Book picks similar to
Westlife: Our Story by Martin Roach
biography
non-fiction
music
autobiographies
My Thoughts Exactly
Lily Allen - 2018
Brutally honest' Matt Haig'I love it' Jon Ronson**********************************************************So, this is me. Lily Allen.I am a woman.I am a mother.I was a wife.I drink.I have taken drugs.I have loved and been let down.I am a success and a failure.I am a songwriter.I am a singer.I am all these things and more.When women share their stories, loudly and clearly and honestly, things begin to change - for the better.This is my story.
Not Dead Yet: The Memoir
Phil Collins - 2016
In his much-awaited memoir, Not Dead Yet, he tells the story of his epic career, with an auspicious debut at age 11 in a crowd shot from the Beatles’ legendary film A Hard Day’s Night. A drummer since almost before he could walk, Collins received on the job training in the seedy, thrilling bars and clubs of 1960s swinging London before finally landing the drum seat in Genesis. Soon, he would step into the spotlight on vocals after the departure of Peter Gabriel and begin to stockpile the songs that would rocket him to international fame with the release of Face Value and In the Air Tonight. Whether he’s recalling jamming with Eric Clapton and Robert Plant, pulling together a big band fronted by Tony Bennett, or writing the music for Disney’s smash-hit animated Tarzan, Collins’s storytelling chops never waver. And of course he answers the pressing question on everyone’s mind: just what does Sussudio mean? Not Dead Yet is Phil Collins’s candid, witty, unvarnished story of the songs and shows, the hits and pans, his marriages and divorces, the ascents to the top of the charts and into the tabloid headlines. As one of only three musicians to sell 100 million records both in a group and as a solo artist, Collins breathes rare air, but has never lost his touch at crafting songs from the heart that touch listeners around the globe. That same touch is on magnificent display here, especially as he unfolds his harrowing descent into darkness after his “official” retirement in 2007, and the profound, enduring love that helped save him. This is Phil Collins as you’ve always known him, but also as you’ve never heard him before.'
High Times, Hard Times
Anita O'Day - 1981
-The New York Times Book Review
Sounds Like Me: My Life (So Far) in Song
Sara Bareilles - 2015
In this candid book of essays, Sara pulls back the curtain to expose her songwriting process, revealing all the struggle and joy inherent in creating great work while staying true to yourself.Showcasing her stripped down and confessional writing style, Sara's entertaining and inspirational book tells the inside stories behind her most popular songs and offers insights into finding balance between making art for herself and commercial music for her listeners.
This Is Gonna Hurt: Music, Photography, And Life Through The Distorted Lens Of Nikki Sixx
Nikki Sixx - 2011
This Is Gonna Hurt is part photo, part journal - but all Nikki Sixx. It is a collection of compelling snapshots and stories that capture the rage, love, optimism, darkness,and determination that shape his work. Told with the raw authenticity that defined his New York Times bestseller The Heroine Diaries , This Is Gonna Hurt chronicles Sixx's experience, from his early years filled with toxic waste to his success with Motley Crue, his death from an OD and rebirth to his addictions to music, photography, and love. Love story, bad-ass rock tell-all, social commentary, family memoir, This Is Gonna Hurt offers the compelling insights of an artist and a man struggling to survive, connect, and find a happy ending-a search that fuels Sixx's being. 'I want to take you on the journey I am on, in real time', Sixx writes. If you don't deal with your demons, they will deal with you, and it's gonna hurt.
The Carpenters: The Untold Story : An Authorized Biography
Ray Coleman - 1994
The first biography of the Carpenters to reveal the truth behind their public image and the consequences of the stardom that contributed to Karen's tragic death in 1983, told by an acclaimed biographer and friend of Karen and Richard.
Facing the Music and Living to Talk About It
Nick Carter - 2013
From his battle with addiction to serious health complications and the pain of his younger sister’s tragic death, Nick leaves nothing to the imagination and offers true and heartfelt advice to help readers overcome obstacles in their own lives.
