Notes and Tones: Musician-to-Musician Interviews (Expanded Edition)


Arthur Taylor - 1977
    As a black musician himself, Arthur Taylor was able to ask his subjects hard questions about the role of black artists in a white society. Free to speak their minds, these musicians offer startling insights into their music, their lives, and the creative process itself. This expanded edition is supplemented with previously unpublished interviews with Dexter Gordon and Thelonious Monk, a new introduction by the author, and new photographs.Notes and Tones consists of twenty-nine no-holds-barred conversations which drummer Arthur Taylor held with the most influential jazz musicians of the ’60s and ’70s—including:

The Clash


Joe Stummer - 2011
    Strummer, Jones, Simonon and Headon tell it like it was. Accept no substitutes.The unique story of the Clash, by the Clash. The Clash were a band like no other. Pioneers of punk rock, their incendiary gigs, intelligent songwriting, definitive style and passionate idealism caught the spirit of the times and made them a worldwide phenomenon. Rolling Stone magazine declared London Calling one of the greatest albums of all time, their autobiographical documentary Westway to the World won a Grammy, and their music lives on, influencing emerging bands and exciting new audiences today.This is the only book to be created by the band and is now available as an eBook. The Clash: trendsetters, icons, revolutionaries. One of the most influential bands of their time, they have inspired bookshelves of commentary, but this is the only book to be created by the band themselves. With unprecedented access to the Clash archives and original interviews with band, this publication tells it like it was. The full story from the last gang in town. Strummer, Jones, Simonon and Headon in their own words.Reviews‘One of the greatest bands of all time.' The Edge, U2 'A massive inspiration for me.' Bernard Sumner, Joy Division and New Order 'I adore The Clash.' Pete Townshend, The Who'One of England's greatest bands.' Nick Hornby ‘What could be more fun than a book about The Clash written by The Clash - What makes this tome more worthy than the reams of unofficial Clash literature available is that in it, the band tells their story in their own words - it's packed with little secrets and playful digs - Brilliant.' Short List 'Thrilling - This is a treasure trove of hitherto undiscovered gems. Long overdue.' Classic Rock ''This book is a cracker - crammed with Clash bits and bobs.' The Sunday Times

Blues & Chaos: The Music Writing of Robert Palmer


Robert Palmer - 2009
    He was an authority on rock & roll, blues, jazz, punk, avant-garde, and world music -- often discovering new artists and trends years (even decades) before they hit the mainstream. Now, noted music writer Anthony DeCurtis has compiled the best pieces from Palmer's oeuvre and presents them here, in one compelling volume.A member of the elite group of the defining rock critics who emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, Palmer possessed a vision so complete that, as DeCurtis writes, "it's almost as if, if you read Bob, you didn't need to read anyone else." Blues & Chaos features some of his most memorable pieces, including gripping stories about John Lennon, Led Zeppelin, Moroccan trance music, Miles Davis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Philip Glass, and Muddy Waters.Wonderfully entertaining, infused with passion, and deeply inspiring, Blues & Chaos is a must for music fans everywhere.Flirtations with chaos / by Anthony DeCurtis --The big picture : "The opinions expressed are dangerously subjective." --The blues : "A post-Heisenberg-uncertainty-principle mojo hand" --Jazz : "A kinetic kaleidoscope" --The originators : "Where the hell did this man come from?" --Soul and R&B : "It had to come from somewhere, and the church is where it all came from" --Classic rock : "Musically, we weren't afraid to go in any direction whatsoever" --John Lennon and Yoko Ono : "Now the music's coming through me again" --Punk rock and beyond : "Fear and nothing" --World music : "The world is changing and so is our music" --Morocco : "We fell through each other, weightless, into the sky" --On the edge : "Listen, as if a new world had suddenly opened up" --Sonic guitar maelstrom : "All hail the overdriven amp."

Aces Back to Back: The History of the Grateful Dead (1965 - 2013)


Scott W. Allen - 2014
    

Stuart Adamson: In a Big Country


Allan Glen - 2011
    Stuart Adamson: In a Big Country tells the story of how a teenager who was raised in a small Fife village released his first single at 19, wrote three Top 40 albums in the next three years and was written off as a has-been at 23, but then went on to form a new band and sell more than 10 million records worldwide, touring with the Rolling Stones and David Bowie. Although Stuart Adamson was one of the most respected and popular figures in the music industry, his personal life was complex - depression, alcoholism and estrangement - and ultimately tragic, ending with his suicide in a Hawaiian hotel in December 2001.

