Victor Bockris aided in the formation of the text and selection of photographs, which also provides an intimate portrait of the unique collaboration between Debbie and Chris.

    The world, though, would know him as Elton John, the name that for the past three decades has epitomized rock-music superstardom. From blockbuster albums like Friends and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in the 1970s to award-winning scores in the nineties for the film and Broadway show The Lion King and the current stage hit Aida, Elton John has never failed to dazzle his audiencesand never more so than at the funeral of his close friend Diana, Princess of Wales, when he moved an entire nation with his poignant and powerful performance of "Candle in the Wind 1997" ("Goodbye England's Rose"). Epically conceived and masterfully told, Philip Norman's biography of the inimitable, legendary Elton John searches out the man behind the performer in glittering costumes and sky-high boots. Norman explores the draining addictions, the failed marriage, attempted suicides, a multimillionaire's supposed money troubles. He examines Elton's compulsions and coming out; he illuminates the creative drive that continues prodigiously and brilliantly to produce new music. What emerges is a frank, sympathetic portrait so truthful that Elton himself has said, "He's got me spot on.""

    The quintessential Rude Boy, punker, rebel musician, artist and activist, Strummer wrote some of the most important and influential music of the last century including "Guns of Brixton," "The Washington Bullets," "Spanish Bombs," "White Man in Hammersmith Palace," "London's Burning," "Lost in the Supermarket," and "Garageland." Effectively melding raw creativity with radical politics, Strummer transformed punk rock from its early associations with reactionary, right wing and nihilistic politics into a social movement. From Rock Against Racism to the Anti-Nazi League Festival to supporting the H-Block protests, Strummer and The Clash led the charge for human rights. Let Fury Have the Hour collects articles, interviews, essays and reviews that chronicle Strummer's life both as a musician and a political activist. Included in this collection are essays and interviews by Antonino D'Ambrosio, alongside contributions from Peter Silverton, Barry Miles, Anya Philips, Sylvia Simmons, Vic Garbarini, Caroline Coons, Todd Martens, Joel Schalit and others. This book also includes original lyrics, photography, art, posters, and flyers, and offers the first serious examination of the life of this extraordinary man.

    While vinyl records have enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, good 78s are exponentially harder to come by and play. A recent eBay auction for the only known copy of a particular record topped out at $37,100. Do Not Sell at Any Price explores the rarified world of the 78rpm record—from the format’s heyday to its near extinction—and how collectors and archivists are working frantically to preserve the music before it’s lost forever.Through fascinating historical research and beguiling visits with the most prominent 78 preservers, Amanda Petrusich offers both a singular glimpse of the world of 78 collecting and the lost backwoods blues artists whose 78s from the 1920s and 1930s have yet to be found or heard by modern ears. We follow the author’s descent into the oddball fraternity of collectors—including adventures with Joe Bussard, Chris King, John Tefteller, Pete Whelan, and more—who create and follow their own rules, vocabulary, and economics and explore the elemental genres of blues, folk, jazz, and gospel that gave seed to the rock, pop, country, and hip-hop we hear today. From Thomas Edison to Jack White, Do Not Sell at Any Price is an untold, intriguing story of preservation, loss, obsession, art, and the evolution of the recording formats that have changed the ways we listen to (and create) music.

    On board were: writers, artists, honeymooners, sportsmen, priests, reverends, fashion designers, aristocrats, millionaires, children, crew and emigrants looking for a better life.This book tells of their lives, and shines the spotlight on: Some of the great ship’s surprising treasures Her fêted voyage from Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard The fascinating museums devoted to her memory, including Titanic Belfast The iconic music and movies Her winged and four-legged passengers The sister ships of Olympic and Britannic Tales of heroism Theories surrounding Titanic’s fatal collision The lifeboats and just how close the SS Californian was on that tragic night How Arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton and the inquiries viewed events These stories and much more lie inside.

    But it’s a bit less widely understood that in about 1950, this stream of great songs more or less dried up. All of a sudden, what came over the radio wasn’t Gershwin, Porter, and Berlin, but “Come on-a My House” and “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?” Elvis and rock and roll arrived a few years later, and at that point the game was truly up. What happened, and why? In The B Side, acclaimed cultural historian Ben Yagoda answers those questions in a fascinating piece of detective work. Drawing on previously untapped archival sources and on scores of interviews—the voices include Randy Newman, Jimmy Webb, Linda Ronstadt, and Herb Alpert—the book illuminates broad musical trends through a series of intertwined stories. Among them are the battle between ASCAP and Broadcast Music, Inc.; the revolution in jazz after World War II; the impact of radio and then television; and the bitter, decades-long feud between Mitch Miller and Frank Sinatra. The B Side is about taste, and the particular economics and culture of songwriting, and the potential of popular art for greatness and beauty. It’s destined to become a classic of American musical history.

