Tales of their indulgence in sex, drugs, and excess have swirled for decades. In this definitive oral history of the band, Barney Hoskyns finally reveals the truth about Led Zeppelin, paring away the myths and describing what life was really like for four young men on top of the world, enjoying fame on a scale that not even the Beatles experienced as a touring live act. Through fresh new interviews with the surviving band members, close friends, their tour manager, and scores of other fascinating characters, Hoskyns provides deep insights into the personalities of the band members and chronicles the group's dramatic rise, fall, and legacy. Based on more than 200 interviews with everyone from Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones to road manager Richard Cole, their late manager Peter Grant, and many others central to the Zeppelin story Features striking photos of the band both on and offstage, many published here for the first time Takes a fresh look at Led Zeppelin's music, cultural significance, and legend, as well as the highs and lows of the sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle on the road Analyzes the way the band wrote, arranged, and recorded, from how they created the stupendous sound and dynamics on "Dazed and Confused" and "Whole Lotta Love" to the group's folk-suffused acoustic side embodied in songs like "Friends" and "That's the Way" Written by Barney Hoskyns, contributing editor at British Vogue who is the author of the bestselling book Hotel California and the co-founder of online music-journalism library Rock's Backpages
Guns N' Roses At 40
by
Celebrate four exhilarating and rebellious decades of Guns N' Roses with this lushly illustrated journey through the band's biggest moments. Formed on Los Angeles' famed Sunset Strip in 1985, Guns N' Roses worked their way up from the club scene in less than three years to become a best-selling recording act and a top tour draw. Along the way, there was no shortage of controversy to accompany the accolades. In Guns N' Roses at 40, prolific rock biographer Martin Popoff curates 40 key touchstones in GN'R's career, charting their formation and early history, key concert appearances, groundbreaking releases, notable collaborations, business challenges, personal difficulties, band quarrels, and more. This beautifully produced tribute features: Sturdy hardcover format Stunning photography, both on and off the stage Images of band memorabilia Gatefold Guns N' Roses timeline Complete studio discography Popoff covers it all: A history of the band's scruffy early days on Hollywood's Sunset Strip club scene Backgrounds of founding members Axl Rose, Duff McKagan, Slash, Izzy Stradlin, and Steven Adler Rundowns of the key studio albums and the processes behind them Analyses of the infamous incidents and controversies that seemed to follow the band The departures (and sometimes the returns) of key members First-person interviews with bassists Duff McKagan and Tommy Stinson In examining 40 key pivot points in GN'R's now-forty-year history, Guns N' Roses at 40 provides a concise documentary-like view of the band that as much as any other helped drive a spike through the heart of hair metal. Combine this unique perspective with a gorgeous package and you have an indispensable addition to the collection of every fan.
Burning down the House
by
On the 50th anniversary of Talking Heads, acclaimed music biographer Jonathan Gould presents the long-overdue, definitive story of this singular band, capturing the gritty energy of 1970s New York City and showing how a group of art students brought fringe culture to rock's mainstream, forever changing the look and sound of popular music. "Psycho Killer." "Take Me to the River." "Road to Nowhere." Few artists have had the lasting impact and relevance of Talking Heads. One of the foundational bands of downtown New York's 1970s music scene, Talking Heads have endured as a musical and cultural force for decades, their unique brand of transcendent, experimental rock a lingering influence on popular music--despite having disbanded over thirty years ago. Now on the 50th anniversary of the band's formation, acclaimed music biographer and contributor to The New Yorker Jonathan Gould offers the definitive story of Talking Heads--a band whose sound, fame, and legacy forever connected the avant-garde to rock music. From their art school origins, to the enigma of David Byrne, to the internal tensions that ultimately brought them down, Gould tells the story of a band that emerged back when rock music was still young and unwittingly redefined the era's expectations of what a rock band could sound, look, and act like. At a time when guitar solos, lead singer swagger, and sweaty stadium tours reigned supreme, Talking Heads were pretentious, awkward, infectious, distinctive--most comfortable on the ragged stages of the East Village where they could make art for themselves, above all else. More than just a biography of a band, Gould masterfully captures the singular time and place that incubated and nurtured this original music--downtown in the 1970s--that much romanticized, little understood moment in New York City history when art, music, and commerce uneasily collided to cement the post-Woodstock generation of rock stars, often with messy results. What emerges is an expansive portrait of a band and a scene that permanently shifted the horizons of popular music, iconoclasts that pushed the cultural fringe into the mainstream and then burned down the house.
