One of the few people who has known every major classical musician of the last two-thirds of the twentieth century, he shares his personal and artistic experiences in this warm, passionate account of his life: the story of his rise to eminence; his feelings about music and the violin; and his great friendships and collaborations with colleagues such as Leonard Bernstein and Pablo Casals. Stern the man, the musician, and the cultural institution come alive in the most readable and revealing musical autobiography of the decade.

    "I want to tell the people who are interested in me," says Pavarotti in his preface, "about all of the fun and excitement I have had. I have tried to explain how I feel about the things that are important to me and to pass on whatever wisdom I have gained as an artist and as a human being." Black-and-white photographs.

    Was he drunk to boot? He greeted his new assistant with "What are you drinking?" Yes, he was drunk.Charlie Harmon was hired to manage the day-to-day parts of Bernstein's life. There was one additional responsibility: make sure Bernstein met the deadline for an opera commission. But things kept getting in the way: the centenary of Igor Stravinsky, intestinal parasites picked up in Mexico, teaching all summer in Los Angeles, a baker's dozen of young men, plus depression, exhaustion, insomnia, and cut-throat games of anagrams. Did the opera get written?For four years, Charlie saw Bernstein every day, as his social director, gatekeeper, valet, music copyist, and itinerant orchestra librarian. He packed (and unpacked) Bernstein's umpteen pieces of luggage, got the Maestro to his concerts, kept him occupied changing planes in Zurich, Anchorage, Tokyo, or Madrid, and learned how to make small talk with mayors, ambassadors, a chancellor, a queen, and a Hollywood legend or two. How could anyone absorb all those people and places? Because there was music: late-night piano duets, or the Maestro's command to accompany an audition, or, by the way, the greatest orchestras in the world. Charlie did it, and this is what it was like, told for the first time.A celebratory, intimate, and detailed look at the public and private life of Leonard Bernstein written by his former assistant. Foreword by Broadway legend Harold Prince.

    Contains a detailed songbook and over 30 exclusive interviews with Björk's associates, family members, and industry professionals.

    Yngwie Malmsteen's revolutionary guitar style—combining elements of classical music with the speed and volume of heavy metal—made him a staple of the 80s rock scene. Decades later, he's still a legend among guitarists, having sold 11 million albums and influenced generations of rockers since. In Relentless, Malmsteen shares his personal story, from the moment he burst onto the scene seemingly out of nowhere in the early 80s to become a household name in the annals of heavy metal. Along the way, he talks about his first bands, going solo, his songwriting and recording process, and the seedy side of the rock business.

    But she was a born performer, destined to be on the stage. Unlike fake starlets who become famous overnight, Gaga earned her success the hard way, working night after night at sleazy bars and clubs, performing at every club in New York, getting booed offstage, and in the process, finding herself—as a singer, a dancer, a performer, and an artist. She has shocked the public with her crazy outfits, individual sense of style, and headstrong manner. She has sold millions of records, performed to millions of people, and through it all, she has won hearts with her brashness and honesty.

    Numerous one-on-one conversations with Ozzy, Tony, Geezer, and Bill, as well as ten interviews with Ronnie James Dio, and additional interviews with supporting musicians such as Tony Martin, Ian Gillan, Glenn Hughes, Vinny Appice, and Neil Murray, make this full-colour retrospective a must for any fan. The drugs, drink, depression, and doom surrounding this band from the start have imbued songs like “The Wizard,” “Paranoid,” “Iron Man” “War Pigs,” “Children of the Grave” and “Heaven and Hell” with an almost supernatural importance among lovers of dark music. In the wider realm, full albums such as Master of Reality, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Sabotage, and Heaven and Hell show up with regularity on lists of greatest records of all time. Doom Let Loose explains how such classics came to be. It also deals with their tour history, documenting the places rocked, the bands who supported the Sabs, and most notably the trials and tribulations of the band and they tried to hold it together in the Satan-obsessed, drug-addled America of the Nixon era. Look for all manner of Sabbath photos and artefacts that make this examination of heavy metal’s fearsome foursome as feast for the eyes as well as the enquiring mind.

    This work covers the year 1917 to 1980. It opens with an account of his South American tour, then goes on to tell of his brief time in New York. It then gives much space to his years in Paris in the 1920's and 1930's. It goes on to tell of his meeting his future wife Nela, their feeling the Gestapo in France and settling in Hollywood. As in Paris Rubinstein rapidly establishes himself as desired social figure and mingles with the social elite.Above all of course Rubinstein is a great master pianist. And he has much to say about the way an artist must use the gift which he has been given. This is a rich work and one most highly recommended.

    But it sets the stage by looking into Mahler’s earlier career as a talented, ambitious, and often ruthless conductor.In her memoirs Alma drew Mahler as a sickly, cerebral recluse. Arnold Schoenberg called him a "saint." Leonard Bernstein, largely responsible for the Mahler "boom" in the Sixties, found a "secret shame" at the heart of Mahler’s music, "the shame of being a Jew and the shame of being ashamed." Jonathan Carr looks behind these myths, and using letters, diaries, and other material hitherto unavailable in English, he brilliantly challenges some of the most widely held assumptions about Mahler.

