Book picks similar to
The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits by Joel Whitburn
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The Savvy Musician
David Cutler - 2009
What next? The professional marketplace is flooded with outstanding musicians, forced to compete for a shrinking number of ""traditional"" opportunities. The Savvy Musician helps balance three overriding aspects of your professional musical life: (1) building a career, (2) earning a living, and (3) making a difference. Filled with clearly articulated concepts, detailed strategies, and 165 vignettes about actual musicians working to create a meaningful and prosperous career, this book examines critical elements often overlooked or misunderstood by musicians, and helps you take control of your career. Discover how to build an immediately recognizable ""brand,"" capitalize on technology—from Internet tools to the new recording paradigm, expand your network, and raise money to fund your dreams. The Savvy Musician is an invaluable resource for performers, composers, educators, students, administrators, industry employees, and others interested in a thriving musical future.
The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars: Heroin, Handguns, and Ham Sandwiches
Jeremy Simmonds - 2008
Jeremy Simmonds here draws on a lifetime’s obsession to match the industry’s biggest departed stars--Buddy, Jeff, Sid, Jimi, Biggie, Janis, Elvis, Marc, Tupac--with more than a few lesser-known tales of rock tragedy. He also includes a smorgasbord of lighter-hearted sidebars, including strange facts, lucky escapes, and top-ten death discs. An indispensable reference full of useful and useless information, with hundreds of photos of the good, the bad, and the silly, The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars is guaranteed to rock the world of trivia buffs and diehards alike.
Guitar: An American Life
Tim Brookes - 2005
the open road. protest and rebellion, the blues, youth, lost love, and sexuality. With adoration Tim Brookes explores these ideas and how they became entwined with the history of America. Shortly before his fiftieth birthday, baggage handlers destroyed his guitar, his twenty-two-year-old traveling companion. His wife promised to replace it with the guitar of his dreams, but Tim discovered that a dream guitar is built, not bought. He set out to find someone to make him the perfect guitar-- a quest that ended up a dirt road in the Green Mountains of Vermont. where an amiable cur mudgeon master-guitar-maker, Rick Davis, took a rare piece of cherry wood and went to work with saws, rasps, and files. Arriving with conquistadors and the colonists, the guitar found itself in an extraordinary variety of hands: those of miners and society ladies. lumberjacks and presidents wives, girls and boys courting in canoes and frolicking on picnics, Hawaiians, African-Americans. Cajuns, Jazz players rehearsing in a men's room in Atlantic City. spiritualists. singing cowboys of the silver screen. bluegrass musicians, and Beatles fans. Inventors and crackpots tinkered with it. In time it became American's instrument, the rhythm of its soundtrack. When Tim wasn't breathing over Rick's shoulder. he was trying to unvravel the symbolic associations a guitar bolds for so many of us, musicians and nonmusicians alike. His quest took him across the country.talking to historians. curators. and guitar makers. As David Spelman, founder and director of the New York Guitar Festival. raved: "Guitaris "a love to the guitar. from a guitar-loved extradinaire."
Jazz Styles: History and Analysis
Mark C. Gridley - 1978
America's most widely used introduction to jazz, it teaches the chronology of jazz by showing students how to listen and what to notice in each style. Though originally conceived for nonmusicians and written at a college freshmen reading level, Jazz Styles also has been widely adopted in courses for musicians because of its point-by-point specification of each style's musical characteristics and its technical appendix. The text helps students hear how the styles differ and why the top names are important. The book's listening guides offer in-depth analysis for 38 historic recordings contained on the 2CD Jazz Classics collection.
The Guitar Grimoire: A Compendium of Forumlas for Guitar Scales and Modes
Adam Kadmon - 1991
Harmony and Theory is as easy as 1, 2, 3. Best of all, scales are graphed out for you in all twelve keys so you can start using them immediately while you learn. Complete explanation of all five-, six-, seven- and eight-tone scales and modes. The essential volume for every guitarist' library. Contents: Scale patterns mapped out in sweeping format (three notes per string) , Conventional patterns , Every scale diagramed in all 12 keys , Quick mode generator charts: easy conversion from relative scales to modes , In-depth numerical analysis of modes , Each scale has chord compatibility charts , Chord and polychord formulas , An interval map for each key , Easier than tabulature , College level made easy , 211 jam-packed pages !! Langue : en anglais
Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon
Harvey Kubernik - 2009
resident who knows them all, "Canyon"" of Dreams" traces the history of the community and its enduring legacy. Taking a deeply personal approach, it uses a multiple-voice narration based on exclusive interviews with the area s musical elite. Because of their close and long-time connection with Kubernik, some of these stars are speaking openly for the first time.Eye-opening both visually and informationally, this is a book no music lover can be without!"Interview highlights include" - For the first time in years, the three surviving Doors talk about performances, recordings, band dynamics, and, of course, Jim Morrison- Randy Meisner reminisces about the Eagles first gig and the recording of One of These Nights - Graham Nash reflects on life with Joni Mitchell and describes writing Our House - Lou Adler discusses his legendary Sunset Strip venues the Whisky a Go-Go, Roxy Theater, Rainbow Bar & Grill, and Tapestry and, with Michele Phillips, reflects on the Monterey Pop Festival.- Slash, a child of the Canyon, details the formation of Guns N' Roses- And much, much more!"