A Fast Ride Out of Here: Confessions of Rock's Most Dangerous Man
Pete Way - 2017
A Fast Ride Out of Here tells a story that is so shocking, so outrageous, so packed with excess and leading to such uproar and tragic consequences as to be almost beyond compare. Put simply, in terms of jaw-dropping incident, self-destruction and all-round craziness, Pete Way's rock'n'roll life makes even Keith Richards's appear routine and Ozzy Osbourne seem positively mild-mannered in comparison. Not for nothing did Nikki Sixx, bassist with LA shock-rockers Motley Crue and who 'died' for eight minutes following a heroin overdose in 1988, consider that he was a disciple of and apprenticed to Way.During a forty-year career as founding member and bassist of the venerated British hard rock band UFO, and which has also included a stint in his hell-raising buddy Ozzy's band, Pete Way has both scaled giddy heights and plunged to unfathomable lows. A heroin addict for more than ten years, he blew millions on drugs and booze and left behind him a trail of chaos and carnage. The human cost of this runs to six marriages, four divorces, a pair of estranged daughters and two dead ex-wives. Latterly, Way has fought cancer, but has survived it all and is now ready to tell his extraordinary tale. By turns hilarious, heart-rending, mordant, scabrous, self-lacerating, brutally honest and entirely compulsive, A Fast Ride Out of Here will be a monument to rock'n'roll debauchery on an epic, unparalleled scale and also to one man's sheer indestructability.
Brian May: Biografie
Laura Jackson - 2007
Packed with nearly 70 exclusive interviews with some of his closest friends, colleagues, and fellow musicians—among them Tony Iommi, Joe Elliott, Richie Sambora, Bruce Dickinson, Raul Rodgers, Cliff Richard, and Spike Edney—this is the definitive life of the guitar virtuoso. It charts his life from his childhood through his years studying astrophysics and his initial success with Queen. May’s camaraderie and conflicts within Queen are addressed as are his most difficult years, which include the disintegration of his first marriage, the death of his father, and the profound professional and emotional effects of Freddie Mercury's illness and death. Hard-hitting and completely up to date, this is an engaging look at a life lived in the spotlight.
Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption—from South Central to Hollywood
Ice-T - 2011
Television viewers know him as Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola on the top-rated TV drama Law & Order: SVU. But where the hype and the headlines end, the real story of Ice-T—the one few of his millions of fans have ever heard—truly begins.Ice is Ice-T in his own words—raw, uncensored, and unafraid to speak his mind. About his orphan upbringing on the gang-infested streets of South Central Los Angeles. About his four-year stint in the U.S. Army's famed "Tropic Lightning" outfit. About his successful career as a hustler and thief, the car crash that nearly killed him, and the fateful decision to turn away from a life of crime and forge his own path to international entertainment stardom.Ice by Ice-T is both a tell-it-like-it-is tale of redemption and a star-studded tour of the pop culture firmament. The acclaimed rapper and actor shares never-before-told stories about friends like Tupac, Dick Wolf, Chris Rock, and an antler-clad Flavor Flav, among others. Readers will ride along as Ice-T's incendiary rock band Body Count narrowly escapes from a riotous mob of angry concertgoers in Milan, and listen in as the music legend battles the self-appointed censors over his controversial "Cop Killer" single.Most of all, Ice is the place where one of the game’s most opinionated players breaks down his own secret plan for living, offering up candid observations on marriage and monogamy, the current state of hip-hop, and his latest passion: doing one-on-one gang interventions and mentoring at-risk youths around the country.With insights into the cutthroat world of the street—and the cutthroat world of Hollywood—Ice is the inspirational story of a true American original.
