Showing titles in History & Criticism

Reflecting on the Beach Boys’ long, fascinating history, this book tells the story behind 50 of the band’s greatest songs from the perspective of group members, collaborators, fellow musicians, and notable fans. The band's music is as influential now as it was 50 years ago, and this retelling of how the iconic rock group found itself in the annals of pop culture couldn't come at a better time.

Schumann: The Faces and the Masks is a groundbreaking account of a major composer whose life and works have been the subject of intense controversy ever since his attempted suicide and early death in an insane asylum. Schumann was a key figure in the Romanticism which swept Europe and America in the 19th century, inspiring writers, musicians and painters, delighting their enthralled audiences and reaching to the furthest corners of the world.

Far from being "the quiet one," George Harrison was a writer and arranger of terrific power and beauty, and his guitar playing was fundamental to the Beatles' sound and success. Now fully revised and expanded, this new edition of While My Guitar Gently Weeps: The Music of George Harrison is the most comprehensive evaluation of George Harrison's musical career ever published.

Drawing on interviews with family members, managers, promoters, and the jazz musicians who worked with her, as well as contemporary newspaper articles and reviews, Late Life Jazz tells the unsung story of one of America's finest singers, Rosemary Clooney. Ken Crossland and Malcolm Macfarlane trace Rosemary's life from her hardscrabble beginnings in Maysville Kentucky, through her first performances singing with the Barney Rapp Band in Cincinnati, through her rise to pop stardom in the early 1950s.

During fifty years of publishing the “Bible of Rock and Roll,” Jann Wenner recorded a series of interviews that are now regarded among the most important historical documents of rock. From the hubris and pissed-off attitude of Pete Townshend, to the volcano that was John Lennon after the breakup of the Beatles, to Bono, using music to speak to God, these interviews reveal the beating hearts of six creative giants.

In this collection of musical portraits, jazz pianist and radio host Marian McPartland pays sparkling tribute to such beloved and legendary figures as Benny Goodman, Bill Evans, Joe Morello, Paul Desmond, Alec Wilder, Mary Lou Williams, and others.

From Nelson George, supervising producer and writer of the hit Netflix series The Get Down, this passionate and provocative book tells the complete story of Black music in the last 50 years, and in doing so, outlines the perilous position of Black culture within white American society. In a fast-paced narrative, Nelson George’s book chronicles the rise and fall of “race music” and its transformation into the R&B that eventually dominated the airwaves, only to find itself diluted and submerged as crossover music.

Sex. Drugs. Loud music. Wild costumes. Dazzling light shows. These words can all describe a great rock concert or a hot dance club, but they were also part and parcel of the ancient cultural phenomenon known as the "Mystery religions". In this book, author Christopher Knowles shows how the long-dead Mystery religions got a secular reincarnation when a new musical form called rock 'n' roll burst onto the scene.

Charly Hübner zeigt sein schriftstellerisches Talent. Selten wurde so leidenschaftlich über Musik geschrieben, selten so eindrücklich über den Effekt, den diese auf einen Jugendlichen haben kann. Dieses Hörbuch ist eine Schatzkiste voller Erinnerungen und Anekdoten eines Lebens, für das der Frontmann der lautesten Band der Welt seine berühmten Weisheiten geschrieben haben könnte: "I'm in love with rock'n'roll, it satisfies my soul". Ob als pickliger Jugendlicher in der Dorfdisko, wenn das erste Mal "The Hammer" gespielt wird, oder bei der Party nach der ersten Filmpremiere - immer ist Motörhead als Soundtrack dabei.

Memphis Boys chronicles the story of the rhythm section at Chips Moman's American Studios from 1964, when the group began working together, until 1972, when Moman shut down the studio and moved the entire operation to Atlanta. Utilizing extensive interviews with Moman and the group, as well as additional comments from the songwriters, sound engineers, and office staff, author Roben Jones creates a collective biography combined with a business history and a critical analysis of important recordings.

Dancer, award-winning choreographer, show producer, stand-up comedienne, TV/film actress, and author, Norma Miller shares her touching historical memoir of Harlem's legendary Savoy Ballroom and the phenomenal music and dance craze that "spread the power of Swing across the world like Wildfire". It was a time when the music was Swing, and Harlem was king.

From 1993 to 2021, Daft Punk were the world's most influential electronic group. But how much of the cultural landscape did they change, and how much changed around them? After Daft draws on new interviews with over 100 groundbreaking and commercially dominant artists, creative teams, record labels and concert promoters to illustrate how dance & electronic music transformed from a fringe concern to the indispensable pulse of 21st century culture.

Daphne A. Brooks explores more than a century of music archives to examine the critics, collectors, and listeners who have determined perceptions of Black women on stage and in the recording studio. How is it possible, she asks, that iconic artists such as Aretha Franklin and Beyonce exist simultaneously at the center and on the fringe of the culture industry? Liner Notes for the Revolution offers a startling new perspective on these acclaimed figures—a perspective informed by the overlooked contributions of other Black women concerned with the work of their musical peers.

Here Comes the Night: Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues is both a definitive account of the New York rhythm and blues world of the early '60s, and the harrowing, ultimately tragic story of songwriter and record producer Bert Berns, whose meteoric career was fueled by his pending doom. His heart damaged by rheumatic fever as a youth, doctors told Berns he would not live to see 21. Although his name is little remembered today, Berns worked alongside all the greats of the era.

In They Just Seem a Little Weird, veteran entertainment journalist Doug Brod offers an eye- and ear-opening look at a crucial moment in music history, when rock became fun again and a gig became a show. This is the story of friends and frenemies who rose, fell, and soared once more, often sharing stages, studios, producers, engineers, managers, agents, roadies, and fans-and who are still collaborating more than 40 years on.

Thirty years ago, Chuck Berry starred in the seminal music documentary Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'N' Roll, which profiled the legend during a star-studded concert celebrating his 60th birthday. Now comes the complete story behind one of America's most enduring and embattled icons. Compiled as an oral history by the film's producer, Stephanie Bennett, Johnny B. Bad combines interviews from the film's participants, including its music director - Keith Richards. These unique interviews and accounts paint a vivid and multifaceted picture of the artist.

After Baz Luhrmann’s movie, Elvis, hit theaters in the summer of 2022, audiences and critics alike couldn't help but question the Black origins of Elvis Presley’s music and style, reigniting a debate that has been circling for decades. In Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King​, author Preston Lauterbach answers these questions definitively, based on new research and extensive, previously unpublished interviews with the artists who blazed the way and the people who knew them.

From the beloved host and creator of NPR's All Songs Considered and Tiny Desk Concerts comes an essential oral history of modern music, told in the voices of iconic and up-and-coming musicians, including Dave Grohl, Jimmy Page, Michael Stipe, Carrie Brownstein, Smokey Robinson, and Jeff Tweedy, among others - published in association with NPR Music.

For a Kentucky rifleman who spent his tour trudging through Vietnam's Central Highlands, it was Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'". For a "tunnel rat" who blew smoke into the Viet Cong's underground tunnels, it was Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze". For a black marine distraught over the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., it was Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools".

Picking up where Under the Big Black Sun left off, More Fun in the New World explores the years 1982 to 1987, covering the dizzying pinnacle of LA's punk rock movement as its stars took to the national - and often international - stage. Detailing the eventual splintering of punk into various sub-genres, the second volume of John Doe and Tom DeSavia's west coast punk history portrays the rich cultural diversity of the movement and its characters, the legacy of the scene, how it affected other art forms, and ultimately influenced mainstream pop culture.