Best of
Music-Biography

2005

Conversations with Tom Petty


Tom Petty - 2005
    Tom and Paul conducted a series of in-depth discussions about Tom 's career, with special focus on his songwriting. The conversations are reprinted here with little or no editorial comment and represent a unique perspective on Tom 's entire career.

Van Der Graaf Generator, The Book: A History Of The Band Van Der Graaf Generator, 1967 To 1978


Jim Christopulos - 2005
    A History of the Band Van Der Graaf Generator 1967 to 1978

Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous


Graham Bennett - 2005
    Out-Bloody-Rageous is the definitive biography of this ground-breaking band. Based on extensive interviews with members and associates of Soft Machine, it is illustrated with over 80 photographs, posters and clippings and includes a full Soft Machine family tree, concert file, discography and sessionography. It is essential reading for any serious fan of jazz. It traces the lives of Soft Machine's members, pieces together the band's serendipitous formation and colourful career, and unravels the truth, the mystique and the legend behind this most elusive of bands. It recounts the incidents and internal tensions that led to an astonishing 24 different line-ups and places Soft Machine's development in the musical and social context of the time.

Reflections on Liszt


Alan Walker - 2005
    Topics include Liszt's contributions to the Lied, the lifelong impact of his encounter with Beethoven, his influence on students who became famous in their own right, his accomplishments in transcribing and editing the works of other composers, and his innovative piano technique. One chapter is devoted to the Sonata in B Minor, perhaps Liszt's single most celebrated composition.Walker draws heavily on Liszt's astonishingly large personal correspondence with other composers, critics, pianists, and prominent public figures. All the essays reveal Walker's broad and deep knowledge of Liszt and Romantic music generally and, in some cases, his impatience with contemporary performance practice.

Billy F Gibbons: Rock + Roll Gearhead


Billy F. Gibbons - 2005
    How about rolling to a stoplight in West Hollywood and spying a bearded motorist with an 8-ball logo on the louvered and striped hood of his BMW? There’s no mistaking the common thread in these remarkable scenarios—Billy F Gibbons, be-shaded axe-man extraordinaire from ZZ TOP and certified Texas Grade-A gearhead. As with many rockers, Gibbons’ jones for hot rods and customs is the stuff of legend. But beyond this bona fide bluesman’s mastery of the six-string and unrepentant love for internal combustion is a noted collector whose own designs have manifested themselves in his cars and in hundreds of mind-bending custom guitars. In Billy F Gibbons: Rock + Roll Gearhead, Gibbons riffs on his Texas youth, four-decade recording career, and life on the road, but also reveals the tales behind dozens of guitars, including the Famed Pearly Gates, the red Gretsch given to him by Bo Diddley, and the Muddywood guitar commissioned as a fundraiser for the Delta Blues Museum. Also profiled are 10 of Gibbons’ outstanding rods and customs, including Kopperhed, CadZZilla, and the Eliminator coupe. In addition to exclusive photography by Bay Area shooter David Perry, the book is illustrated with dozens of images from Gibbons’ personal archive.

The B. B. King Treasures: Photos, Mementos & Music from B. B. King's Collection


B.B. King - 2005
    King celebrates the blues singer and guitarist with 75 color and black-and-white photos, facsimile reproductions of items from his personal archive, and--similar to the popular "The Sinatra Treasures"--an audio CD featuring unreleased music and interviews.