Book picks similar to
The Jazz Years: earwitness to an era by Leonard Feather
music
entertainment
history
jazz
Woodstock Revisited
Susan Reynolds - 2009
Since all the books that preceded it have focused on the musicians, promoters, and staff, this book will be the first one that chronicles the audience’s experience in an up close and personal way. This book documents the event itself, but also provides a mesmerizing portrait of America as that tumultuous decade came to a close. It is nostalgic, historical, and a fascinating read that will appeal to all Baby Boomers, their offspring, and anyone who wonders what it was really like—and what became of all those “hippies.”
The Other Times of Caroline Tangent
Ivan D. Wainewright - 2021
But they can’t tell anyone they’re doing so.As their trips to the past continue, they begin to realise how it could change a devastating moment from their own past. But for Caroline, it’s clear they don’t want the same outcome.Until, on one trip, one of them does something unthinkable which will change both their lives forever.For fans of Matt Haig, Claire North and Audrey Niffenegger.
And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records
Larry Alan Harris - 2009
Now it can be told! The true, behind-the-scenes story of Casablanca Records, from an eyewitness to the excess and insanity. Casablanca was not a product of the 1970s, it was the 1970s. From 1974 to 1980, the landscape of American culture was a banquet of hedonism and self-indulgence, and no person or company in that era was more emblematic of the times than Casablanca Records and its magnetic founder, Neil Bogart. From his daring first signing of KISS, through the discovery and superstardom of Donna Summer, the Village People, and funk master George Clinton and his circus of freaks, Parliament Funkadelic, to the descent into the manic world of disco, this book charts Bogart's meteoric success and eventual collapse under the weight of uncontrolled ego and hype. It is a compelling tale of ambition, greed, excess, and some of the era's biggest music acts.
The Modfather: My Life with Paul Weller
David Lines - 2006
Paul Weller became the blueprint for David's life, and he followed his music and his style with the fervour of a truly devoted fan - to the bemusement of his long-suffering family. At once disarmingly candid and hilariously funny, this is the story of what it means to have a hero, its pleasures and pitfalls. Illustrating his memoir with landmark songs from The Jam and The Style Council, David maps out the occasionally bizarre events in the life of an obsessive fan and wannabe writer.From Player's Navy Cut to Gitanes, boating blazers to cashmere sweaters, The Modfather is about acquiring style, finding substance and living life with Paul Weller.
Doomed to Fail
J.J. Anselmi - 2020
Anselmi covers the bands and musicians that have impacted those styles most―Black Sabbath, Candlemass, Melvins, Eyehategod, Godflesh, Neurosis, Saint Vitus, and many others―while diving into the cultural doom that has spawned such music, from the bombing of Birmingham and hurricane devastation of New Orleans to glaring economic inequality, industrial alienation, climate change, and widespread addiction. Along the way, Anselmi interweaves the musical experiences that have led him to proudly identify as one of the doomed.
Forgotten Dreams
Katie Flynn - 2007
Lottie is a child star, dancing and singing at the Gaiety Theatre to an enraptured audience, whilst Louella acts as Max Magic's assistant. But Lottie was in hospital for weeks after a road accident and has lost her memory. Louella tries to help but the white mist remains. Until Lottie meets a boy with golden-brown eyes who calls her "Sassy" and accuses her of running away.It is after this meeting that the dreams start, dreams of another life, almost another world, and Lottie, sharing them with Baz, begins to believe he knows more than he chooses to tell. But then Merle joins the act and Lottie feels Baz and Merle, both older than she, are in league against her. Then the dreams begin to grow clearer and Lottie realises she must find her past, at no matter what cost.
The Gypsy Girl
Val Wood - 1998
But with the help of Jonty - a young misfit who soon became her best friend - she managed to escape, running away with the fairground folk. She became a horserider and acrobat, travelling all around the country. Her friends became the circus people, and her home the caravans and travellers' tents.
Meanwhile, in a great house in Yorkshire, old Mrs Winthrop has never given up hope of finding her daughter Madeleine, who eloped with a handsome gypsy and was never seen again. When her young neighbour sets out to find Madeleine, he discovers the colourful world of the fairs. And there, in the midst of it all, Polly Anna - once the waif from the workhouse, now a fully-fledged gypsy girl.
