Robert Wyatt started out as the drummer and singer for Soft Machine, who shared a residency at Middle Earth with the Pink Floyd and toured America with Jimi Hendrix. He brought a Bohemian and jazz outlook to the 1960s rock scene, having honed his drumming skills in a shed at the end of Robert Graves' garden in Mallorca. His life took an abrupt turn after he fell from a fourth floor window at a party and was paralysed from the waist down. He reinvented himself as a singer and composer with the extraordinary album Rock Bottom that has brought him a loyal following not just in Britain but in France, Italy and Germany. Today, Wyatt remains perennially hip, guesting with artists such as Bjork, Brian Eno, Scritti Politti, David Gilmour and Hot Chip. Marcus O'Dair has talked to all of them - indeed to just about everyone who has shaped, or been shaped by, Wyatt over five decades of music history.

    Yet few have addressed his contribution in the darkest hour of the civil rights movement. Telling the untold story of his historic Boston Garden concert of 1968, The Hardest Working Man also captures the magnificent achievements that made Brown a revolutionary icon of American popular culture. Acclaimed journalist James Sullivan begins his stirring account by depicting the racially charged climate of Boston in the hours after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death. Brown’s concert was slated for cancellation as police geared up for mass retaliation. After Brown butted heads with the mayor, the show was allowed to go on—and his emotional, electric performance was broadcast live on local television. Though rioting erupted in more than a hundred U.S. cities that night, Boston remained quiet. Not only bringing to life that transforming show, James Sullivan also charts Brown’s incredible rise from poverty to self-made millionaire and the pivotal voice behind the signature anthem “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud,” making The Hardest Working Man a tribute to an unforgettable concert and a rousing biography of a revolutionary musician.

    Their contents offer rare glimpses into Chopin's childhood environment, his mind and character, his tragic love for George Sand, the origins of many of his compositions, the various musical influences that shaped his creative ideas and habits, and the artistic circles in which he moved.Originally collected by the Polish musicologist Henryk Opienski, the letters have been translated and annotated by Chopin scholar E. L. Voynich. Students and admirers of Chopin will find in their pages vast resources to deepen their love and appreciation for — and wonderment at — the unique individuality and achievement of this great musical personality.

    

    Organized by year, it has all the most current information about the band's classic years from 1958--1978."650 images...capture The Who's journey from raucous r&b interpreters to roiling rockers..."--The Washington PostThe Who put on one of the most astounding stage shows ever seen (culminating in a blaze of smashed-up instruments) and took popular music to new heights with the first rock opera. Together, songwriter Pete Townshend, sexy lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist John Entwhistle, and drumming wild man Keith Moon redefined rock. Here, in a series of day-to-day diaries brimming with enthusiasm, thoroughness, and fresh information, is the tale of their performing career. The authors gained rare access to various official archives, many not viewed before; to friends and associates (some of whom had never spoken publicly about their relationship with the group); and to Pete, Roger, and John themselves. Three hundred photos capture the charismatic band, Daltrey has contributed a foreword, and the diaries recount club dates, TV appearances, auditions, and recordings. No Who fan can do without this unprecedented and engrossing look at the band.

    . . and I don’t believe it’s true. . . . I have the impression that thinking is a form of feeling and that feeling is a form of thinking.”Susan Sontag, one of the most internationally renowned and controversial intellectuals of the latter half of the twentieth century, still provokes. In 1978 Jonathan Cott, a founding contributing editor of Rolling Stone magazine, interviewed Sontag first in Paris and later in New York. Only a third of their twelve hours of discussion ever made it to print. Now, more than three decades later, Yale University Press is proud to publish the entire transcript of Sontag’s remarkable conversation, accompanied by Cott’s preface and recollections. Sontag’s musings and observations reveal the passionate engagement and breadth of her critical intelligence and curiosities at a moment when she was at the peak of her powers. Nearly a decade after her death, these hours of conversation offer a revelatory and indispensable look at the self-described "besotted aesthete" and "obsessed moralist."“I really believe in history, and that’s something people don’t believe in anymore. I know that what we do and think is a historical creation. . . .We were given a vocabulary that came into existence at a particular moment. So when I go to a Patti Smith concert, I enjoy, participate, appreciate, and am tuned in better because I’ve read Nietzsche.”“There’s no incompatibility between observing the world and being tuned into this electronic, multimedia, multi-tracked, McLuhanite world and enjoying what can be enjoyed. I love rock and roll. Rock and roll changed my life. . . .You know, to tell you the truth, I think rock and roll is the reason I got divorced. I think it was Bill Haley and the Comets and Chuck Berry that made me decide that I had to get a divorce and leave the academic world and start a new life.”

    Acclaimed writer Charles Schaar Murray's Boogie Man is the authorized and authoritative biography of this musician whose extraordinary career spanned over fifty years and included over one-hundred albums and five Grammy Awards. Murray was given unparalleled access to Hooker, and lets him tell his own story in his own words, from life in the Deep South to San Francisco, from the 1948 blues anthem "Boogie Chillen" to the Grammy-winning album The Healer nearly a half-century later. Boogie Man is far more than merely a brilliant biography of one man; it also gives the story of the music that inspired him. "When I die," Hooker said, they'll bury the blues with me. But the blues will never die." Here is the book that does him and his music full justice.