The Autobiography


Johnnie Walker - 2007
    One of the best-known and most beloved broadcasters in Britain, the charismatic BBC Radio 2 DJ has achieved legendary status with a hugely loyal following thanks to his tireless pioneering of new music, his warm and passionate personality and his soothing voice.Having thrown away the rule book as a teenager, Johnnie has always made decisions from the heart. As a result, he has had a brilliantly colourful life, with more ups and downs than a rollercoaster ride. He made his name in the 1960s when he and Radio Caroline, where his night-time show was essential listening for 86% of radio listeners, continued broadcasting in defiance of Government legislation. In 1976 he walked out of Radio 1 because of his outspoken views and his insistence on playing album tracks. He made front page news when he described the Bay City Rollers as 'musical garbage' and when he was caught snorting cocaine.In his memoir, he reveals all about his time with Radio Caroline, his drug addiction, his fight against cancer and his spiritual awakening. Honest, passionate and humorous, his autobiography will provide inspiring and entertaining listening to his million of fans.

Best Music Writing 2011


Alex Ross - 2011
    Celebrating the year in music writing by gathering a rich array of essays, missives, and musings on every style of music from rock to hip-hop to R&B to jazz to pop to blues, it is essential reading for anyone who loves great music and accomplished writing. Scribes of every imaginable sort—novelists, poets, journalists, musicians— are gathered to create a multi-voiced snapshot of the year in music writing that, like the music it illuminates, is every bit as thrilling as it is riveting.

Preachin' the Blues: The Life & Times of Son House


Daniel Beaumont - 2011
    So begins Preachin' the Blues, the biography of American blues signer and guitarist Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. (1902 - 1988). House pioneered an innovative style, incorporating strong repetitive rhythms with elements of southern gospel and spiritual vocals. A seminal figure in the history of the Delta blues, he was an important, direct influence on such figures as Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson. The landscape of Son House's life and the vicissitudes he endured make for an absorbing narrative, threaded through with a tension between House's religious beliefs and his spells of commitment to a lifestyle that implicitly rejected it. Drinking, womanizing, and singing the blues caused this tension that is palpable in his music, and becomes explicit in one of his finest performances, "Preachin' the Blues." Large parts of House's life are obscure, not least because his own accounts of them were inconsistent. Author Daniel Beaumont offers a chronology/topography of House's youth, taking into account evidence that conflicts sharply with the well-worn fable, and he illuminates the obscurity of House's two decades in Rochester, NY between his departure from Mississippi in the 1940s and his "rediscovery" by members of the Folk Revival Movement in 1964. Beaumont gives a detailed and perceptive account of House's primary musical legacy: his recordings for Paramount in 1930 and for the Library of Congress in 1941-42. In the course of his research Beaumont has unearthed not only connections among the many scattered facts and fictions but new information about a rumoured murder in Mississippi, and a charge of manslaughter on Long Island - incidents which bring tragic light upon House's lifelong struggles and self-imposed disappearance, and give trenchant meaning to the moving music of this early blues legend.

Bobbie Gentry's Ode to Billie Joe


Tara Murtha - 2014
    So much for the Summer of Love. "Ode to Billie Joe" knocked the Beatles' "All You Need is Love" off the top of the charts, and Bobbie Gentry became an international star. Almost 50 years later, Gentry is as enigmatic and captivating as her signature song. Of course, fans still want to know why Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge. They also wonder: Why did Bobbie Gentry, who has not performed or made a public appearance since the early 1980s, leave it all behind?Through extensive interviews and unprecedented access to career memorabilia, Murtha explores the real-life mysteries ensnarled within the much-disputed origin of Ode to Billie Joe. The result is an investigative pop history that reveals, for the first time, the full breadth of Bobbie Gentry's groundbreaking career-and just may help explain her long silence.Foreword by musician Jill Sobule.

The Grumpy Old Git's Guide to Life


Geoff Tibballs - 2011
    We all know one! They like to groan and grumble, offering their own commentary on the shortcomings of modern life. Whether it is queues at the supermarket, the state of the health system, the price of a pint these days, the hairstyles of teenagers, or the number of Maltesers you actually get in a bag, there is always something that will get their goat. 'The Grumpy Old Git's Guide to Life' is a hilarious celebration of all these grumps, how to identify one, what exactly they find so irritating and why we find their rants quite so amusing.

Long Promised Road: Carl Wilson, Soul of the Beach Boys: The Biography


Kent Crowley - 2015
    While he is often unjustly overlooked as a mere adjunct to his more famous brothers Brian and Dennis, Carl was a major international rock star from his early teens.The proud owner of one of the greatest voices in popular music--one that graced some of the most important records of the pop era, including 'God Only Knows' and 'Good Vibrations'--Wilson was also one of the first musicians to bring the electric guitar to the forefront of rock'n'roll. His musical skills provided The Beach Boys' entree into the music business, from which he then stewarded their onstage journey through the ups and downs of the 60s to their comeback in the 70s and into the role of 'America's band' in the 80s. Along the way, Carl quietly endured his own battles with obesity, divorce, substance abuse, and ultimately terminal cancer, all the while working to protect his family's business and legacy. This major new biography reveals the true story of modern rock'n'roll, lived from the center of the most important decades of popular music.

