The hugely popular Gareth Malone recounts the heart-warming stories and transformations behind the award-winning BBC2 series The Choir

    The player is then guided through elementary daily exercises and eventually introduced to major and minor scales with complimentary short pieces which makes use of the appropriate scale progression. This tutor also includes a very useful dictionary of musical terms.

    Includes lead sheets for such standard vocal repertoire pieces as: Yesterday * I'm Beginning to See the Light * and I Heard it Through the Grapevine. Maximize your vocal potential with this outstanding guide

    About a guy and his punk band. Who start out shitty, but persevere, and eventually become pretty popular. If I mentioned that Ben Foster is better known as Ben Weasel from Screeching Weasel, you'll get a much more nuanced idea about what this book is about, and certainly, what this novel MIGHT be based upon. Regardless, it's a great, rollicking read. Whether or not it's entirely true, or entirely false, anyone with any knowledge of 90s punk in America will recognise large chunks of this. And anyone with any interest in, appreciation of, or experience of being in a band, breaking up with a girl, or punk rock, will thoroughly enjoy. It's that good. Though why he had to kill off his guitarist and best friend at the end I'll leave to his shrink to fathom...

    One experience that would take some beating is that endured by Baxter Dury.When punk rock star Ian Dury disappeared to make films in the late 80s, he left his teenage son in the care of his roadie, in a rundown flat in Hammersmith. But this was no ordinary roadie; this was the Sulphate Strangler. The Strangler, having taken a lot of LSD in the 60s, was prone to depression, anger and hallucinations. He was also, as the name suggests, a drug dealer. What could possibly go wrong?In a period that we can now only imagine, a young Baxter ricocheted from one adventure to another, narrowly swerving one disaster only immediately to collide with another. At times, his situation was perilous in the extreme - the world is lucky to have him at all. CHAISE LONGUE is an intimate account of those escapades, evocatively illuminating a bohemian west London populated with feverishly grubby characters. Narrated in Dury's candid tone, both sad and funny, this moving story will leave an indelible imprint on its readers.

    This book has a very specific purpose: to help songwriters find better rhymes and use them more effectively. Rhyme is one of the most crucial areas of lyrics writing, and this guide will provide all of the technical information necessary to develop your skills completely. The exercises and worksheets help experienced writers take a fresh look at their techniques, and prevent novices from developing bad habits. Use this book to start writing better than ever before!

    

    As he learned valuable lessons in self-sufficiency, taking responsibility, and how to avoid (for the most part but not always) getting punched in the face by irate hippies, Larry also found his place and made his home in the far-flung, disjointed and eccentric community he encountered in the anarchic realm that begins where Highway 101’s tattered tarmac dissolves into the dust of Spy Rock Road.

    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.

    For the next 15 years, Trident Studios, was at the epicentre of the music industry, recording some of the era's greatest artists, from The Beatles and David Bowie to Elton John and Genesis. Trident also developed their own talent, including a raw and demanding four-piece band called Queen. After an acrimonious split with Trident, their volatile leader Freddie Mercury famously dedicated a song to Norman: Death On Two Legs. In Life On Two Legs, this legendary music figure breaks his forty year silence and sets the record straight, not just about Freddie and Queen but also about artists from John Lennon and Marc Bolan to Harry Nilsson and Phil Collins and the recording of such classics as Hey Jude by The Beatles and Space Oddity by David Bowie. Funny, fascinating and occasionally irreverent - and with a foreword by Sir Paul McCartney - this is an unmissable memoir that brings to vivid life some of rock's greatest characters as well as the era and the studio that produced some of its classic music.

    You'd expect a drummer to have better timing. Yes, he parted ways before The Patrol became the Stone Roses. Yes, he turned down The Smiths because he didn't like Morrissey's voice. Right place, right time, wrong choices. Timing is everything.But the beat goes on and while Simon Wolstencroft can see what might have been, cultivating bitterness bears no fruit. And 'Funky Si' has tasted the nectar. Spending an unlikely 11 years in The Fall and hooking up with his old mate Ian Brown during his solo days, 'You Can Drum But You Can't Hide' reflects on a life driven by a passion for playing. Taking you from the warehouses of Manchester and the beaches of Rio de Janeiro to the high rises of Tokyo, this book hands you a backstage pass to an evocative age that restored pride to the city of Manchester. With humour and detail, Si recounts a fascinating tale of drumming and drugs, friendships and fall outs, but, above all, a love of music.

