Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink


Elvis Costello - 2015
    Costello went into the family business and had taken the popular music world by storm before he was twenty-four.Costello continues to add to one of the most intriguing and extensive songbooks of the day. His performances have taken him from a cardboard guitar in his front room to fronting a rock and roll band on your television screen and performing in the world's greatest concert halls in a wild variety of company. Unfaithful Music describes how Costello's career has somehow endured for almost four decades through a combination of dumb luck and animal cunning, even managing the occasional absurd episode of pop stardom.This memoir, written with the same inimitable touch as his lyrics, and including dozens of images from his personal archive, offers his unique view of his unlikely and sometimes comical rise to international success, with diversions through the previously undocumented emotional foundations of some of his best known songs and the hits of tomorrow. The book contains many stories and observations about his renowned co-writers and co-conspirators, though Costello also pauses along the way for considerations on the less appealing side of infamy.Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink is destined to be a classic, idiosyncratic memoir of a singular man.

Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk


John Doe - 2016
    Authors John Doe and Tom DeSavia have woven together an enthralling story of the legendary west coast scene from 1977-1982 by enlisting the voices of people who were there. The book shares chapter-length tales from the authors along with personal essays from famous (and infamous) players in the scene. Additional authors include: Exene Cervenka (X), Henry Rollins (Black Flag), Mike Watt (The Minutemen), Jane Wiedlin and Charlotte Caffey (The Go-Go’s), Dave Alvin (The Blasters), Jack Grisham (TSOL), Teresa Covarrubias (The Brat), Robert Lopez (The Zeros, El Vez), as well as scencesters and journalists Pleasant Gehman, Kristine McKenna, and Chris Morris. Through interstitial commentary, John Doe “narrates” this journey through the land of film noir sunshine, Hollywood back alleys, and suburban sprawl—the place where he met his artistic counterparts Exene, DJ Bonebrake, and Billy Zoom—and formed X, the band that became synonymous with, and in many ways defined, L.A. punk.Under the Big Black Sun shares stories of friendship and love, ambition and feuds, grandiose dreams and cultural rage, all combined with the tattered, glossy sheen of pop culture weirdness that epitomized the operations of Hollywood’s underbelly. Readers will travel to the clubs that defined the scene, as well as to the street corners, empty lots, apartment complexes, and squats that served as de facto salons for the musicians, artists, and fringe players that hashed out what would become punk rock in Los Angeles.

AC/DC: Two Sides to Every Glory: The Complete Biography


Paul Stenning - 2005
    Starting with their roots in the Australian pub circuit, this book takes a thorough look at where the band came from, where they've been, and where they're going. Bon Scott and the Young brothers' earlier bands are discussed, as well as the trio's first collaboration, supplemented by rare photographs and interviews with more than 50 of the band's friends and colleagues. Previously unpublished details on Bon Scott's untimely death in 1980 and the strange circumstances around it are revealed, along with information on AC/DC's upcoming album, their first in five years.

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.

Who Were the Beatles?


Geoff Edgers - 2006
    Almost everyone can sing along with the Beatles, but how many young readers know their whole story?  Geoff Edgers, a Boston Globe reporter and hard-core Beatles fan, brings the Fab Four to life in this Who Was...? book.  Readers will learn about their childhoods in Liverpool, their first forays into rock music, what Beatlemania was like, and why they broke up.  It's all here in an easy-to-read narrative with plenty of black-and-white illustrations!

Scary Monsters and Super Freaks: Stories of Sex, Drugs, Rock 'N' Roll and Murder


Mike Sager - 2003
    In addition to his long-classic Rolling Stone story "The Devil and John Holmes" (which helped inspire the upcoming Val Kilmer film, Wonderland) and his groundbreaking GQ piece about murdered Irish investigative reporter Veronica Guerin (also the subject of a major film starring Cate Blanchett), Scary Monsters and Super Freaks is a wonderful rogue's gallery of up-close pieces about the most public failures of the American dream. From Rick James and his drug-fueled detour into white slavery to the life and suicide of porn starlet Savannah, from deep inside the beating of Rodney King and the Heaven's Gate cult suicides to Chuck Berry's sexual predilections, this book brings to high-profile true crime a highly identifiable voice and style. Currently Esquire's Writer-at-Large, Sager takes us along for the ride with a raft of other figures including the late NWA Rapper Easy E. Winner, the FBI agent who fell in love with his informant, and the highest ranking DEA agent to be busted for drug trafficking. This is a brilliant debut collection by one of America's most respected and stylish crime writers.

