The Who: Maximum R&B


Richard Barnes - 1983
    The band themselves have assisted in this official illustrated record, contributing over 400 photographs (many never seen outside the pages of this book), press cuttings, album sleeves and posters. The Who: Maximum R&B also features complete UK and US discographies, including solo work by the individual members.First published in 1982 and now in its fifth edition, The Who: Maximum R&B is a colourful pictorial joyride widely accepted as the best book on the Who. Updated to detail the creative tensions and the chemistry that allowed the group to reform for one more time on their 2002 tour, it describes the untimely death of bassist John Entwistle on that same tour and features an Introduction by songwriter/guitarist Townshend on the loss of his friend and his own recent legal problems.

All Gates Open: The Story of Can


Rob Young - 2018
    It consists of two books.In Book One, Rob Young gives us the full biography of a band that emerged at the vanguard of what would come to be called the Krautrock scene in late sixties Cologne. With Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay - two classically trained students of Stockhausen - at the heart of the band, CAN's studio and live performances burned an incendiary trail through the decade that followed: and left a legacy that is still reverberating today in hip hop, post rock, ambient, and countless other genres. Rob Young's account draws on unique interviews with all founding members of CAN, as well as their vocalists, friends and music industry associates. And he revisits the music, which is still deliriously innovative and unclassifiable more than four decades on. All Gates Open is a portrait of a group who worked with visionary intensity and belief, outside the system and inside their own inner space.Book Two, Can Kiosk, has been assembled by Irmin Schmidt, founding member and guiding spirit of the band, as a 'collage - a technique long associated with CAN's approach to recording. There is an oral history of the band drawing on interviews that Irmin made with musicians who see CAN as an influence - such as Bobby Gillespie, Geoff Barrow, Daniel Miller, and many others. There are also interviews with artists and filmmakers like Wim Wenders and John Malkovitch, where Schmidt reflects on more personal matters and his work with film. Extracts of Schmidt's notebook and diaries from 2013-14 are also reproduced as a reflection on the creative process, and the memories, dreams, and epiphanies it entails. Can Kiosk offers further perspectives on a band that have inspired several generations of musicians and filmmakers in the voices of the artists themselves.CAN were unique, and their legacy is articulated in two books in this volume with the depth, rigour, originality, and intensity associated with the band itself. It is illustrated throughout with previously unseen art, photographs, and ephemera from the band's archive.

Fell in Love with a Band: The Story of The White Stripes


Chris Handyside - 2004
    So how is it that this enigmatic couple—who publicize themselves as brother and sister though official documents say they're ex-husband-and-wife—became a multi-platinum musical sensation? From their early days as the darlings of Detroit rock scene to their current status as MTV celebs, they've defied expectations every step of the way. How did it happen that the simple idea of staying true to a lo-fi, blues-based sound became a revolutionary idea in the age digital conformity and complex studio production?Fell in Love with a Band: The Story of the White Stripes is the first biography by a Detroit journalist who has followed their career since the group's inception in 1997. From Meg White's novice attempts at banging the drums to their current incarnation as the face of indie rock. With never before seen photos and exclusive interviews with members of Detroit bands like Blanche and The Von Bondies, Fell in Love with a Band gets to the heart of this enigmatic rock band and for the first time tells the real story of their rise to fame and the power behind their sound.

Björk: Wow and Flutter


Mark Pytlik - 2000
    Contains a detailed songbook and over 30 exclusive interviews with Björk's associates, family members, and industry professionals.

Without Frontiers: The Life & Music of Peter Gabriel


Daryl Easlea - 2013
    A quintessential Englishman, he has since pursued several overlapping careers, bringing to each of them his trademark preoccupation with quality control and restless curiosity.In 1975, after leaving the band that made him famous he diversified into writing movie soundtracks, various audio-visual ventures, tireless charity work and supporting major peace initiatives. He also became world music’s most illustrious champion, launching the WOMAD festival and recording solo albums that featured musicians from every corner of the globe. These and several other careers make writing Peter Gabriel’s biography an unusually challenging task, but Daryl Easlea has undertaken hours of new interviews with key friends, musicians, aides and confidants to get to the very heart and soul of Peter Gabriel, his music and his complex life. The result is an extraordinary biography of an extraordinary man.

Closer You Are: The Story of Robert Pollard and Guided By Voices


Matthew Cutter - 2018
    Pollard was a longtime grade school teacher who toiled endlessly on his music, finding success only after adopting a do-it-yourself approach, relying on lo-fi home recordings for much of his and his band's career. A prolific artist, Pollard continues to churn out album after album, much to the acclaim of critics and his obsessive and devoted fans. But his story has never been faithfully told in its entirety. Until now. Author Matthew Cutter is a longtime friend of Pollard and, with Pollard's blessing, he's set out to tell the whole, true story of Guided By Voices. Closer You Are is the first book to take an in-depth look at the man behind it all, with interviews conducted by the author with Pollard's friends, family, and bandmates, along with unfettered access to Pollard himself and his extensive archives. Robert Pollard has had an amazing and seemingly endless career in rock music, but he's also established himself as a consummate artist who works on his own terms. Now fans can at long last learn the full story behind one of America's greatest living songwriters.

Paul Weller: The Changing Man


Paolo Hewitt - 2007
    Hewitt has even been the inspiration for some of Weller's songs - and he has extraordinary in-depth knowledge of the inspiration behind the rest.Once, when Hewitt interviewed Weller for a music magazine, he complained - 'I don't know why people ask me all these questions. All the answers are in my songs.' Largely unnoticed, Weller has used thirty-years of lyrics to explore his personal history and beliefs. Taking as his starting point these lyrics, alongside a lifetime's friendship, Paolo Hewitt shows us the real Paul Weller, the man inside the music.