    More than 450 rare concert posters, backstage passes, tickets, LPs and singles, t-shirts, buttons, and more illustrate the book. A discography and tour itinerary complete the package, making a book as epic as the band it documents.Created from the ashes of the Yardbirds by guitarist and session wizard Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin featured virtuoso bass player John Paul Jones, gonzo drummer John Bonham, and Robert Plant, a vocalist like no other before him. The band single-handedly defined what rock 'n' roll could be, leaving in their wake tales as tall or as real as we wanted them to be.All of that, plus exclusive commentary from Ray Davies of the Kinks, Steve Earle, Kid Rock, Ace Frehley of Kiss, Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty, Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, Lenny Kravitz, Dolly Parton, and many more make this book one that no fan of Led Zeppelin will want to miss!

    Pioneers of electronic minimalism in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, Kraftwerk redefined pop music. When they split up in the early 1980s, founding member Wolfgang Flur discovered his name dropped from album credits and the drum machine of his own invention being patented by his bandmates. Kraftwerk: I Was a Robot documents the group's alternately inspiring and bitter story from its unsteady beginnings through worldwide fame to the legal battle in a Hamburg court that vindicated the author but left lasting scars on all. Color photographs are included.

    This long out-of-paint autobiography provides insight into the genesis of Bunuel's films and conveys his frank opinions on dwarves, Catholicism, the Marquis de Sade, food, and smoking, not to mention his recipe for a good dry martini!

    It is portable, it has history, and it will always be hip. But why has the guitar become such a classic? Will Hodgkinson, a wannabe guitar player, whose only experience was an afternoon's bashing on a friend's guitar at the age of sixteen, set out to find out. Along the way he hoped to teach himself a few chords too. His goal was to get good enough to play before a live audience in just six months--even if it threatened to drive his wife and family to the point of insanity. His trip becomes an odyssey: He chats with British folk legend Bert Jansch, ex-Smith's guitarist Johnny Marr, and reclusive folk guitar legend Davey Graham, as well as Sufjan Stevens, PJ Harvey, and Cat Power's chanteuse Chan Marshall. He travels to America and with a hurricane brewing visits Roger McGuinn from the Byrds. He travels to the Deep South, looking for the spirit of Robert Johnson, and drops in on T-Model Ford, an old bluesman living in Mississippi. Gloriously readable and highly amusing, Guitar Man is classic obsessional nonfiction for a nation of guitar freaks.

    Nearly twenty years after the death of their engaging and supremely talented front man, Queen remains the archetypal larger-than-life rock band, comfortably enthroned among rock royalty. Now, to celebrate the majesty of Queen’s contributions to rock, here’s the first-ever complete illustrated history of the band.With glorious concert and candid off-stage photography from throughout the band’s career, as well as concert posters, backstage passes, LPs and singles, and other memorabilia from throughout the world, this is the ultimate visual tribute to Queen. More than 500 photos and artifacts are accompanied by contributions from some of today’s top rock journalists from Europe and North America. In addition to a chronological history of the band, there are reviews of all studio albums, notable excerpts from period publications, complete year-by-year tour dates, and a discography, as well as reflections on the band and their music from many of rock’s top performers past and present, including Slash, Tommy Lee, and Billy Squier.Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon combined a dizzying array of influences and genres in creating what would become one of the most compelling catalogs and lasting legacies in rock. Here is the book that dares to match that bombast.

    This experience gave Carducci a unique perspective on music and "Rock And The Pop Narcotic" is perhaps the only book of popular music criticism that attempts to achieve a genuine aesthetic of rock music. The content runs the gamut of music, touching on everything from the Allman Brothers to Husker Du to Black Flag.

    But he was bothered with a boyhood dream and eventually left the big time. He made his home in three continents and became a much-loved world traveller. Through all the laughter - and it's uproarious at times - there is an underlying serious note, and the fact that his dream came true and brought him long-sought spiritual assurance is a considerable satisfaction to the reader.

    No practical aspect of instrumentation for the orchestra is neglected, and comprehensive treatment is given to each significant component. The author approaches orchestration from the premise that the principles can best be presented by analysis of music as it has been written.The essentials of instrument combination discussed here are those which can be observed operating in the scores of great composers from Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven down to our own day.Orchestration is notable for the clarity and logic of its organization. From a consideration of the individual instruments and their technical problems the author skillfully develops his analysis of orchestration, covering his analysis of orchestration, covering instrumentation of primary and secondary melodies, part-writing, chords, and contrapuntal techniques. Finally, he discusses typical problems in orchestration together with some examples of their solutions.Orchestration is profusely illustrated with hundreds of musical examples and with drawings of the various musical instruments that make up the modern orchestra.