Here Shall I Die Ashore: Stephen Hopkins - Bermuda Castaway, Jamestown Survivor, and Mayflower Pilgrim


Caleb H. Johnson - 2007
    For most ordinary Englishmen, venturing off into the depths of unexplored America would have been a once in a lifetime adventure: but not for Stephen. By the time he turned forty, he had already survived a hurricane, been shipwrecked in the Bermuda Triangle, been written into a Shakespearean play, witnessed the famine and abandonment of Jamestown Colony, and participated in the marriage of Pocahontas. He was once even sentenced to death! He got himself and his family onto the Pilgrims' Mayflower, and helped found Plymouth Colony. He signed the Mayflower Compact, lodged the famous Squanto in his house, participated in the legendary Thanksgiving, and helped guide and govern the early colonists. Yet Stephen was just an ordinary man, with a wife, three sons, seven daughters, a small house, some farmland for his corn, and cows named Motley, Sympkins, Curled, and Red. These are the extraordinary adventures of an ordinary man.

Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo & Eddie, and Frank Zappa, Etc.


Howard Kaylan - 2013
    If Howard Kaylan had sung only one song, the Turtles' 1967 No. 1 smash hit "Happy Together," his place in rock-and-roll history would still be secure. But that recording, named in 1999 by BMI as one of the top 50 songs of the 20th century, with over five million radio plays, is only the tip of a rather eye-opening iceberg. For nearly five decades, Howard Kaylan has been a player in the rock-and-roll revolution. In addition to his years with the Turtles, Kaylan was a core member of Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention and the dynamic duo Flo and Eddie, and part of glam rock history with Marc Bolan and T. Rex. He's also given street cred and harmonies to everyone from John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen and Alice Cooper to the Ramones and Duran Duran, to name just a few. Howard Kaylan's life has been a dangerous ride that he is only too happy to report on, naming names and shedding shocking tales of sex, drugs, and creative excess. Shell Shocked will stand alone as not only one of the best-told music-biz memoirs, but one with a truly candid and unmatchable story of rock-and-roll insanity and success from a man who glories in it all.

Quiet Genius: Bob Paisley, British Football's Greatest Manager


Ian Herbert - 2017
    The man whose Liverpool team won trophies at a rate-per-season that dwarfs Sir Alex Ferguson's achievements at Manchester United and who remains the only Briton to lead a team to three European Cups.From Wembley to Rome, Manchester to Madrid, Paisley's team was the one no one could touch. Working in a city which was on its knees, in deep post-industrial decline, still tainted by the 1981 Toxteth riots and in a state of open warfare with Margaret Thatcher, he delivered a golden era - never re-attained since - which made the city of Liverpool synonymous with success and won them supporters the world over. Yet, thirty years since Paisley died, the life and times of this shrewd, intelligent, visionary, modest football man have still never been fully explored and explained.Based on in-depth interviews with Paisley's family and many of the players whom he led to an extraordinary haul of honours between 1974 and 1983, Quiet Genius is the first biography to examine in depth the secrets of Paisley's success. It inspects his man-management strategies, his extraordinary eye for a good player, his uncanny ability to diagnose injuries in his own players and the opposition, and the wicked sense of humour which endeared him to so many. It explores the North-East mining community roots which he cherished, and considers his visionary outlook on the way the game would develop.Quiet Genius is the story of how one modest man accomplished more than any other football manager, found his attributes largely unrecorded and undervalued and, in keeping with the gentler ways of his generation, did not seem to mind. It reveals an individual who seemed out of keeping with the brash, celebrity sport football was becoming, and who succeeded on his own terms. Three decades on from his death, it is a football story that demands to be told.

Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan


Howard Sounes - 2001
    It was praised by The Orlando Sentinel "for the insights it offers to Dylan at work ... from young upstart to grand old man of rock 'n' roll." Sounes's prodigious research has resulted in new insights on every aspect of Dylan's life. His is the only biography to seriously address the past twenty years of Dylan's life, leading up to the extraordinary recent releases Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft. He has obtained exclusive information to provide the clearest picture yet of Dylan's 1966 motorcycle accident and subsequent "lost years" in Woodstock, New York, and he uncovered the star's unknown second marriage. He gives inside accounts of the tours, the creation of every album and the most celebrated songs, Dylan's labyrinthine love life, his life-threatening heart illness in 1997, and more -- directly from interviews with girlfriends, family, friends, producers, concert promoters, and fellow musicians. Candid, refreshing, and written with a sincere appreciation of Dylan's music and influence, Down the Highway is an essential book for the millions of people who have enjoyed Dylan's music over the years. "Dylan comes alive.... Sounes has added a wealth of new information to Dylan studies." -- Perry Meisel, The New York Times Book Review "Fascinating and finely written." -- Ronald Radosh, The New Republic "Convincing ... [generates] sympathy for an isolated artist." -- Daniel Cooper, The Washington Post Book World "Sounes ... opens new angles on the enigmatic polyhedron that is Dylan.... Monumental." -- Gene Santoro, The Nation " "A portrait of Mr. Dylan that is often unflattering, sometimes puzzling, but, to the author's credit, never sensational." -- Al Brumley, The Dallas Morning News "Engrossing ... fast-moving yet rich in detail ... [Down the Highway] chronicles a remarkable and contradictory artist." -- Carlo Wolff, The Kansas City Star "[This] fast-paced book has a fine interest in details [and is] rich with the observations of new witnesses." -- Sheri Linden, Variety "Irresistible ... What Dylanphile wouldn't want to sift through what Sounes has dug up." -- Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press

