Book picks similar to
Ska'd for Life: A Personal Journey with The Specials by Horace Panter
music
biography
autobiography
memoir
Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir
Dave Mustaine - 2010
From his soul-crushing professional and artistic setbacks to his battle with addiction, Mustaine has hit rock bottom on multiple occasions. April 1983 was his lowest point, when he was unceremoniously fired from Metallica for his hard-partying ways. But, what seemed to be the end of it all was just the beginning for the guitarist.After parting ways with Metallica, Mustaine went on to become the front man, singer, songwriter, guitarist (and de facto CEO) for Megadeth—one of the most successful metal bands in the world. A pioneer of the thrash metal movement, Megadeth rose to international fame in the 1980s, and has gone on to earn seven consecutive Grammy nominations for Best Metal Performance.In this outrageously candid memoir, one of heavy metal’s most iconic figures gives an insider’s look into the loud and sordid world of thrash metal—sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll included.
Kicking and Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock and Roll
Ann Wilson - 2012
Since finding their love of music and performing as teenagers in Seattle, Washington, Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson, have been part of the American rock music landscape. From 70s classics like “Magic Man” and “Barracuda” to chart- topping 80s ballads like “Alone,” and all the way up to 2012, when they will release their latest studio album, Fanatic, Heart has been thrilling their fans and producing hit after hit. In Kicking and Dreaming, the Wilsons recount their story as two sisters who have a shared over three decades on the stage, as songwriters, as musicians, and as the leaders of one of our most beloved rock bands. An intimate, honest, and a uniquely female take on the rock and roll life, readers of bestselling music memoirs like Life by Keith Richards and Steven Tyler’s Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? will love this quintessential music story finally told from a female perspective.
Johnny Cash: The Life
Robert Hilburn - 2013
Johnny Cash's extraordinary career stretched from his days at Sun Records with Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis to the remarkable creative last hurrah, at age 69, that resulted in the brave, moving "Hurt" video.As music critic for the Los Angeles Times, Hilburn knew Cash throughout his life: he was the only music journalist at the legendary Folsom Prison concert in 1968, and he interviewed both Cash and his wife June Carter just months before their deaths. Drawing upon a trove of never-before-seen material from the singer's inner circle, Hilburn creates an utterly compelling, deeply human portrait of a towering figure in country music, a seminal influence in rock, and an icon of American popular culture. Hilburn's reporting shows the astonishing highs and deep lows that marked the journey of a man of great faith and humbling addiction who throughout his life strove to use his music to lift people's spirits.
Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag
Henry Rollins - 1994
Rollins's observations range from the wry to the raucous in this blistering account of a six-year career with the band - a time marked by crazed fans, vicious cops, near-starvation, substance abuse, and mind numbing all-night drives. Rollins decided to revise this edition by adding a wealth of new photographs, a new foreword, and an afterword to include some "where-are-they-now" information on the people featured in the book. This new edition includes 40 previously unpublished black-and-white photographs from Rollins's private collection and show flyers by artist Raymond Pettibon. Called "a soul-frying experience not to be undertaken by lightweights" by Wired magazine, Get in the Van perfectly embodies what one critic called the "secular gospel" of one of punk and post-punk's most respected and controversial figures.
Take Me Home: An Autobiography
John Denver - 1994
Songs like "Take Me Home, Country Roads," "Rocky Mountain High," and "Annie's Song" have entered the canon of universal anthems, but less than three decades ago, John Denver was a young man with little more than a fine voice, a guitar, and a dream. Growing up in a conservative military family, he was not expected to drop out of college and head to Los Angeles, where the music scene was flourishing. Nor was he expected to succeed. In Take Me Home, John Denver chronicles the experiences that shaped his life, while unraveling the rich, inner journey of a shy Midwestern boy whose uneasy partnership with fame has been one of the defining forces of his first fifty years. With candor and wit, John writes about his childhood, the experience of hitting L.A. as the Sixties roared into full swing, his first breaks, his years with the Mitchell Trio, his first songwriting success with "Leaving on a Jet Plane," and finally a career that made his a global household name. He also explores his relationships with the women in his life - particularly his first wife, Annie Martell, and his second wife, Cassandra Delaney - as well as his parents, his children, his partners through his life, and his friends. Honest, insightful and rich in anecdotes that only a natural-born storyteller could tell so well, Take Me Home is a highly charged and fascinating book from beginning to end. It's like spending a couple of days with a good friend.
When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin
Mick Wall - 2008
Led Zeppelin was the last great band of the 1960s and the first great band of the 1970's and When Giants Walked the Earth is the full, enthralling story of Zep from the inside, written by a former associate of both Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. Rich and revealing, it bores into not only the disaster, addiction and death that haunted the band but also into the real relationship between Page and Plant, including how it was influenced by Page's interest in the occult. Comprehensive and yet intimately detailed, When Giants Walked the Earth literally gets into the principals' heads to bring to life both an unforgettable band and an unrepeatable slice of rock history.
