Showing titles in Music

Across seven decades, Bob Dylan has been the first singer of American song. As a writer and performer, he has rewritten the national songbook in a way that comes from his own vision and yet can feel as if it belongs to anyone who might listen. In Folk Music, Greil Marcus tells Dylan’s story through seven of his most transformative songs. This is not only a deeply felt telling of the life and times of Bob Dylan, but a rich history of American folk songs and the new life they were given as Dylan sat down to write his own.

Leaving school and starting his career at Decca Records in 1958 at the age of sixteen, Tony King would soon find himself becoming close friends with Elton John, rekindling John Lennon and Yoko Ono's relationship, mediating a quarrelsome Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and spending time with Freddie Mercury in his final days - a far cry from his childhood days in Eastbourne. Living in an era of seismic social, technological and cultural transformation, King experienced these defining moments as a stalwart in London and New York's gay scenes.

On a sunny Saturday morning in May 1956, a fifteen-year-old, then called Harry Webb, was mooching down Waltham Cross High Street, with two mates. They heard some music blaring out of a parked car. It stopped them in their tracks. The song was 'Heartbreak Hotel' by Elvis Presley. It sounded like nothing they had ever heard before. In that instant, the schoolboy who was destined to take the hit parade by storm as Cliff Richard fell in love with rock and roll. It gave him the thrill, the purpose and the mission that has shaped his life ever since.

50 years on, the world is still in love with The Beatles. Join Nothing Is Real hosts Jason Carty & Steven Cockcroft as they continue the never-ending conversation about the greatest band the world has ever known. Each episode puts a tiny piece of the Beatles story under the microscope to try and make sense of it all. Coming at you live, on tape, from Dublin. Weekly.414227Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/nothing-is-real-a-beatles-podcast. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/nothing-is-real-a-beatles-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

School friend, aide-de-camp, and tour manager Richard Macphail was for almost five years the glue that held Genesis together, and in his affectionate memoir, My Book of Genesis, he tells his own unique story of the group's early years.

The Notorious B.I.G. was one of the most charismatic and talented artists of the 1990s. Born Christopher Wallace and raised in Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, Biggie lived an almost archetypal rap life. Biggie released his first record, Ready to Die, in 1994, when he was only 22. Less than three years later, he was killed just days before the planned release of his second record Life After Death. Journalist Justin Tinsley’s It Was All a Dream is a fresh, insightful telling of the life beyond the legend.

In January 1959, Berry Gordy borrowed $800 from his family and founded the Detroit-based record company that in less than a decade was to become the largest Black-owned business in the United States. It also became one of the most productive and influential producers of popular music anywhere in the world. The Story of Motown is the story of Berry Gordy's triumph over powerful, established financial interests, entrenched popular taste, bigotry, and racism.

Elvis Presley and Graceland were fixtures in the life of Ginger Alden, having been born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. But she had no idea that she would play a part in that enduring legacy - as Elvis Presley’s fiancée, and his last great love. For over three decades Ginger has held the truth of their relationship close to her heart. Now she shares her unique story, and while a lot has been written about the King, the Elvis we meet in this long-anticipated memoir is a revelation.

With extensive, first-hand reflections from Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart, as well as from family, friends, and fellow musicians, Anthem: Rush in the '70s is a detailed portrait of Canada's greatest rock ambassadors. The first of three volumes, Anthem puts the band's catalog, from their self-titled debut to 1978's Hemispheres (the next volume resumes with the release of Permanent Waves) into both Canadian and general pop culture context.

Last Chance Texaco is the first-ever no-holds-barred account of the life of two-time Grammy Award-winner Rickie Lee Jones in her own words. It is a tale of desperate chances and impossible triumphs, an adventure story of a girl who beat the odds and grew up to become one of the most legendary artists of her time, turning adversity and hopelessness into timeless music.

