The Rolling Stones Discover America


Michael Lydon - 2013
    His long, intimate piece on the tour, The Rolling Stones Discover America, captures the highs and lows of the grueling tour and has become a classic of rock ‘n’ roll journalism—one that the Maysles brothers studied to guide the editing of their film, Gimme Shelter.

Cornell '77: The Music, the Myth, and the Magnificence of the Grateful Dead's Concert at Barton Hall


Peter Conners - 2017
    The band had just released Terrapin Station and had not toured for twenty months. In 1977, the Grateful Dead reached a musical peak, and their East Coast spring tour featured an exceptional string of performances, including the one at Cornell.Many Deadheads claim that the quality of the live recording of the show made by Betty Cantor-Jackson (a member of the crew) elevated its importance. Once those recordings ― referred to as "Betty Boards" ― began to circulate among Deadheads, the reputation of the Cornell '77 show grew exponentially. That aura grew with time and, in the community of Deadheads and audiophiles, the show at Barton Hall acquired legendary status.Rooted in dozens of interviews ― including a conversation with Betty Cantor-Jackson about her recording ― and accompanied by a dazzling selection of never-before-seen concert photographs, Cornell ’77 is about far more than just a single Grateful Dead concert. It is a social and cultural history of one of America’s most enduring and iconic musical acts, their devoted fans, and a group of Cornell students whose passion for music drove them to bring the Dead to Barton Hall. Peter Conners has intimate knowledge of the fan culture surrounding the Dead, and his expertise brings the show to life. He leads readers through a song-by-song analysis of the performance, from “New Minglewood Blues” to “One More Saturday Night,” and conveys why, forty years later, Cornell ’77 is still considered a touchstone in the history of the band.

Dave Matthews Band: Step Into the Light


Morgan Delancey - 1998
    This revised edition includes 75 exclusive photos and two new chapters that chart the band’s activities from 1998 to 2001, right up to the release of Everyday and the mysterious discovery of the Lillywhite sessions. Included is fascinating commentary on Before These Crowded Streets, Live at Luther College, and Listener Supported. The personal lives of each band member are expanded upon, and new coverage of DMB tours, the creation of Dave’s own record label, and the worldwide growth of DMB fans is provided.

Freak Out the Squares: Life in a Band Called Pulp


Russell Senior - 2015
    Freak Out the Squares is Russell's exceptionally witty, unusual and enlightening account of the heady times being a key member of Britpop's best-loved and most enduringly relevant band. The first account of life in Pulp, it takes as its starting point the band's reunion tour in 2011, which culminated in a triumphant Glastonbury performance. It's packed with good stories about Britpop luminaries, including Jarvis of course, and digs back into Pulp's origins in Sheffield and to their glory days at the height of Britpop. Russell Senior is a man too smart to have ever been a pop star. And Pulp were too odd a band ever to have become so big. But we can only be grateful that he was, and they did – and that Freak Out the Squares tells the story in Russell's inimitable, entertaining and fascinating way.

Are You Morbid?


Thomas Gabriel Fischer - 2000
    This book is Celtic Frost's official history written by the front-man, Thomas Gabriel Fischer, who describes his story as full of facts and anecdotes, some unflattering, many trashy, some embarassing, many senselessly funny but all putting right the band's reported notoriety.

Justin Bieber: Uncovered!: Unauthorized


Tori Kosara - 2010
    An Internet phenomenon, the R&B cutie has nearly two million followers on Twitter and three million on Facebook, and his music videos have gained more than 130 million hits on YouTube. Signed by music legend Usher, his second album shot straight to the top of the charts, and he found himself singing at the White House Christmas celebration and appearing on Saturday Night Live. This brilliant book gives fans the low-down on the whirlwind rise of the world’s hottest teen star. Crammed with cool quotes, top trivia, fun quizzes, gorgeous photos, and fantastic facts, fans can find out everything about their favorite star.

Star Man: The Right Hand Man of Rock 'n' Roll


Michael Francis - 2003
    Paul hired Michael as his security guard, beginning a thirty-year music business career in which he worked with such legendary names as Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, The Osmonds, Sheena Easton, Frank Sinatra, Bon Jovi, Cher, and Kiss. As tour manager, Michael was responsible for every aspect of their safety and their comfort, from making sure they were not mobbed on stage to making sure they got paid. To some of them he became close. He was best man at Jon Bon Jovi's wedding, and provided personal security for Cher at her Malibu home. He shared their wildest excesses, their highs and their lows; he saw their fears, and all too often, their loneliness and paranoia. Sometimes hilarious, frequently shocking, always perceptive, Star Man is the outrageous, uncompromising, and brutally honest story of one man's life with the biggest stars of rock.

Ian Dury: The Definitive Biography


Will Birch - 2010
    With his band The Blockheads, he exploded onto the television screen in 1978, appearing on "Top of the Pops" with his hit single 'What a Waste', followed later that year by 'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick'. By now Ian was thirty-six and had worked hard for many years to reach this moment, struggling all the while to find acceptance inspite of the disability he suffered as a result of childhood polio. And yet fame, when it came, almost destroyed him. This groundbreaking and authoritative book gives the first in-depth and compelling account of the life of this charismatic yet complex artist. Author Will Birch interviewed Dury several times during his lifetime, and has also spoken to more than sixty people who were extremely close to Ian, including family members, fellow musicians, friends, lovers and business associates.