Whisper Mountain


Vivian Higginbotham Nichols - 2017
    Because it was extremely difficult to verbalize the events to her own children years later, her adult family knew very little of the details until 30 years after her passing in 1967. That is when her granddaughter discovered her writings and promised to tell the story of what she endured.

Def Jam, Inc.: Russell Simmons, Rick Rubin, and the Extraordinary Story of the World's Most Influential Hip-Hop Label


Stacy Gueraseva - 2005
    Few could or would have predicted that the improvised raps and raw beats busting out of New York City's urban underclass would one day become a multimillion-dollar business and one of music's most lucrative genres. Among those few were two visionaries: Russell Simmons, a young black man from Hollis, Queens, and Rick Rubin, a Jewish kid from Long Island. Though the two came from different backgrounds, their all-consuming passion for hip-hop brought them together. Soon they would revolutionize the music industry with their groundbreaking label, Def Jam Records. Def Jam, Inc. traces the company's incredible rise from the NYU dorm room of nineteen-year-old Rubin (where LL Cool J was discovered on a demo tape) to the powerhouse it is today; from financial struggles and scandals-including The Beastie Boys's departure from the label and Rubin's and Simmons's eventual parting-to revealing anecdotes about artists like Slick Rick, Public Enemy, Foxy Brown, Jay-Z, and DMX. Stacy Gueraseva, former editor in chief of Russell Simmons's magazine, Oneworld, had access to the biggest players on the scene, and brings you real conversations and a behind-the-scenes look from a decade-and a company-that turned the music world upside down. She takes you back to New York in the '80s, when late-night spots such as Danceteria and Nell's were burning with young, fresh rappers, and Simmons and Rubin had nothing but a hunch that they were on to something huge. Far more than just a biography of the two men who made it happen, Def Jam, Inc. is a journey into the world of rap itself. Both an intriguing business history as well as a gritty narrative, here is the definitive book on Def Jam-a must read for any fan of hip-hop as well as all popular-culture junkies.

The Bee Gees: The Biography


David N. Meyer - 2012
    The Bee Gees is the epic family saga of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb, and it's riddled with astonishing highs—especially as they became the definitive band of the disco era, fueled by Saturday Night Fever and crashing lows, including the tragic drug-fueled downfall of youngest brother, Andy. In recent years, a whole new generation of fans has rediscovered the undeniable grooves and harmonies that made the Bee Gees and songs like Stayin' Alive, How Deep is Your Love, To Love Somebody, and I Started a Joke timeless.

Falling Cars and Junkyard Dogs


Jay Farrar - 2013
    Recollections of Farrar's father are prominent throughout the stories. Ultimately, it is music and musicians that are given the most space and the final word since music has been the creative impetus and driving force for the past 35 years of his life.In writing these stories, he found a natural inclination to focus on very specific experiences; a method analogous to the songwriting process. The highlights and pivotal experiences from that musical journey are all represented as the binding thread in these stories, illustrated throughout with photography from his life. If life is a movie, then these stories are the still frames.

Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior


Mark Rathbun - 2013
    This autobiographical history of Scientology is told by one of L. Ron Hubbard’s staunchest defenders.

Three Sisters: A True Holocaust Story of Love, Luck, and Survival


Celia Clement - 2020
    

Lady Gaga: Just Dance: The Biography


Helia Phoenix - 2010
    But she was a born performer, destined to be on the stage. Unlike fake starlets who become famous overnight, Gaga earned her success the hard way, working night after night at sleazy bars and clubs, performing at every club in New York, getting booed offstage, and in the process, finding herself—as a singer, a dancer, a performer, and an artist. She has shocked the public with her crazy outfits, individual sense of style, and headstrong manner. She has sold millions of records, performed to millions of people, and through it all, she has won hearts with her brashness and honesty.

A Fast Ride Out of Here: Confessions of Rock's Most Dangerous Man


Pete Way - 2017
    A Fast Ride Out of Here tells a story that is so shocking, so outrageous, so packed with excess and leading to such uproar and tragic consequences as to be almost beyond compare. Put simply, in terms of jaw-dropping incident, self-destruction and all-round craziness, Pete Way's rock'n'roll life makes even Keith Richards's appear routine and Ozzy Osbourne seem positively mild-mannered in comparison. Not for nothing did Nikki Sixx, bassist with LA shock-rockers Motley Crue and who 'died' for eight minutes following a heroin overdose in 1988, consider that he was a disciple of and apprenticed to Way.During a forty-year career as founding member and bassist of the venerated British hard rock band UFO, and which has also included a stint in his hell-raising buddy Ozzy's band, Pete Way has both scaled giddy heights and plunged to unfathomable lows. A heroin addict for more than ten years, he blew millions on drugs and booze and left behind him a trail of chaos and carnage. The human cost of this runs to six marriages, four divorces, a pair of estranged daughters and two dead ex-wives. Latterly, Way has fought cancer, but has survived it all and is now ready to tell his extraordinary tale. By turns hilarious, heart-rending, mordant, scabrous, self-lacerating, brutally honest and entirely compulsive, A Fast Ride Out of Here will be a monument to rock'n'roll debauchery on an epic, unparalleled scale and also to one man's sheer indestructability.