When her father died, singer songwriter Roxanne de Bastion inherited a piano she knew had been in her family for over a hundred years. But it is only when she finds a cassette recording of her grandfather, Stephen, playing one of his compositions, the true and almost unbelievable history of the piano, this man and her family begins to unravel.

London. Wham! Pop, glitz and glamour. Two girls with stars in their eyes. Our friendship began one windy day in 1982, outside Finsbury Park tube. It was an instant like at first sight. We were on our way to a Wham! rehearsal. Pepsi was the new girl in the band and over a car stereo, a cassette tape and that journey to Bushey we bonded. We had no idea that we were on the first of many journeys together and that soon we'd be travelling all over the world. What we didn't know was that we were saying yes to a lifetime of connection that has endured whatever we've done, wherever we've been.

One of the few indisputable geniuses of pop music, Sly Stone is a trailblazer who created a new kind of music, mixing Black and white, male and female, funk and rock; penned some of the most iconic anthems of the 1960s and 70s, from "Everyday People" to "Family Affair"; and electrified audiences with a persona and stage presence that set a lasting standard for pop culture performance. Yet he has also been a cautionary tale, known as much for how he dropped out of sight as for what put him in the spotlight in the first place. As much as people know the music, the man remains a mystery.

For 5 years after they'd swapped sought-after apprenticeships for life on the dole, brothers William and Jim Reid sat up till the early hours in the front room of their parents' East Kilbride council house, plotting their path to world domination. They knew they couldn't play in the same band because they'd argue too much, so they'd describe their dream ensembles to each other until finally they realised that these two perfect bands were actually the same band, and the name of that band was The Jesus and Mary Chain.

Have you ever wondered how off-key you are while singing in the shower? Or if your Bob Dylan albums really sound better on vinyl? Or why certain songs make you cry? Now, scientist and musician John Powell invites you on an entertaining journey through the world of music. Discover what distinguishes music from plain old noise, how scales help you memorize songs, what the humble recorder teaches you about timbre (assuming your suffering listeners don’t break it first), and more.

In 1974, at the age of 17, author Glenn Berger served as "schlepper" and apprentice to the legendary recording engineer Phil Ramone at New York City's A&R Studios, and was witness to music history on an almost daily and nightly basis as pop and rock icons such as Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Frank Sinatra, Burt Bacharach, Bette Midler, and James Brown performed their hit-making magic, honed their sound, strutted their stuff, bared their souls, and threw epic tantrums.

In his song "You Can't Stop Rock and Roll" Ozzy Osbourne sings, "Rock and roll is my religion and my law". And that's why Raising Hell is a must-have for anyone who wants to hear about the iconoclastic culture of headbangers and the wild lives they lead. The book contains the crazy, funny, and sometimes horrifying anecdotes musicians have told about a lifestyle both invigorating and at times self-destructive.

Want to learn proven strategies that will help you sharpen your fingerstyle-guitar skills, practice more effectively, and silence the inner critic that can sabotage your performances? Playing the guitar requires a blend of intuition, intellect, and emotion, and the path to excellence can be a confusing one. In The Inner Game of Fingerstyle Guitar, master guitarist and worldwide performer Adam Rafferty delivers the information you need.

As a humble barman at the M25 Orbital raves, Kirk Field witnessed the moment acid house exploded. Inspired by media lies to start writing the truth about what he saw unfolding, Kirk became a 'raving' reporter for the clubbers' bible Mixmag, covering the historic parties from the inside and sending sweat-soaked dispatches from distant dancefloors as the scene expanded across Europe and beyond. With a cast of characters, Kirk's whirlwind account of the golden age of clubbing tells the story of what really happened in the 'naughty '90s'.

Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who created musical revolutions and instead celebrate the mainstream assimilators who borrowed innovations, diluted their impact, and disguised their sources. In Music: A Subversive History, Ted Gioia reclaims the story of music for the riffraff, insurgents, and provocateurs. Gioia tells a 4,000-year history of music as a global source of power, change, and upheaval.