The Name of This Band Is R. E. M.
by
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE * An electrifying cultural biography of the greatest and last American rock band of the millennium, whose music ignited a generation--and reasserted the power of rock and roll "[Carlin's] unique gift for capturing the sweep and tenor of a cultural moment...is here on brilliant display." --Michael Chabon In the spring of 1980, an unexpected group of musical eccentrics came together to play their very first performance at a college party in Athens, Georgia. Within a few short years, they had taken over the world - with smash records like Out of Time, Automatic for the People, Monster and Green. Raw, outrageous, and expressive, R.E.M.'s distinctive musical flair was unmatched, and a string of mega-successes solidified them as generational spokesmen. In the tumultuous transition between the wide-open 80s and the anxiety of the early 90s, R.E.M. challenged the corporate and social order, chasing a vision and cultivating a magnetic, transgressive sound. In this rich, intimate biography, critically acclaimed author Peter Ames Carlin looks beyond the sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll to open a window into the fascinating lives of four college friends - Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry - who stuck together at any cost, until the end. Deeply descriptive and remarkably poetic, steeped in 80s and 90s nostalgia, The Name of This Band is R.E.M. paints a cultural history of the commercial peak and near-total collapse of a great music era, and the story of the generation that came of age at the apotheosis of rock.
Livin' Just to Find Emotion
by
"Golland leaves no stone unturned in this fine-grained chronicle of the rock group Journey.... Golland's passion and precision make this a pleasure." -Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "[Golland] provides an overdue critical take on the group's overall sound. He also discusses issues of musical influence versus appropriation. It is rare, and valuable, to find such insight in books like this." -Library Journal, Starred Review "A welcome study of one of rock's most enduring musical fusions." - Salon Relive Journey's greatest songs and moments with this fiftieth anniversary tribute Since exploding on the scene in the late 1970s, Journey has inspired generations of fans with hit after hit. But hidden under this rock 'n' roll glory is a complex story of ambition, larger-than-life personalities, and clashes. David Hamilton Golland unearths the band's true and complete biography, based on over a decade of interviews and thousands of sources. When Steve Perry joined jazz-blues progressive rock band Journey in 1977, they saw a rise to the top, and their 1981 album Escape hit #1. But Perry's quest for control led to Journey's demise. They lost their record contract and much of their audience. After the unlikely comeback of "Don't Stop Believin'" in movies, television, and sports stadiums, a new generation discovered Journey. A professional historian, Golland dispels rehashed myths and also shows how race in popular music contributed to their breakout success. As the economy collapsed and as people abandoned the spirit of Woodstock in the late 70s, Journey used the rhythm of soul and Motown to inspire hope in primarily white teenagers' lives. Decades later, the band and their signature song remain classics, and now, with singer Arnel Pineda, they are again a fixture in major stadiums worldwide.
Whiskey Bottles and Brand-New Cars
by
This book tells the intimate story of how a band of lost souls and self-destructive misfits with uncertain artistic objectives clawed their way to the very top of the rock 'n' roll peak, writing and performing as if beneficiaries of a deal with the devil--a deal fulfilled by a tragic fall from the sky. The rudderless genius behind their ascent was a man named Ronnie Van Zant, who guided their five-year run and evolved not just a new country/rock idiom but a new Confederacy in constant conflict with old Southern totems and prejudices. Placing the music and personae of Lynyrd Skynyrd into a broader cultural schema for the first time, Whiskey Bottles and Brand-New Cars is based on interviews with surviving band members and others who watched them. It gives a new perspective to a history of stage fights, motel-room destructions, cunning business deals, and brilliant studio productions, offering a greater appreciation for a band that, in the aftermath of its last plane ride, has sadly descended into self-caricature as the sort of lowbrow guns-'n'-God cliché that Ronnie Van Zant wanted to chuck from around his neck. No other book on Southern rock has ever captured the "Free Bird"-like sweep and significance of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Ribowsky's cohesive narrative gives the band its full due while not ignoring the cruel irony and avoidability of the band's tragic end.