    "In the form of a diary, he takes us through the crazy journey that is making music. His excellent recollections of the excesses of morons and geniuses involved in creating melodies and rhythms for us to enjoy are sheer entertainment." - Musician Robert Palmer (from his foreword for the book). From the author's first glimpse of a magical recording studio in the mid-1960s up through a busy career that continues to the present day, this rollicking story can only be told by those that were there. As the young tape operator on sessions for The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and Joe Cocker at the famed Olympic Sound Studios in London, Phill learned the ropes from experienced engineers and producers such as Glyn Johns and Eddie Kramer. Phill soon worked his way up engineering sessions for Mott the Hoople, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley and many other lendary rockers. He eventually became a freelance engineer/producer and worked with Roxy Music, Go West, Talk Talk, and Robert Plant. But more than a recollection of participating in some of the most treasured music of the past 40 years, this is a man's journey through life as Phill struggles to balance his home and family with a job where drug abuse, chaos, rampant egos, greed, lies and the increasingly invasive record business take their toll. It's also a cautionary tale, where long workdays and what once seemed like harmless indulgences become health risks, yet eventually offer a time to reflect back on.

    Post Britpop. The dawn of the rock and roll apocalypse. If it feels like there's nothing new under the sun, that's because there is nothing new under the sun. After the death of Kurt Cobain popular culture entered, and is still in, its final phase: post everything.Post Everything is the sequel to the hugely acclaimed Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Part in its Downfall. It is a story of survival in the music industry ... and the only way to survive the tyrannical scourge of Britpop is to become an Outsider.We open with Luke Haines - the 'avant-garde Arthur Scargill' - calling upon the nation's pop stars to down tools and go on strike. We get the story of Haines' post-Britpop art house trio Black Box Recorder (Chas and Dave with a chanteuse) then, barely pausing to put in a brief appearance on Top of the Pops, we meet a talking cat, two dead rappers (Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur), a mystical England football manager, and a shady transgender German Professor - exponent of a dangerous and radical 'Beatles denial' cult and author of The Theorem of the Moron (the most important book about rock that you've never heard of). Haines even finds time to write a musical for the National Theatre.Blisteringly funny and searingly scathing, Post Everything may quite possibly be the first and only truly surreal comic rock memoir. It even contains a killer recipe for scrambled eggs.

    Chapin is known for his ballads and "story songs," among them his signature song, the hugely popular "Taxi." He died in an auto crash in 1981, just as his fame was burgeoning and his albums were selling out in record stores. Though the broader recognition due him has been late in coming, his music, his beliefs, and his social activism are now widely appreciated by increasing numbers of fans here and abroad.

     The pianist Leon  Fleisher—whose student–teacher lineage linked him to Beethoven by way of his instructor, Artur Schnabel—displayed an exceptional gift from his earliest years. And then, like the hero of a Greek tragedy, he was struck down in his prime: at thirty-six years old, he suddenly and mysteri­ously became unable to use two fingers of his right hand. It is not just Fleisher’s thirty-year search for a cure that drives this remarkable memoir. With his coauthor, celebrated music critic Anne Midgette, the pianist explores the depression that engulfed him as his condition worsened and, perhaps most powerfully of all, the sheer love of music that rescued him from complete self-destruction. Miraculously, at the age of sixty-six, Fleisher was diagnosed with focal dystonia, and cured by experimental Botox injections. In 2003, he returned to Carnegie Hall to give his first two-handed recital in over three decades, bringing down the house. Sad, reflective, but ultimately triumphant, My Nine Lives com­bines the glamour, pathos, and courage of Fleisher’s life with real musical and intellectual substance. Fleisher embodies the resilience of the human spirit, and his memoir proves that true passion always finds a way.

    Written with their cooperation, this fully illustrated informal biography combines rare photographs with 30 removable facsimiles of E Street memorabilia, including Bruce Springsteen's first business card and hand-written set list, and even two fabulous posters. Longtime band intimate Robert Santelli captures the ecstatic highs and devastating lows on the E Street Band's roller coaster ride to stardom. He follows the band from the early days in Asbury Park, New Jersey, to the critical acclaim of Born to Run, the mania of Born in the U.S.A. and international touring, and each member's unique projects. Throughout, the band's signature combination of friendship, humor, and stellar musicianship is revealed in stories, snapshots, and the ephemera of life of the road. Warm and personal, Greetings from E Street is a postcard from the most famous address in rock and roll.

    Revised and updated to cover the Clash's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the band members' post-Clash careers, The Clash: Return of the Last Gang in Town now includes the first full account of Joe Strummer's "Wilderness Years," his triumphant comeback with the Mescaleros, and his sudden and tragic early death. Extensively revised and updated from both its 1995 and 2001 incarnations, The Clash traces the band members' progress from dispiriting rehearsals in damp London basements to packed American stadiums. A fascinatingly detailed account of the first band to take punk's radical politics to the masses and survive for a decade against all the odds, it also offers an intriguing investigation into the gap between rock mythology and rock reality.