Cover Me: The Stories Behind the Greatest Cover Songs of All Time
Ray Padgett - 2017
A great cover only makes a song stronger. Jimi Hendrix’s version of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.” The Beatles rocking out with “Twist and Shout.” Aretha Franklin demanding “Respect.” Without covers, the world would have lost many unforgettable performances. This is the first book to explore the most iconic covers ever, from Elvis’s “Hound Dog” and the Rolling Stones’ “Not Fade Away” to Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused,” the Talking Heads’ “Take Me to the River,” and Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love.” Written by the founder of the website covermesongs.com, each of the 20 chapters investigates the origins of a classic cover—and uses it as a framework to tell the larger story of how cover songs have evolved over the decades. Cover Me is packed with insight, photography, and music history.
Running with the Devil: Power, Gender and Madness in Heavy Metal Music (Music/Culture)
Robert Walser - 1993
Dismissed by critics and academics, condemned by parents and politicians, fervently embraced by legions of fans, heavy metal music attracts and embodies cultural conflicts that are central to our society. Walser explores how and why heavy metal works, both musically and socially, and at the same time uses metal to investigate contemporary formations of identity, community, gender, and power.
Teen Spirit: The Stories Behind Every NIRVana Song
Chuck Crisafulli - 1996
Why did Kurt Cobain write "Polly", his graphic anti-rape song? What is "Teen Spirit"? Who is Floyd the Barber? As Chuck Crisafulli answers these questions he chronicles Nirvana's rise to fame and the emergence of grunge. 90 full-color and b&w photos.
The People's Almanac Presents The Book of Lists #2
Irving Wallace - 1978
PaperbackPublisher: Bantam Books (Mm) (November 1981)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 055313101XISBN-13: 978-0553131017Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 1 inchesShipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977
James Miller - 1999
You just make it up as you go along." Certainly, the history of the plugged-in genre seems more like a mad romp than a logical development. James Miller sets out here to capture the evolution of early R&R as an industry and as a force in American life. Without descending into diatribe or veering towards critical theory, this former Michel Foucault biographer writes about the metamorphosis of casual basement jamming into a sometimes devious multi-million dollar business. Strewn along the way are epiphanies of music history: Bob Dylan turning the Beatles onto marijuana at their first meeting in 1964; Berry Gordy producing his first big hit by instructing Jackie Wilson to imitate Elvis Presley; the less-than-endearing first appearance of the Sex Pistols on British TV. Both literate and unpretentious, Miller catches the frantic surrealism of the rock scene. As Jerry Garcia said, "By comparison, real life is very dull." Jules Herbert
Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues
Joel Selvin - 2014
His heart damaged by rheumatic fever as a youth, Berns was not expected to live to see 21. Although his name is little remembered today, Berns worked alongside all the greats of the era—Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler, Burt Bacharach, Phil Spector, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, anyone who was anyone in New York rhythm and blues. In seven quick years, he went from nobody to the top of the pops—producer of monumental r&b classics, songwriter of “Twist and Shout,” “My Girl Sloopy,” “Piece of My Heart,” and others.His fury to succeed led Berns to use his Mafia associations to muscle Atlantic Records out of their partnership and intimidate new talents like Neil Diamond and Van Morrison, whom he had signed to his record label. Berns died at age 38 from a long-expected heart attack, just when he was seeing his grandest plans and life’s ambitions frustrated and foiled.
50 Years of Rolling Stone: The Music, Politics and People that Changed Our Culture
Rolling Stone - 2017
This landmark book documents the magazine’s rise to prominence as the voice of rock and roll and a leading showcase for era-defining photography. From the 1960s to the present day, the book offers a decade-by-decade exploration of American music and history. Interviews with rock legends—Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Kurt Cobain, Bruce Springsteen, and more—appear alongside iconic photographs by Baron Wolman, Annie Leibovitz, Mark Seliger, and other leading image-makers. With feature articles, excerpts, and exposés by such quintessential writers as Hunter S. Thompson, Matt Taibbi, and David Harris, this book is an irresistible and essential keepsake of the magazine that has defined American music for generations of readers.
Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong; Revised and Expanded Edition
Joseph Lanza - 1994
It's Big Brother singing. Call it what you will -- elevator music, Moodsong ® easy listening, or Muzak ®. For a musical genre that was supposed to offend no one, it has a lot of enemies.Musical cognoscenti decry its insipid content; regular folk -- if they notice -- bemoan its pervasiveness; while hipsters and campsters celebrate its retro chic. Mindful of the many voices, Joseph Lanza's Elevator Music sings seriously, with tongue in cheek, the praises of this venerable American institution.Lanza addresses the criticisms of elites who say that Muzak and its ilk are dehumanized, vapid, or cheesy. These reactions, he argues, are based more on cultural prejudices than honest musical appraisal.Says Lanza, today's so-called mood music is the inheritor of a long tradition of mood-altering music stretching back to the ancients; Nero's fiddle and the sirens of Odysseus being two famous examples. Contemporary atmospheric music, Lanza argues, not only serves the same purpose, it is also the inevitable background for our media-dominated age.One of Lanza's premises, to quote Mark Twain, is that this music is "better than it sounds." "This book will have succeeded in its purpose," he writes, "if I can help efface...the distinction between one person's elevator music and another's prized recording."Joseph Lanza is an author, producer, and music historian. His most recent book is Russ Columbo and the Crooner Mystique.
Lyrics
Sting - 1991
From the first Police album, Outlandos D'Amour, through Sacred Love, here are the collected lyrics written by Sting, along with his commentary.