Marley Legend: An Illustrated Life of Bob Marley


James Henke - 2006
    In the same interactive format as the best-selling Lennon Legend, this innovative book features rare photographs and 20 removable facsimiles, including Marley's handwritten lyrics and concert memorabilia, even a private sketchbook. The package also includes a 50-minute spoken word CD featuring archival Marley interviews. Rock journalist James Henke relates the dramatic story of Marley's life, from his impoverished childhood in Jamaica's Trenchtown to his spiritual awakening through Rastafarianism, his multinational musical success, and his death from cancer at age 36. In addition to interviews with Marley's family and associates conducted especially for this book, Henke includes thoughts on favorite Marley songs from such diverse artists as U2's Bono, Sean Paul, Ben Harper, and Chrissie Hynde. Marley's message was one of love, peace, and equalityand in words and pictures, Marley Legend shows why Bob Marley is, as Entertainment Weekly recently called him, "still the world's biggest rock star."

Brian Eno's Another Green World (33 1/3 Book 67)


Geeta Dayal - 2009
    It was the first Brian Eno album tobe composed almost completely in the confines of a recording studio,over a scant few months in the summer of 1975. The album was a proofof concept for Eno's budding ideas of "the studio as musicalinstrument," and a signpost for a bold new way of thinking aboutmusic.In this book, Geeta Dayal unravels Another Green World's abundantmysteries, venturing into its dense thickets of sound. How was analbum this cohesive and refined formed in such a seemingly ad hoc way?How were electronics and layers of synthetic treatments used to createan album so redolent of the natural world? How did a deck of cardsfigure into all of this? Here, through interviews and archivalresearch, she unearths the strange story of how Another Green Worldformed the link to Eno's future -- foreshadowing his metamorphosisfrom unlikely glam rocker to sonic painter and producer.

Superstars! One Direction: Inside Their World


Superstars! - 2012
    From rejection -as solo acts on Britain's "XFactor" TV show-to their stunning debut at number 1 on the Billboard charts, the boys' amazing story is the stuff of fairy tales. Read about their private lives and public successes, their little quirks and big dreams, and all of their fun, fabulous times along the way. Discover the boys behind the band.

Festival Man


Geoff Berner - 2013
    Follow the flailing escapades of maverick music manager Campbell Ouiniette at the Calgary Folk Festival, as he leaves a trail of empty liquor bottles, cigarette butts, bruised egos, and obliterated relationships behind him. His top headlining act has abandoned him for the Big Time. In a fit of self-delusion or pure genius (or perhaps a bit of both), Ouiniette devises an intricate scam, a last hurrah in an attempt to redeem himself in the eyes of his girlfriend, the music industry, and the rest of the world. He reveals his path of destruction in his own transparently self-justifying, explosive, profane words, with digressions into the Edmonton hardcore punk rock scene, the Yugoslavian Civil War, and other epicentres of chaos.

Rivers' Edge: The Weezer Story


John D. Luerssen - 2004
    Welcome to Weezer’s weird world, steered by brainchild Rivers Cuomo — perhaps the world’s most unlikely rock star. Exhaustively researched, Rivers’ Edge documents the rise of the band from Cuomo’s beginnings as a failure on Hollywood’s hair metal scene to his reinvention of himself as the undeniable ruler of Weezer. Luerssen uncovers what really happened during Weezer’s strange hiatus and subsequent re-emergence in 2000, which was one of the most successful comebacks in music history. Through key interviews with friends, associates, members of Weezer, and bandmates in their solo projects, Rivers’ Edge is a must-own for any Weezer fan.

M. S. Subbulakshmi: The Definitive Biography


T.J.S. George - 2016
    S. Subbulakshmi (1916-2004), who was popularly known as MS, was one of India’s greatest classical musicians. Born into a humble devadasi home, her talent and dedication to her art made her one of India’s most critically acclaimed classical singers. She was the first Indian musician to receive the Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian honour, in addition to numerous other awards. Jawaharlal Nehru called her ‘a Queen of Music’ and Sarojini Naidu dubbed her ‘the Nightingale of India’. Her fellow musicians were no less generous in their praise. Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan said she was Suswaralakshmi (the Goddess of the Perfect Note) while Kishori Amonkar said she was Aathuvansur or music’s ‘Eighth Note’ (there are only seven notes that are basic to all musical forms). MS’s genius had principally to do with her exquisite voice, her extraordinary range and her unequalled command of all the material she worked with, whether it was Carnatic music, Hindustani music or devotional music such as bhajans.In this, the definitive biography of the musician (previously published as MS: A Life in Music), award-winning biographer T. J. S. George traces her journey from her beginnings as a singer in Madurai, through her breakthrough performance at the prestigious Madras Music Academy in 1932, to her carving out a place for herself as a cultural icon. Besides exploring MS’s genius, the author describes the musical and social milieu that she was part of, and the various barriers she was instrumental in breaking in the course of her journey to superstardom. He covers her stint as an actress and looks at how her career was helped by various mentors and sponsors, including C. Rajagopalachari, India’s last governor general. He pays particular attention to the role of her husband, T. Sadavisam, in the creation and burnishing of MS’s reputation. He examines the various controversies that surrounded her origins, and also underlines her essential humility and generosity. Told with a music connoisseur’s passion and understanding, M. S. Subbulakshmi: The Definitive Biography is an enthralling portrait of a musical legend.

Frédéric Chopin: A Life from Beginning to End


Hourly History - 2020
    You can find his work being played with cherished delight by any budding pianist, and his music serves as a constant backdrop and mainstay for piano concertos worldwide. But what do we really know about Frédéric Chopin?A child prodigy, Frédéric Chopin was a transplant from Poland who took the artistic world of Paris by storm. He was never completely at ease in his surroundings, but he took the pain of an eternal outsider and used it as a transformative force not only in his life but in the lives of countless others to come. In this book, you will find the life and legacy of the composer and piano virtuoso Frédéric Chopin explored in full.