    Born in Texas and raised in Arizona, Buck eventually found his way to Bakersfield, California. Unlike the vast majority of country singers, songwriters, and musicians who made their fortunes working and living in Nashville, the often rebellious and always independent Owens chose to create his own brand of country music some 2 000 miles away from Music City - racking up a remarkable twenty-one number one hits along the way. In the process he helped give birth to a new country sound and did more than any other individual to establish Bakersfield as a country music center. In the latter half of the 1990s, Buck began working on his autobiography. Over the next few years, he talked into the microphone of a cassette tape machine for nearly one hundred hours, recording the story of his life. With his near-photographic memory, Buck recalled everything from his early days wearing hand-me-down clothes in Texas to his glory years as the biggest country star of the 1960s; from his legendary Carnegie Hall concert to his multiple failed marriages; from his hilarious exploits on the road to the tragic loss of his musical partner and best friend, Don Rich; from his days as the host of a local TV show in Tacoma, Washington, to his co-hosting the network television show Hee Haw; and from his comeback hit, "Streets of Bakersfield " to his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In these pages, Buck also shows his astute business acumen, having been among the first country artists to create his own music publishing company. He also tells of negotiating the return of all of his Capitol master recordings, his acquisition of numerous radio stations, and of his conceiving and building the Crystal Palace, one of the most venerated musical venues in the country. Buck 'Em! is the fascinating story of the life of country superstar Buck Owens - from the back roads of Texas to the streets of Bakersfield. Click here to watch a video extra on YouTube for Buck 'Em.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    A bound combination of Books I and II in the Fretboard Logic guitar lesson series. Volume I explains the guitar's unique tuning and a basic set of fretboard patterns. Volume II integrates this foundation into an exploration of chords, scales, and arpeggios.

    A comprehensive guide to Amor Towles' acclaimed new novel 'A Gentleman in Moscow', this discussion aid includes a wealth of information and resources: useful literary and historical context; an author biography; a plot synopsis; analyses of themes & imagery; character analysis; twenty thought-provoking discussion questions; recommended further reading and even a quick quiz. For those in book clubs, this useful companion guide takes the hard work out of preparing for meetings and guarantees productive discussion. For solo readers, it encourages a deeper examination of a multi-layered text.

    Over 400 fabulous photographs document the important events of his life and career; his early concerts, the movies, his time in the army, his marriage to Priscilla and the birth of his daughter Lisa Marie, the resurgence of his career in the 1970s with the Las Vegas shows, and the gradual decline of his health. The photographs show how Elvis lives on today, in the hearts and minds of his legions of fans. The pictures are accompanied by informative captions adding context and depth to his amazing story, and an appendix of facts and figures sets out his remarkable achievements in the music industry.

     Named the "best site for music criticism on the web" by The New York Times Magazine, Pitchforkmedia.com has become the leading independent resource for music journalism, the place people turn to find out what's happening in new music. Founded in 1995, Pitchfork has developed one of the web's most devoted followings, with more than 1.6 million readers monthly who tune in for daily reviews, news, features, videos, and interviews. In The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present, Pitchfork offers up their take on the 500 best songs of the past three decades. Focusing on indie rock (Arcade Fire, the Shins), hiphop (Public Enemy, Jay-Z), electronic (Daft Punk, Boards of Canada), pop (Madonna, Justin Timberlake), metal (Metallica, Boris), and experimental underground music (Suicide, Boredoms), it features all-new essays and reviews written with the sharp wit and insight for which the site is known. Kicking it off in 1977 with the birth of punk and independent music, The Pitchfork 500 runs chronologically, with each chapter representing a distinct period and offering a narrative of how the musical landscape of the day influenced its artists. The book opens with David Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Kraftwerk, and Brian Eno, the "art-rock godfathers" who set the tone and tenor for the next thirty years, and wraps up in the present, when bands connect with new audiences through social networking sites and prime-time TV placements -- and when a single mp3 can turn a niche indie artist into a global sensation. Sidebars like "Yacht Rock," "Runaway Trainwrecks," "Nanofads," and "Career Killers" call out some far-from-classic musical trends and identify the guiltiest offenders. Modernizing the music-guide format, The Pitchfork 500 reflects the way listeners are increasingly processing music -- by song rather than by album. These 500 tracks condense thirty years of essential music into the ultimate chronological playlist, each song advancing the narrative and, by extension, the music itself.

    To millions of listeners, Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run is much more than a rock-and-roll album—it’s a poetic explosion of freedom and frustration. It confirmed Springsteen’s status as a quintessential American performer: the rocker who, more than any other, gives voice to our hopes, fears, and aspirations. Runaway Dream chronicles the making of the album that launched Springsteen and his E Street Band into the firmament of American art, deftly sketching the ambition, history, and personalities that combined to create the enduring Born to Run.Springsteen wanted Born to Run to be the greatest rock record ever made. For a musician with just two modest-selling LPs to his credit, it was an extraordinary ambition, and session by session, track by track, Masur shows just how much grit, as well as genius, went into realizing it. Runaway Dream offers an expert tour of the trials and triumphs of Springsteen’s work. In addition to the story of the album itself, Masur masterfully places Born to Run within American cultural history, showing why the girls, hot rods, and Jersey nights of the album still resonate, even for listeners born years after its release.

    A timeless tale of exile and longing, death and desire, love and belonging. (his)

    While paintings of Picasso and Jackson Pollock sell for a hundred million dollars or more, and lines from T. S. Eliot are quoted on the yearbook pages of alienated teenagers across the land, twentieth-century classical music still sends ripples of unease through audiences. At the same time, its influence can be felt everywhere. Atonal chords crop up in jazz. Avant-garde sounds populate the soundtracks of Hollywood thrillers. Minimalism has had a huge effect on rock, pop, and dance music from the Velvet Underground onward.The Rest Is Noise shows why twentieth-century composers felt compelled to create a famously bewildering variety of sounds, from the purest beauty to the purest noise. It tells of a remarkable array of maverick personalities who resisted the cult of the classical past, struggled against the indifference of a wide public, and defied the will of dictators. Whether they have charmed audiences with sweet sounds or battered them with dissonance, composers have always been exuberantly of the present, defying the stereotype of classical music as a dying art. The narrative goes from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties, from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies. We follow the rise of mass culture and mass politics, of dramatic new technologies, of hot and cold wars, of experiments, revolutions, riots, and friendships forged and broken. The end result is not so much a history of twentieth-century music as a history of the twentieth century through its music.