Van Halen Rising: How a Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal


Greg Renoff - 2015
    The quartet’s classic 1978 debut, Van Halen, sold more than a million copies within months of release and rocketed the band to the stratosphere of rock success. On tour, Van Halen’s high-energy show wowed audiences and prompted headlining acts like Black Sabbath to concede that they’d been blown off the stage. By the year’s end, Van Halen had established themselves as superstars and reinvigorated heavy metal in the process.Based on more than 230 original interviews — including with former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and power players like Pete Angelus, Marshall Berle, Donn Landee, Ted Templeman, and Neil Zlozower — Van Halen Rising reveals the untold story of how these rock legends made the unlikely journey from Pasadena, California, to the worldwide stage.

Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd


Mark Blake - 2007
    From the moment the metronomic pulse of a heartbeat thudded out to begin "Speak to Me" to the soaring guitar solo that climaxed "Comfortably Numb," these self-effacing men in their late fifties stole the show. Almost a year later, the death of their troubled founder-member Syd Barrett made headline news worldwide. Both events signaled a kind of closure to the remarkable tale of one of the world's biggest bands. Now, in the first full-length history of the group for more than fifteen years, Mark Blake tells the story of how a group of middle-class Englishmen conquered the world. Drawing on his own interviews with all of the band members, interviews with the group's friends, road crew, producers, former housemates and university colleagues, as well as musical contemporaries including Pete Townshend and Alice Cooper, Comfortably Numb follows Pink Floyd all the way from the early psychedelic nights at UFO in the mid-sixties to the stadium-rock and concept-album zenith of the seventies, and finally the acrimonious schism that sundered the band in the '80s and '90s.

Clapton: The Autobiography


Eric Clapton - 2007
    Bad choices were my specialty, and if something honest and decent came along, I would shun it or run the other way.”With striking intimacy and candor, Eric Clapton tells the story of his eventful and inspiring life in this poignant and honest autobiography. More than a rock star, he is an icon, a living embodiment of the history of rock music. Well known for his reserve in a profession marked by self-promotion, flamboyance, and spin, he now chronicles, for the first time, his remarkable personal and professional journeys. Born illegitimate in 1945 and raised by his grandparents, Eric never knew his father and, until the age of nine, believed his actual mother to be his sister. In his early teens his solace was the guitar, and his incredible talent would make him a cult hero in the clubs of Britain and inspire devoted fans to scrawl “Clapton is God” on the walls of London’s Underground. With the formation of Cream, the world's first supergroup, he became a worldwide superstar, but conflicting personalities tore the band apart within two years. His stints in Blind Faith, in Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, and in Derek and the Dominos were also short-lived but yielded some of the most enduring songs in history, including the classic “Layla.” During the late sixties he played as a guest with Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan, as well as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and longtime friend George Harrison. It was while working with the latter that he fell for George’s wife, Pattie Boyd, a seemingly unrequited love that led him to the depths of despair, self-imposed seclusion, and drug addiction. By the early seventies he had overcome his addiction and released the bestselling album 461 Ocean Boulevard, with its massive hit “I Shot the Sheriff.” He followed that with the platinum album Slowhand, which included “Wonderful Tonight,” the touching love song to Pattie, whom he finally married at the end of 1979. A short time later, however, Eric had replaced heroin with alcohol as his preferred vice, following a pattern of behavior that not only was detrimental to his music but contributed to the eventual breakup of his marriage. In the eighties he would battle and begin his recovery from alcoholism and become a father. But just as his life was coming together, he was struck by a terrible blow: His beloved four-year-old son, Conor, died in a freak accident. At an earlier time Eric might have coped with this tragedy by fleeing into a world of addiction. But now a much stronger man, he took refuge in music, responding with the achingly beautiful “Tears in Heaven.”Clapton is the powerfully written story of a survivor, a man who has achieved the pinnacle of success despite extraordinary demons. It is one of the most compelling memoirs of our time.

Who Killed John Lennon?: The lives, loves and deaths of the greatest rock star


Lesley-Ann Jones - 2020