Showing titles in History & Criticism

The music of Yes indelibly shaped the original sound of progressive rock. But the true tale of this landmark band goes well beyond headline-making albums like Fragile and Close to the Edge. In this book, Kevin Mulryne tells the absorbing story of the final Yes album of the 1970s, Tormato, uncovering myriad fascinating twists and turns for the first time.

In Simply Stravinsky, Professor Pieter van den Toorn takes a fresh look at the composer and his legacy, providing a compact, exciting, and accessible introduction to the 20th century’s most celebrated composer and his timeless music. From Stravinsky’s apprenticeship in St. Petersburg to his life among the émigré community in Southern California, Professor van den Toorn shows how the composer’s music was tied to his personality and how it came to influence artists from Aaron Copland to Philip Glass.

Jazz 101 is a fascinating entry into the world of jazz, for the beginner, novice, or jazz enthusiast. Szwed takes listeners on a tour of the varied and nonlinear history of jazz, exploring how it developed from an ethnic music to become America's most popular music and then part of the avant-garde in less than 50 years.

Equal parts music criticism, cultural and comedy history, autobiography, and comic meditation on nostalgia, television, consumerism, childhood, technology, and food, The Weird Accordion to Al does justice to a musical legend and comic genius, the extent of whose remarkable achievements are only now being fully understood and appreciated.

All They Will Call You is the harrowing account of "the worst airplane disaster in California's history", which claimed the lives of 32 passengers, including 28 Mexican citizens - farmworkers who were being deported by the US government. Outraged that media reports omitted only the names of the Mexican passengers, American folk icon Woody Guthrie penned a poem that went on to become one of the most important protest songs of the 20th century.

Wenn man mehr vom Leben der Komponisten weiß, hört man ihre Musik anders. Wenn man weiß, was für ein schwieriger Mensch Robert Schumann war, wie sehr seine Frau Clara um ein eigenständiges Leben und Arbeiten kämpfen musste, wie innig ihrer beider Freundschaft zum jungen Johannes Brahms war - dann spürt man plötzlich all das auch in ihrer Musik.

Derived from a popular series of lecture-recitals presented by Carol Montparker over the past several years, The Composer's Landscape features eight insightful essays on the piano repertoire. Each chapter focuses on a single composer: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Chopin, and Mendelssohn. Montparker uses landscape as a metaphor for the score, whether it's a well-tended garden of Mozart or the thorny thickets on a Schumann page.

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.

The 1971 Allman Brothers Band album At Fillmore East was a musical manifesto years in the making. Bob Beatty dives deep into the motivations of band founder Duane Allman to tell the story of what made this album one of the most important live rock albums in history.

In 1970, Asbury Park, New Jersey, was ripped apart by race riots that left the once-proud beach town an hour away from Manhattan smoldering, suffering and left for dead. Four years later, a few miles down the coast in Seaside Heights, two bouncers, Jack Roig and Butch Pielka, tired of the daily grind, dreamt of owning their own place. Under-prepared and minimally funded, the two bought the first bar they considered, in a city where no one wanted to be, without setting one foot in the place. They named it the Stone Pony.

A whimsical guide to the conduct of a romance interwoven with the history of classical music, which is, surprisingly, not as nice as you might think.... The history of classical music is littered with murder, sado-masochism, adultery, bigamy, fraud, riches, poverty, nervous breakdowns, bizarre habits, gluttony and terrible, terrible toilet humour (Mozart was the prime exponent of the latter).

Es sieht nicht alles schlimm aus in den achtziger Jahren. Aber vieles. Es ist das Jahrzehnt der explodierenden Dauerwellen und Pornoschnauzbärte, der aufgepumpten Schulterpolsterjacketts und schrillen Herumprotzerei; in den Achtzigern werden die Yuppies zu Vorreitern einer neuen Egoistenkultur. Doch gleichzeitig herrscht die Angst vor der Apokalypse, vor dem Atomtod und der Umweltzerstörung; die Menschen sehnen sich nach Utopien und Zukunft, nach neuer Gemeinschaft und Wärme.

Few rock bands were as successful as the Scorpions by the mid '80s - headlining arenas/stadiums worldwide. German Metal Machine: Scorpions in the '70s is the first-ever book to focus solely on this period of the band. Interviews include such former members as Michael Schenker, Uli Jon Roth, Francis Buchholz, and Herman Rarebell, longtime Scorpions producer Dieter Dierks, plus members of other bands that are major admirers,

One of rock music's most fascinating personalities, Neil Young has persistently charted his own career, ignoring pop fashions, creating innovative music ranging from folk classics like "Heart of Gold" to rock-and-roll anthems like "Down By the River". Don't Be Denied charts Neil Young's formative years, from his high school days in Winnipeg, Manitoba, through his adventures in Toronto's Yorkville district to his ultimate successes with Buffalo Springfield, Crazy Horse, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, and as a solo performer.

In this widely praised book, Annik LaFarge presents a very different Frédéric Chopin from the melancholy, sickly, Romantic figure that has predominated for so long. The artist she discovered is, instead, a purely independent - and endlessly relevant - spirit: an innovator who created a new musical language; an autodidact who became a spiritually generous, trailblazing teacher; a stalwart patriot during a time of revolution, pandemic, and exile.

In clear and entertaining prose, Plotkin explores a thousand years of music, introduces listeners to more than 100 great works, and profiles in depth many significant composers, including Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Dvoxak, and Mahler. He describes all the musical instruments in the orchestra, defines major musical terms, and makes music theory comprehensible for the uninitiated. There are also conversations with important musicians who offer fascinating insights about their art.

An American institution, Sun Records has a history with many chapters: its Memphis origins with visionary Sam Phillips, the breakthrough recordings of Elvis Presley, and the studio's immense influence on the sound of popular music. But behind the company's chart toppers and legendary musicians there exists another story, told by Barbara Barnes Sims. In the male-dominated workforce of the 1950s, 24-year-old Sims found herself thriving in the demanding roles of publicist and sales promotion coordinator at Sun Records.

The 1960s were a time of huge transformation, sustained and amplified by the music of that era: Rock and Roll. During the 19th and 20th centuries visionary and esoteric spiritual traditions influenced first literature, then film. In the 1960s they entered the realm of popular music, catalyzing the ecstatic experiences that empowered a generation. Exploring how 1960s rock and roll music became a school of visionary art, Christopher Hill shows how music raised consciousness on both the individual and collective levels to bring about a transformation of the planet.

House is the first descendant of disco. While Black and Hispanic communities were jamming and party DJs spinning records, a new birth of rhythm gave way to music lovers from Chicago and New York in the form known as house music. Developed in Chicago's underground dance club culture in the early 1980s, today house music is worldwide and continues to dominate most club scenes and has expanded beyond its subculture beginning.

In this sweeping history of popular music in the United States, NPR's acclaimed music critic examines how popular music shapes fundamental American ideas and beliefs, allowing us to communicate difficult emotions and truths about our most fraught social issues, most notably sex and race.