    He was twelve years old and he had a guitar. He would go around telling everybody that he was going to be a rock-and-roll star. I was eleven and I believed him.”SO BEGINS THIS HONEST, FUNNY, AND DEEPLY AFFECTIONATE MEMOIR OF A FRIENDSHIP THAT HAS SPANNED FIVE DECADES OF WILD ADVENTURES, SOUL SEARCHING CONVERSATION, MUSICAL MILESTONES, AND ENDURING COMRADERY.Louie and Bob after the Rolling Thunder Night of the Hurricane Benefit Concert at Madison Square Garden, December 8th, 1975.Louie and Bob after the Rolling Thunder Night of the Hurricane Benefit Concert at Madison Square Garden, December 8th, 1975.As Bobby Zimmerman became Bob Dylan and Louie Kemp built a successful international business, their lives diverged but their friendship held fast. No matter how much time passed between one adventure and the next, the two “boys from the North Country” picked up where they left off and shared experiences that will surprise and delight Dylan fans and anybody who loves a rollicking-good rock-and-roll memoir. From little Bobby’s very first public appearance (on a roof at Herzl Camp) through his formative years in Minnesota and New York and his rise to global superstardom, Louie Kemp was by his side—a trusted ally and confidant as Bob figured out how to share his gifts without compromising who he was. Louie produced Bob’s groundbreaking Rolling Thunder Revue—described in riveting detail here—and traveled with him in the rarefied world of the rock star, but he also shared quiet moments and intimate experiences. When Louie got married, Bob was his best man; when Bob questioned his Jewish faith, Louie brought him back to the fold. And that is just a small sample of the never-before-told, up-close-and-personal stories in this eye-opening book. Ever wonder what it might be like to attend a Passover Seder with Bob Dylan and Marlon Brando? Or go on a Mexican vacation with Bob Dylan, Dennis Hopper, and Harry Dean Stanton? Or get into a public food fight with Joan Baez? Read on.Louie’s own words best describe the relationship at the heart of Dylan & Me: “We have always had open minds, taken risks, helped the underdog. We have laughed at the same jokes and confided our deepest thoughts and fears. We have never needed anything from each other but have always been there for each other.” What better definition of friendship could anybody want?

    His guitarist is trying to get them all killed. Fans are stealing his things. Mechanics are rebuking his lifestyle. Even his own fragile, uptight psyche is antagonizing him. But despite having every odd stacked against him, Project 86's frontman is living the dream and loving it. In It's All Downhill From Here, Andrew Schwab chronicles the highs and lows, the struggles and triumphs of this underground, independent rock band's rocky road to stardom. From a hostage situation on their first day on the road, to a drummer's crushed hand, a haunting female fan and an '80s rocker's halitosis problem, Schwab tells it like it is, with biting wit and rock star charm. This insider's look at the real life of a rock band not only reaffirms that everyone's human, but makes you hungry for a dream of your own to chase after.

    The Drive-By Truckers, as they named themselves, grew into one of the best and most consequential rock bands of the twenty-first century, a great live act whose songs deliver the truth and nuance rarely bestowed on Southerners, so often reduced to stereotypes.Where the Devil Don’t Stay tells the band’s unlikely story not chronologically but geographically. Seeing the Truckers’ albums as roadmaps through a landscape that is half-real, half-imagined, their fellow Southerner Stephen Deusner travels to the places the band’s members have lived in and written about. Tracking the band from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia, to the author’s hometown in McNairy County, Tennessee, Deusner explores the Truckers’ complex relationship to the South and the issues of class, race, history, and religion that run through their music. Drawing on new interviews with past and present band members, including Jason Isbell, Where the Devil Don’t Stay is more than the story of a great American band; it’s a reflection on the power of music and how it can frame and shape a larger culture.

    . . This is Francis Rossi as you have never seen him before. Status Quo have sold over 100 million records worldwide, including 65 hit singles and 32 hit albums. The legendary band's career has mirrored the evolution of rock music. From the struggles of the flower-power '60s, the highs of the denim-clad '70s, the coke- and tequila-induced blur of the '80s, to fighting for musical integrity in the '90s and '00s and a fresh lease of life from new band members in recent years, Rossi has been there for the entirety of Quo's turbulent history.In I Talk Too Much, Rossi will reveal the truth behind one of the biggest rock bands of all time, as well as the personal highs and lows of a career spanning over 50 years. He lifts the lid on the man behind the music - from humble beginnings in Forest Hill and being labelled a has-been by the press in his twenties to opening Live Aid in 1985 - and why he's still going strong at seventy. Along the way he has fathered eight children with three mothers and beaten both alcoholism and cocaine addiction. Rossi comes clean about the time he almost left the band, what he really thinks about the music industry today and the complexities of his fifty-year friendship with Rick Parfitt.Painfully honest, riotously funny and frequently outrageous, I Talk Too Much covers the glory years, the dark days and the real stories behind the creation of some of the greatest rock music of all time.