Further Adventures of a Grumpy Old Rock Star
Rick Wakeman - 2009
What do Postman Pat, Tommy Cooper, Norman Wisdom and George Best have in common with being abandoned in a Costa Rican jungle after a severe bout of flatulence? Indeed, how are they also connected to trying to buy an Australian brewery just to get a beer, owning twenty-two cars, an American soccer team and a Swiss mail-order pornography company?The common feature is of course a certain Richard Wakeman.The Further Adventures of a Grumpy Old Rock Star takes you, the privileged reader, on a trip of absurd excess, a cultural car crash of side-splitting hilarity and an unforgettable glimpse (again) into the life of one of Britain's most legendary showmen, rock stars and all-time great raconteurs.
Hardcore Troubadour: The Life and Near Death of Steve Earle
Lauren St. John - 2002
Somewhere in the midst of all this, he also managed to weld rock to country, the Beatles to Springsteen, and bluegrass to punk, establishing himself among the most thoroughly original and politically astute musicians of his generation. Granted unrestricted access to Steve and his family and friends, Lauren St John has given us a sometimes shocking, often moving, and completely unvarnished biography of one of America's most talismanic sons.
Access All Areas: Stories from a Hard Rock Life
Scott Ian - 2017
Those of you who have read Scott's memoir I'm the Man may know the history of the band, but Access All Areas divulges all the zany, bizarre, funny, and captivating tales of what went on when the band wasn't busy crafting chart-topping albums. In his more than thirty years immersed in the hard rock scene, Scott has witnessed haunting acts of depravity backstage, punched a legendary musician, been a bouncer at an exclusive night club, guest-starred with Anthrax on Married with Children, invaded a fellow rock star's home, played poker professionally, gone on a non-date with a certain material girl, appeared on The Walking Dead, and much more.Access All Areas allows its readers to do just that. With humor, candor, hindsight, and writing chops that would make Stephen King jealous (nope, not even on Bizarro world), Scott Ian takes his fans along for the ride at all the parties, hot spots, and behind-the-scenes shenanigans they will never hear about from anyone else. And none of it would have happened without a bit of divine inspiration from KISS. (No, seriously. Read chapter two.) Best of all, Scott seemingly lacks the ability to be embarrassed, making Access All Areas howlingly funny, self-deprecating, and every bit as brash and brazen as one would expect from one of the original architects of speed metal.
In The Pleasure Groove: Love, Death, and Duran Duran
Nigel John Taylor - 2012
From the eighties through today, from Rio to All You Need is Now, John writes about the music, the parties, and the MTV videos that made millions swoon.With Duran Duran, John Taylor has created some of the greatest music of our time. From the disco dazzle of debut single ‘Planet Earth’ right up to their latest number one album, All You Need is Now, Duran Duran has always had the power to sweep the world onto its feet. It’s been a ride – and for John in particular, the ride has been wild, thrilling... and dangerous. Now, for the first time, he tells his incredible story. A tale of dreams fulfilled, lessons learned and demons conquered. A shy only child, Nigel John Taylor wasn’t an obvious candidate for pop stardom and frenzied girl panic. But when he ditched his first name and picked up a bass guitar, everything changed. John Formed Duran Duran with his friend Nick Rhodes in the summer of 1978, and they were soon joined by Roger Taylor, then Andy Taylor and finally Simon Le Bon. Together they were an immediate, massive global success story, their pictures on millions of walls, every single a worldwide hit. In his frank, compelling autobiography, John recounts the highs –hanging out with icons like Bowie, Warhol and even James Bond; dating Vogue models and driving fast cars – all the while playing hard with the band he loved. But there were tough battles ahead – troubles that brought him to the brink of self-destruction – before turning his life around. Told with humor, honesty and hard-won wisdom, and packed with exclusive pictures, In the Pleasure Groove is a fascinating, irresistible portrait of a man who danced into the fire... and came through the other side.
Layne Staley: Angry Chair: A Look Inside the Heart & Soul of an Incredible Musician--
Adriana Rubio - 2003
It dispels the myths about Layne's childhood, his early days in music, and the final, very private years of his life. It contains dozens of never-before-seen drawings, writings and photographs...that all shaped the ALICE IN CHAINS' songwriter/singer who sold millions of CDs...helping revolutionize modern rock.