Long Road: Pearl Jam and the soundtrack of a generation
by
A leading music journalist's riveting chronicle of how beloved band Pearl Jam shaped the times, and how their legacy and longevity have transcended generations. Ever since Pearl Jam first blasted onto the Seattle grunge scene three decades ago with their debut album, Ten, they have sold 85M+ albums, performed for hundreds of thousands of fans around the world, and have even been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack Of A Generation, music critic and journalist Steven Hyden celebrates the life, career, and music of this legendary group, widely considered to be one of the greatest American rock bands of all time. Long Road is structured like a mix tape, using 18 different Pearl Jam classics as starting points for telling a mix of personal and universal stories. Each chapter tells the tale of this great band -- how they got to where they are, what drove them to greatness, and why it matters now. Much like the generation it emerged from, Pearl Jam is a mass of contradictions. They were an enormously successful mainstream rock band who felt deeply uncomfortable with the pursuit of capitalistic spoils. They were progressive activists who spoke in favor of abortion rights and against the Ticketmaster monopoly, and yet they epitomized the sound of traditional, male-dominated rock 'n' roll. They were looked at as spokesmen for their generation, even though they ultimately projected profound confusion and alienation. They triumphed, and failed, in equal doses -- the quintessential Gen-X tale. Impressive as their stats, accolades, and longevity may be, Hyden also argues that Pearl Jam's most definitive accomplishment lies in the impact their music had on Generation X as a whole. Pearl Jam's music helped an entire generation of listeners connect with the glory of bygone rock mythology, and made it relevant during a period in which tremendous American economic prosperity belied a darkness at the heart of American youth. More than just a chronicle of the band's career, this book is also a story about Gen- X itself, who like Pearl Jam came from angsty, outspoken roots and then evolved into an establishment institution, without ever fully shaking off their uncertain, outsider past. For so many Gen-Xers growing up at the time, Pearl Jam's music was a beacon that offered both solace and guidance. They taught an entire generation how to grow up without losing the purest and most essential parts of themselves. Written with his celebrated blend of personal memoir, criticism, and journalism, Hyden explores Pearl Jam's path from Ten to now. It's a chance for new fans and old fans alike to geek out over Pearl Jam minutia--the B-sides, the beloved deep cuts, the concert bootlegs--and explore the multitude of reasons why Pearl Jam's music resonated with so many people. As Hyden explains, "Most songs pass through our lives and are swiftly forgotten. But Pearl Jam is forever."
A Song for Everyone: the story of Creedence Clearwater Revival
by
The definitive biography of Creedence Clearwater Revival, exploring the band's legendary rise to fame and how their music embodied the cultural landscape of the late '60s and early '70s From 1969 to 1971, as the United States convulsed with political upheaval and transformative social movements, no band was bigger than Creedence Clearwater Revival. They managed a two-year barrage of top-10 singles and LPs that doubled as an ubiquitous soundtrack to one of the most volatile periods in modern American history, and they remain a staple of classic rock radio and films about the era. Yet despite their enduring popularity, no book has ever sought to understand Creedence in conversation with their time. A Song for Everyone finally tells that story: the thirteen-year saga of an unassuming suburban quartet's journey through the wilds of 1960s pop, and their slow accrual of a sound and ethos that were almost mystically aligned with the concerns of decade's end. Starting in middle school, these Californian friends and brothers cut a working-class path through the most expansive decade in American music, playing R&B, country, and rock 'n' roll under a variety of names as each of those genres expanded and evolved. When they finally synthesized those styles under a new name in 1968, Creedence Clearwater Revival became instantly epochal, then fell apart under the weight of personal grievances that dated back to adolescence. As musicians and as men, they embodied the contradictions and difficulties of their time, and those dimensions of their career have never been explored until now. Drawing on wide-ranging research into the social and musical developments of 1959-1972, extensive original interviews with surviving Creedence members and associates, and unpublished memoirs from people who knew the group closely, A Song for Everyone is the definitive account of a legendary and still-beloved American band. At the same time, it is also a cultural history of those same years--from Elvis to Altamont, Eisenhower to Watergate--seen through the eyes of four men who encapsulated them in song for all time, told by one of the rising figures in contemporary music writing.
All the Leaves Are Brown
by
Few songs have captured the contradictions and ambiguities of the 1960s as memorably as "California Dreamin'," the iconic folk music single that catapulted the Mamas & the Papas into rock and roll history. In All the Leaves Are Brown, author Scott Shea details how John Phillips, Denny Doherty, Michelle Phillips, and "Mama Cass" Elliot became standard-bearers for California counterculture, following their transformation from folk music wannabes to rock sensations and chronicling the tumultuous events that followed their unexpected success. Shea gives a definitive account of the group's short time together, from their hitmaking approach with legendary producer Lou Adler to John's unique songwriting to tours and friendships with other musicians riding the folk-rock wave. He explores the emotional vicissitudes that came with being in the Mamas & the Papas, from Cass's unrequited love for Denny, his affair with Michelle, and the ebb and flow of dysfunction in John and Michelle's marriage. And he explains how it all came to a crashing end with John's brainchild, the Monterey Pop Festival, which should have launched the group even further into the musical stratosphere, but only served to be their undoing. Drawing on new interviews with former bandmates, session musicians, family members, and many others, All the Leaves Are Brown is a layered, revelatory tale of overnight stardom and its many pitfalls.
