Commando: The Autobiography of Johnny Ramone


Johnny Ramone - 2012
    He was truly imbued with the angry-young-man spirit that would characterize his persona both on and off stage. Through it all, Johnny kept the band focused and moving forward, ultimately securing their place in music history by inventing punk rock. The Ramones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002—two years later, Johnny died of cancer, having outlived two other founding members. Revealing, inspiring, and told on his own terms, this highly designed memoir also features Johnny’s assessment of the Ramones’ albums; a number of eccentric Top Ten lists; rare historical artifacts; and scores of personal and professional photos, many of which have never before been published.Praise for Commando:“Amazing book . . . dense and throbbing with character—enough to bring this departed New York icon barking back to life.” —New York Daily News "Johnny's delightful, sadly posthumous autobiography, Commando, is just like its author—as punk as it gets." —Wall Street Journal “Ramone memoir reveals charming, grumpy punk icon.” —Reuters“There's no grand confessional to end Commando, just a nod of gratitude toward family, friends, and fans. Its characteristic succinctness rings genuine.” —Austin Chronicle

Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter


Mary-Lou Sullivan - 2010
    From toughing it out in Texas to his appearance at Woodstock, his affair with Janis Joplin, his stadium-filling tours, and binging on drugs and the temptations of the road before finally fulfilling his dream of becoming a 100-percent pure bluesman, resurrecting the career of Muddy Waters, and winning a Grammy Award for his effort, this is a raucous roller coaster of a true story.

Sing Backwards and Weep: A Memoir


Mark Lanegan - 2020
    What's not to love?"-Nick Cave, author of The Sick Bag Song and The Death of Bunny MunroWhen Mark Lanegan first arrived in Seattle in the mid-1980s, he was just "an arrogant, self-loathing redneck waster seeking transformation through rock 'n' roll." Little did he know that within less than a decade, he would rise to fame as the front man of the Screaming Trees, then fall from grace as a low-level crack dealer and a homeless heroin addict, all the while watching some of his closest friends rocket to the forefront of popular music.In Sing Backwards and Weep, Lanegan takes readers back to the sinister, needle-ridden streets of Seattle, to an alternative music scene that was simultaneously bursting with creativity and dripping with drugs. He tracks the tumultuous rise and fall of the Screaming Trees, from a brawling, acid-rock bar band to world-famous festival favorites that scored a hit #5 single on Billboard's Alternative charts and landed a notorious performance on David Letterman, where Lanegan appeared sporting a fresh black eye from a brawl the night before. This book also dives into Lanegan's personal struggles with addiction, culminating in homelessness, petty crime, and the tragic deaths of his closest friends. From the back of the van to the front of the bar, from the hotel room to the emergency room, onstage, backstage, and everywhere in between, Sing Backwards and Weep reveals the abrasive underlining beneath one of the most romanticized decades in rock history-from a survivor who lived to tell the tale. Gritty, gripping, and unflinchingly raw, Sing Backwards and Weep is a book about more than just an extraordinary singer who watched his dreams catch fire and incinerate the ground beneath his feet. Instead, it's about a man who learned how to drag himself from the wreckage, dust off the ashes, and keep living and creating.

Rocks: My Life In and Out of Aerosmith


Joe Perry - 2014
    He delves deep into his volatile, profound, and enduring relationship with singer Steve Tyler and reveals the real people behind the larger-than-life rock-gods on stage. The nearly five-decade saga of Aerosmith is epic, at once a study in brotherhood and solitude that plays out on the killing fields of rock and roll.With record-making hits and colossal album sales, Aerosmith has earned their place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But theirs is ultimately a story of endurance, and it starts almost half a century ago with young Perry, the rebel whose loving parents wanted him to assimilate, but who quits school because he doesn’t want to cut his hair. He meets Tyler in a restaurant in New Hampshire, sways him from pop music to rock-and-roll, and it doesn’t take long for the “Toxic Twins” to skyrocket into a world of fame and utter excess. From the mega-successful song and music video with Run DMC, “Walk This Way,” to the realization that he can’t pay his room service bill, Perry takes a personal look into the human stories behind Aerosmith, the people who enabled them, the ones who controlled them, and the ones who changed them. In his own words, Rocks is the whole story: “the loner’s story, the band’s story, the recovery story, the cult story, the love story, the success story, the failure story, the rebirth story, the re-destruction story, the post-destructive rebirth story.”Foreward by Johnny Depp.

Bill Bruford - The Autobiography: Yes, King Crimson, Earthworks and More


Bill Bruford - 2009
    This is his memoir of life at the heart of prog rock, art rock, & modern jazz. It is an honest, entertaining, well-written account of life on the road & in the studio.

Ozzy: Unauthorized


Sue Crawford - 2002
    This biography is a comprehensive study of his past, and with its specially commissioned astrological chart, the future of this survivor and star.