Ruth and Martin’s Album Club


Martin Fitzgerald - 2017
    Make them listen to it two more times. Get them to explain why they never bothered with it before. Then ask them to review it.What began as a simple whim quickly grew in popularity, and now Ruth and Martin’s Album Club has featured some remarkable guests: Ian Rankin on Madonna’s Madonna. Chris Addison on Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. Brian Koppelman on The Smiths’ Meat is Murder. JK Rowling on the Violent Femmes’ Violent Femmes. Bonnie Greer on The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. Martin Carr on Paul McCartney’s Ram. Brian Bilston on Neil Young’s Harvest. Anita Rani on The Strokes’ Is This It. Richard Osman on Roxy Music’s For Your Pleasure. And many, many more.Each entry features an introduction to each album by blog creator Martin Fitzgerald. What follows are delightful, humorous and insightful contributions from each guest as they have an album forced upon them and – for better or worse – they discover some of the world’s favourite music.Ruth and Martin’s Album Club is a compilation of some of the blog’s greatest hits as well as some exclusive material that has never appeared anywhere before. Throughout, we get an insight into why some people opt out of some music, and what happens when you force them to opt in.

Don't You Leave Me Here: My Life


Wilko Johnson - 2016
    With ten months to live, he decided to accept his imminent death and went on the road. His calm, philosophical response made him even more beloved and admired. And then the strangest thing happened: he didn't die. Don't You Leave Me Here is the story of his life in music, his life with cancer, and his life now - in the future he never thought he would see.

Monkee Business: The Revolutionary Made-For-TV Band


Eric Lefcowitz - 2013
    Everything but control over their careers. Author Eric Lefcowitz chronicles the kaleidoscopic journey of Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork, following each of the four Monkees, together and apart, from 1965 to the present day. A must-read for music fans, “Monkee Business" is the definitive biography of a rock and roll legend.

Step By Step Mixing: How to Create Great Mixes Using Only 5 Plug-ins (Audio Issues #1)


Bjorgvin Benediktsson - 2017
     Learn a Proven Step By Step Mixing Process That's Helped Thousands of Musicians Like Yourself Make Amazing Mixes in Their Home Studio, Using Only EQ, Compression, Reverb, Delay, and Saturation "This is the NO BS guide to taking your mixes to the next level! Björgvin has been teaching and writing about recording for a decade, and really understands that stuff that we all struggle with in the home studio. Step By Step Mixing takes you through the full process of making sure your mixes rock from ruff to radio ready!" -Lij Shaw, Award winning Producer and Podcaster of Recording Studio Rockstars Let Me Ask You This: Do you fight to make all your instruments fit together in a busy mix? Do you struggle to EQ each instrument to sit in their frequency range without getting in the way of everything else? Do you tear your hair out finding the right compression setting for each track? Do you have a hard time using reverb and delay without cluttering up your mix? Do you get confused by saturation and how to use it to get a warmer sounding mix? If you answered yes to one of those questions - don't worry - you're not alone. If you want to make better mixes immediately in your home studio that translate to every speaker system, whether you're working on demos for your band of mixing records for your clients, grab Step By Step Mixing right now. Here's What You'll Learn Inside: Learn to get organized and simplify your mixing process to create more mixes that sound better in less time Learn practical EQ tips to make all of your instruments fit in your mix Learn to use compression to create punchy and tight mixes Learn to use reverb and delay to add space and depth to your mixes without cluttering up the song and making yourself sound like an amateur Learn everything you need to know about saturation to add that secret sauce to your songs that make people take notice of your skills Learn an invaluable process to getting your mix to translate to any speaker or sound system Step by Step Mixing covers the theory behind each processor while giving you simple to use, practical audio tips you can use to improve your mixes. Every chapter is broken down as such: Explanations on the theory behind what the plug-ins do and how to use them: You’ll get a thorough walkthrough of the various regions of the frequency spectrum. You’ll understand exactly how to use your compressors. You’ll learn all about the various reverb and delay settings (some reverbs are just too complex!) and you’ll get very familiar with using saturation (without overloading and distorting your mixes!). Common Problems and Their Practical Solutions: After you understand how each processor works we’ll talk about some real world scenarios. I’ll give you some practical and easy to use tips to make your mixes jump out of the speakers. Once you've mastered these five processors above you’ll be ready to make a killer mix in your home studio, whether you’re working on demos for your band or mixing records for your friends and