The Amplified Come As You Are
by
A downright revolutionary 30th-anniversary deluxe edition of the iconic bestselling biography of Nirvana, updated with exclusive new content exploring the personal and cultural forces that inspired the music, the author's friendship with Kurt Cobain and why multiple generations remain fascinated by the 1990s. "Just tell the truth. That'll be better than anything else that's been written about me."--Kurt Cobain to author Michael Azerrad It has been three decades since Nirvana upended the pop cultural landscape with Nevermind, the landmark album that became the soundtrack of Generation X, capturing its confusion, frustration, and passion. In 1993, Michael Azerrad published what stands as the definitive biography of this revolutionary band and its star-crossed leader Kurt Cobain. Written with the band's complete cooperation, Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana became a massive bestseller and was, in the words of Cobain, "the best rock book I've ever read." Seven months after the book's original publication, Cobain was dead by suicide, making Come as You Are the only book about Nirvana that features original interviews with Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic, and drummer Dave Grohl. Now, Azerrad has revisited and reconsidered his original text. The result is this "amplified" version--a truly unique book-within-a-book featuring hundreds of extensive new essay-like annotations that deepen our understanding of this legendary band and the time in which it existed. Azerrad reconsiders the key players and their cultural context; ruminates on topics such as punk rock, selling out, and Generation X; and offers insights into the inner life and creative mind of one of the most significant songwriters and musicians in rock history--a haunting and haunted artist whose influence continues powerfully to the present day. It all comes down to a search for the answer to the question: Why was this music so extraordinarily powerful Vivid, evocative, and thought-provoking, this gorgeous hardcover book--featuring 100 photos and ephemera--is an essential document not just for Nirvana fans but for anyone interested in the cultural legacy of the 1990s.
Here Beside the Rising Tide
by
A kaleidoscopic history of the Grateful Dead that explores the American counterculture through the life of iconoclastic frontman Jerry Garcia, and his merry band "By writing this book, Jim Newton informs the rest of the world what Deadheads have known for years: that Jerry Garcia was more than a world-class musician, he was an American icon."--Trixie Garcia In 1965, in Palo Alto, Jerry Garcia opened a dictionary to a fable in which an appreciative soul repays the generosity of a traveler, a "gift of the grateful dead." After a traumatic car accident that injured him and killed a close friend, Garcia had resolved to build his life around music. He had practiced relentlessly and caromed across the northern California folk and bluegrass scene. He had gathered up some fellow musicians and formed a band. Now they had their name. Following the history of the Grateful Dead means tracking American cultural history through a period of radical reconsideration. The Dead played at the Acid Tests and the Human Be-In and Woodstock, at the occupation of Columbia and the Bail Ball for People's Park. They performed at the base of the Pyramids during a lunar eclipse, at Madison Square Garden to defend the rainforests, in San Francisco to sound the alarm over AIDS and at Huey Newton's birthday party. For three decades, the band explored the meaning and limits of freedom. The radical message of the Dead, to reject the mainstream and build a bohemian community, radiated across the world, manifesting itself in art, music, business, and politics. Here Beside the Rising Tide tells the story of those disparate shafts of light, putting Garcia into a broader context while tracing his eventful life. Nearly a century after his birth, Garcia's influence stretches onward, expressed in guitar licks and a gentle way of life, one of excellence and gratitude, chasing freedom, living moment to moment, guided by song--the gift of the Grateful Dead.
Loaded
by
Drawing on contributions from remaining members, contemporaneous musicians, critics, filmmakers, and the generation of artists who emerged in their wake, this "monumental origin story" celebrates the legacy of the Velvet Underground, which burns brighter than ever in the 21st century (New York Times bestselling author Bob Spitz). Variety and Concrete Islands Best Book of 2023 · A "Must Read" by Nylon,​ BookRiot, and Town & Country Rebellion always starts somewhere, and in the music world of the transgressive teen--whether it be the 1960s or the 2020s--the Velvet Underground represents ground zero. Crystallizing the idea of the bohemian, urban, narcissistic art school gang around a psychedelic rock and roll band--a stylistic idea that evolved in the rarefied environs of Andy Warhol's Factory--the Velvets were the first major American rock group with a mixed gender line-up. They never smiled in photographs, wore sunglasses indoors, and invented the archetype that would be copied by everyone from Sid Vicious to Bobby Gillespie. They were avant-garde nihilists, writing about drug abuse, prostitution, paranoia, and sado-masochistic sex at a time when the rest of the world was singing about peace and love. In that sense they invented punk and then some. It could even be argued that they invented modern New York. Drawing on interviews and material relating to all major players, from Lou Reed, John Cale, Mo Tucker, Andy Warhol, Jon Savage, Nico, David Bowie, Mary Harron, and many more, award-winning journalist Dylan Jones breaks down the band's whirlwind of subversion and, in a narrative rich in drama and detail, proves why the Velvets remain the original kings and queens of edge.