Confess: The Autobiography


Rob Halford - 2020
    This one is making his.Rob Halford, front man of global iconic metal band Judas Priest, is a true "Metal God." Raised in Britain's hard-working, heavy industrial heartland, he and his music were forged in the Black Country. Confess, his full autobiography, is an unforgettable rock 'n' roll story-a journey from a Walsall council estate to musical fame via alcoholism, addiction, police cells, ill-fated sexual trysts, and bleak personal tragedy, through to rehab, coming out, redemption . . . and finding love. Now, he is telling his gospel truth. Told with Halford's trademark self-deprecating, deadpan Black Country humor, Confess is the story of an extraordinary five decades in the music industry. It is also the tale of unlikely encounters with everybody from Superman to Andy Warhol, Madonna, Jack Nicholson, and the Queen. More than anything else, it's a celebration of the fire and power of heavy metal. Rob Halford has decided to Confess. Because it's good for the soul.

Marie Antoinette: The Journey


Antonia Fraser - 2001
    To many people, she is still 'la reine méchante', whose extravagance and frivolity helped to bring down the French monarchy; her indifference to popular suffering epitomised by the (apocryphal) words: 'let them eat cake'. Others are equally passionate in her defence: to them, she is a victim of misogyny.Antonia Fraser examines her influence over the king, Louis XVI, the accusations and sexual slurs made against her, her patronage of the arts which enhanced French cultural life, her imprisonment, the death threats made against her, rumours of lesbian affairs, her trial (during which her young son was forced to testify to sexual abuse by his mother) and her eventual execution by guillotine in 1793.

My Cross to Bear


Gregg Allman - 2012
    No subject is taboo, as one of the true giants of rock ’n’ roll opens up about his Georgia youth, his long struggle with substance abuse, his string of bad marriages (including his brief union with superstar Cher), the tragic death of  brother Duane Allman, and life on the road in one of rock’s most legendary bands.

A Riot of Our Own: Night and Day with the Clash


Johnny Green - 1997
    Disaffected youth anointed the Clash as their spokesmen and made the group synonymous with punk itself in the late 1970s. Eventually becoming the band's road manager, Green had a unique vantage point from which to witness the burgeoning punk rock movement while helping the band in their perpetual search for women, booze, and drugs. Green was with the Clash when they conquered America, bringing with them their bad behavior and great music, and burning out after their third, too-long tour. Written in a tell-it-as-it-was style and accompanied by contemporaneous drawings by Ray Lowry, who tagged along with the Clash on their American tour as their official "war artist," A Riot of Our Own pierces the heart of the culture and music of punk rock and the people who lived it.

Crazy Diamond: Syd Barrett and the Dawn of Pink Floyd


Mike Watkinson - 1991
    Learn all about Barrett's career as lead member of the original Pink Floyd, his subsequent release from the group, and solo career. A revealing investigation into the life of a reclusive cult genius.

This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band


Levon Helm - 1993
    But while their music evoked a Southern mythology, only their Arkansawyer drummer, Levon Helm, was the genuine article. From the cotton fields to Woodstock, from seeing Sonny Boy Williamson and Elvis Presley to playing for President Clinton, This Wheel’s on Fire replays the tumultuous history of our times in Levon’s own unforgettable folksy drawl. This edition is expanded with a new afterword by the authors.

Getting High: The Adventures of Oasis


Paolo Hewitt - 1997
    A popular band in both the United States and United Kingdom allows a respected music writer unprecedented access to the tour bus, backstage dressing rooms, and the five members' lives, resulting in an intimate portrait of the controversial group.

Wouldn't it Be Nice: Brian Wilson and the Making of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds


Charles L. Granata - 2003
    From conception and composition to arrangement and production, the ways in which Pet Sounds changed the face of American popular music are chronicled. While Pet Sounds carries the tag of being a Beach Boys record, this lively expos� reveals just how little input the rest of the band had in its recording. Illustrating Brian Wilson's prodigious talent, the book chronicles his ability to turn his back on the protest songs and folk-rock of his contemporaries, and even on the bright surf sound of his own creation, in order to reach deep within himself to make music that struck an emotional chord and touched people's souls. Wilson's ability to embrace the rapidly advancing recording technology of the 1960s and to expertly blend rock 'n' roll, rhythm and blues, and jazz sounds with velvety harmonies and sensitive melodies to create a brand-new studio sound are discussed. An intimate portrait of Wilson's family, breakdown, and drug use is included.PBRBAbout the Author:/BBRBCharles L. Granata/B is a record producer, music historian, and the author of the award-winning ISessions with Sinatra: Frank Sinatra and the Art of Recording/I. He lives in Livingston, New Jersey. BTony Asher/B is a lyricist who collaborated with Brian Wilson on IPet Sounds/I. He lives in Los Angeles.

Ronnie


Ron Wood - 2007
    This is his story, in his own words, about his life, loves, family, friends, music, art and survival against the odds. It's a roller-coaster ride of unbelievable highs and unimaginable lows.