Previously published as The Romany Girl.
The Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions: Straight Advice on Essays, Résumés, Interviews, and More
Anna Ivey - 2005
In this book-the first of its kind by a former law school admissions officer-she draws on her expertise to cover topics from the application and the essay to the interview and the recommendations, touching on hot-button issues like how much the LSAT, ethnicity, and age really matter. Offering an insider's advice on how to produce the very best application, this guide gives straight answers to questions such as: • What kind of essay should I write to set me apart from the rest of the pack?• Should I explain my low LSAT score, my D in chemistry, my attention deficit disorder, my time in rehab? • Is law school worth the debt I'll face when I graduate? Full of invaluable examples and anecdotes about real admissions decisions, The Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions is certain to become the new bible for would-be law students everywhere.
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.
Forever Young : The Life, Loves, and Enduring Faith of a Hollywood Legend ; The Authorized Biography of Loretta Young
Joan Wester Anderson - 2000
The real life and faith journey of Loretta Young -- her strong devotion to her Catholic faith and her passion for helping others in need.
Sinatra's Century: One Hundred Notes on the Man and His World
David Lehman - 2015
David Lehman uses each of these short pieces to look back on a single facet of the entertainer’s story—from his childhood in Hoboken, to his emergence as “The Voice” in the 1940s, to the wild professional (and romantic) fluctuations that followed. Lehman offers new insights and revisits familiar stories—Sinatra’s dramatic love affairs with some of the most beautiful stars in Hollywood, including Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, and Ava Gardner; his fall from grace in the late 1940s and resurrection during the “Capitol Years” of the 1950s; his bonds with the rest of the Rat Pack; and his long tenure as the Chairman of the Board, viewed as the eminence grise of popular music inspiring generations of artists, from Bobby Darin to Bono to Bob Dylan.Brimming with Lehman’s own lifelong affection for Sinatra, the book includes lists of unforgettable performances; engaging insight on what made Sinatra the model of American machismo—and the epitome of romance; and clear-eyed assessments of the foibles that impacted his life and work. Warm and enlightening, Sinatra’s Century is full-throated appreciation of Sinatra for every fan.
Frank: The Voice
James Kaplan - 2010
Frank Sinatra was the best-known entertainer of the twentieth century—infinitely charismatic, lionized and notorious in equal measure. But despite his mammoth fame, Sinatra the man has remained an enigma. As Bob Spitz did with the Beatles, Tina Brown for Diana, and Peter Guralnick for Elvis, James Kaplan goes behind the legend and hype to bring alive a force that changed popular culture in fundamental ways. Sinatra endowed the songs he sang with the explosive conflict of his own personality. He also made the very act of listening to pop music a more personal experience than it had ever been. In Frank: The Voice, Kaplan reveals how he did it, bringing deeper insight than ever before to the complex psyche and turbulent life behind that incomparable vocal instrument. We relive the years 1915 to 1954 in glistening detail, experiencing as if for the first time Sinatra’s journey from the streets of Hoboken, his fall from the apex of celebrity, and his Oscar-winning return in From Here to Eternity. Here at last is the biographer who makes the reader feel what it was really like to be Frank Sinatra—as man, as musician, as tortured genius.
The Three of Us: Understanding My Mother, Finding My Father, and Growing Up with Tammy and George
Georgette Jones - 2011
And when little Tamala Georgette Jones was born in 1970, she was considered country music's heir apparent. For the first four years of her life, Georgette had two adoring parents who showed her off at every opportunity, and between her parents, grandparents, older sisters, and cheering fans, Georgette's feet seldom hit the ground. But as in every fairy tale, dark forces were just around the corner. Her parents fought, and George drank. George and Tammy divorced when Georgette was four, and it would be years before she understood just what that meant. "The Three of Us "is an honest and heartfelt look into the life of a broken family living in the glare of the public spotlight. Like so many of her generation, Georgette had to make sense of loving two parents who couldn't love each other. With never-before-told stories about George and Tammy, it recounts Tammy's descent into prescription pill addiction, her dependence on her fifth husband, George Richey, and her untimely death at the age of fifty-five. Georgette opens up about her broken relationship with her father and what it took for them to come back together. Lastly, Georgette discusses the ups and downs of her adult life: failed marriages, illness, an arrest, and now, an unexpected but thrilling career as a musician. "The Three of Us "is a story of both extreme privilege and great trials, of larger-than-life people with larger-than-life problems. Rich in country music history, it contains twists and turns, highs and lows, but in the end, it stands as an intensely moving tale of love, loss, heartbreak, and what it means to be a family.