All Cheeses Great and Small: A Not So Everyday Story of Country Folk
Alex James - 2012
Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles
Geoff Emerick - 2006
He later worked with the Beatles as they recorded their singles “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” the songs that would propel them to international superstardom. In 1964 he would witness the transformation of this young and playful group from Liverpool into professional, polished musicians as they put to tape classic songs such as “Eight Days A Week” and “I Feel Fine.” Then, in 1966, at age nineteen, Geoff Emerick became the Beatles’ chief engineer, the man responsible for their distinctive sound as they recorded the classic album Revolver, in which they pioneered innovative recording techniques that changed the course of rock history. Emerick would also engineer the monumental Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road albums, considered by many the greatest rock recordings of all time. In Here, There and Everywhere he reveals the creative process of the band in the studio, and describes how he achieved the sounds on their most famous songs. Emerick also brings to light the personal dynamics of the band, from the relentless (and increasingly mean-spirited) competition between Lennon and McCartney to the infighting and frustration that eventually brought a bitter end to the greatest rock band the world has ever known.
Time Between: My Life as a Byrd, Burrito Brother, and Beyond
Chris Hillman - 2020
He went on to record and perform in various configurations, including as a member of Stephen Stills’s Manassas and as a co-founder of The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band. In the 1980s he formed The Desert Rose Band, scoring eight Top 10 Billboard country hits. He’s released a number of solo efforts, including 2017’s highly acclaimed Bidin’ My Time—the final album produced by the late Tom Petty. In Time Between, Hillman shares his quintessentially Southern Californian experience, from an idyllic, rural 1950s childhood; to achieving worldwide fame thanks to hits such as “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and “Eight Miles High”; to becoming the first musician to move to Laurel Canyon. Featuring behind-the-scenes insights on his time in The Byrds, his productive but sometimes complicated relationship with Gram Parsons, his role in launching the careers of Buffalo Springfield and Emmylou Harris, and the ups and downs of life in various bands, music is only part of his story. Within the pages of Time Between, Hillman reveals the details of his personal life with candor and vulnerability, writing honestly about the shocking tragedy that struck his family when he was a teenager, his subsequent struggles with anger, and how his spiritual journey led him to a place of deep faith that allowed him to extend forgiveness and experience wholeness. Chris Hillman is much more than a rock star. He is truly a founding father of American music and a man who has faced down the challenges of life to discover what really matters.
Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina
Chris Frantz - 2020
With never-before-seen photos and immersive vivid detail, Frantz describes life on tour, down to the meals eaten and the clothes worn--and reveals the mechanics of a long and complicated working relationship with a mercurial frontman.At the heart of Remain in Love is Frantz's love for Weymouth: their once-in-a-lifetime connection as lovers, musicians, and bandmates, and how their creativity surged with the creation of their own band Tom Tom Club, bringing a fresh Afro-Caribbean beat to hits like "Genius of Love."Studded with memorable places and names from the era--Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, Stephen Sprouse, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, and Debbie Harry among them--Remain in Love is a frank and open memoir of an emblematic life in music and in love.
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.
This Music Leaves Stains: The Complete Story of the Misfits
James Greene Jr. - 2013
Led by Glenn Danzig, a singer possessed of vision and blessed with an incredible baritone, the Misfits pioneered a death rock sound that would reverberate through the various musical subgenres that sprung up in their wake.This Music Leaves Stains now presents the full story behind the Misfits and their ubiquitous, haunting skull logo, a story of unique talent, strange timing, clashing personalities, and incredible music that helped shape rock as we know it today. James Greene, Jr., maps this narrative from the band's birth at the tail end of the original punk movement through their messy dissolve at the dawn of the 1980s right on through the legal warring and inexplicable reunions that helped carry the band into the 21st century.Music junkies of any stripe will surely find themselves engrossed in this saga that finally pieces together the full story of the greatest horror punk band that ever existed, though Misfits fans will truly marvel at the thorough and detailed approach James Greene, Jr. has taken in outlining the rise, fall, resurrection, and influence of New Jersey's most frightening musical assembly.
The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music
Dave Grohl - 2021
The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I've recorded and can't wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child. This certainly doesn't mean that I'm quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it's like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician. From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters…the list goes on. I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement.
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.
Can You Feel the Silence?: Van Morrison
Clinton Heylin - 2002
Based on more than 100 interviews, this intelligent profile explores Morrison's roots; the hard times he went through in London, New York, and Boston; the making of his seminal albums Moondance and Astral Weeks; and the disastrous business arrangements that left Morrison hungry and penniless while his songs were topping the charts. Detailed are the breakdown of Morrison's marriage, the creative drought that followed, and his triumphant reemergence. In addition, this biography attempts to explain the forbidding aspects of Morrison's persona, such as paranoia, hard drinking, misanthropy, as well as why, in the words of his one-time singing partner Linda Gail Lewis, Morrison's music "brings happiness to other people, not him." Also included is a Van Morrision sessionography that spans 1964 to 2001.