The History of Jazz
Ted Gioia - 1997
From the seed first planted by slave dances held in Congo Square and nurtured by early ensembles led by Buddy Belden and Joe King Oliver, jazz began its long winding odyssey across America and around the world, giving flower to a thousand different forms--swing, bebop, cool jazz, jazz-rock fusion--and a thousand great musicians. Now, in The History of Jazz, Ted Gioia tells the story of this music as it has never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved. Here are the giants of jazz and the great moments of jazz history--Jelly Roll Morton (the world's greatest hot tune writer), Louis Armstrong (whose O-keh recordings of the mid-1920s still stand as the most significant body of work that jazz has produced), Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club, cool jazz greats such as Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, and Lester Young, Charlie Parker's surgical precision of attack, Miles Davis's 1955 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, Ornette Coleman's experiments with atonality, Pat Metheny's visionary extension of jazz-rock fusion, the contemporary sounds of Wynton Marsalis, and the post-modernists of the Knitting Factory. Gioia provides the reader with lively portraits of these and many other great musicians, intertwined with vibrant commentary on the music they created. Gioia also evokes the many worlds of jazz, taking the reader to the swamp lands of the Mississippi Delta, the bawdy houses of New Orleans, the rent parties of Harlem, the speakeasies of Chicago during the Jazz Age, the after hours spots of corrupt Kansas city, the Cotton Club, the Savoy, and the other locales where the history of jazz was made. And as he traces the spread of this protean form, Gioia provides much insight into the social context in which the music was born. He shows for instance how the development of technology helped promote the growth of jazz--how ragtime blossomed hand-in-hand with the spread of parlor and player pianos, and how jazz rode the growing popularity of the record industry in the 1920s. We also discover how bebop grew out of the racial unrest of the 1940s and '50s, when black players, no longer content with being entertainers, wanted to be recognized as practitioners of a serious musical form. Jazz is a chameleon art, delighting us with the ease and rapidity with which it changes colors. Now, in Ted Gioia's The History of Jazz, we have at last a book that captures all these colors on one glorious palate. Knowledgeable, vibrant, and comprehensive, it is among the small group of books that can truly be called classics of jazz literature.
The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits
Joel Whitburn - 1985
Inside, you’ll find all of the biggest-selling, most-played hits for the past six decades. Each alphabetized artist entry includes biographical info, the date their single reached the Top 40, the song’s highest position, and the number of weeks on the charts, as well as the original record label and catalog number. Other sections—such as “Record Holders,” “Top Artists by Decade,” and “#1 Singles 1955-2009”—make The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits the handiest and most indispensable music reference for record collectors, trivia enthusiasts, industry professionals and pop music fans alike. Did you know? • Beyoncé’s 2003 hit “Crazy in Love” spent 24 weeks in the Top 40 and eight of them in the #1 spot. • Billy Idol has had a total of nine Top 40 hits over his career, the last being “Cradle of Love” in 1990. • Of Madonna’s twelve #1 hits, her 1994 single “Take a Bow” held the spot the longest, for seven weeks—one week longer than her 1984 smash “Like a Virgin.” • Marvin Gaye’s song “Sexual Healing” spent 15 weeks at #3 in 1982, while the same song was #1 on the R&B chart for 10 weeks. • Male vocal group Boyz II Men had three of the biggest chart hits of all time during the 1990s. • The Grateful Dead finally enjoyed a Top 10 single in 1987 after 20 years of touring. • Janet Jackson has scored an impressive 39 Top 40 hits—one more than her megastar brother Michael!