Book picks similar to
Paul Simon's Concert in the Park by Paul Simon
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Her Passionate Promise
Sheryl Lister - 2020
But her well-ordered plans are turned upside down the moment she meets Eric Dawson. The skillful attorney by day and soulful musician by night, fires her up in more ways than one. The closer she gets to him, the more she realizes he's her prince charming …if he can let go of his past. Eric risked his heart, only to see his world shattered by tragedy and betrayal. He's spent years running from relationships, but with Kathi's tender embrace and sultry kisses, Eric finds her hard to resist. He'll have to come to terms with his deepest hurts to win her trust and claim a love that promises forever.
Beatlesongs
William J. Dowlding - 1989
Drawing together information from sources that include interviews, insider accounts, magazines, and news wire services, this is a complete profile of every Beatles song ever written -- from recording details such as who played which instruments and sang what harmonies to how each song fared on the charts and how other musicians and critics felt about it. Chronologically arranged by U.K. release date, Beatlesongs nails down dates, places, participants, and other intriguing facts in a truly remarkable portrait of the Liverpudlian legends. Behind each song is a story -- like Paul's criticism of George's guitar playing during the Rubber Soul sessions, John's acid trip during the Sgt. Pepper's session, and the selection process for the Revolver album cover. And carefully examined along the way are the Beatles' evolving musical talents, their stormy private lives, and their successful -- and unsuccessful -- collaborations. Beatlesongs is truly an inside look at the Fab Four and a treasure for all their fans.
Tomorrow-Land: The 1964-65 World's Fair and the Transformation of America
Joseph Tirella - 2013
Though considered a financial failure, the 1964-65 World' s Fair was a Sixties flashpoint in areas from politics to pop culture, technology to urban planning, and civil rights to violent crime.In an epic narrative, the New York Times bestseller Tomorrow-Land shows the astonishing pivots taken by New York City, America, and the world during the Fair. It fetched Disney's empire from California and Michelangelo's La Pieta from Europe; and displayed flickers of innovation from Ford, GM, and NASA—from undersea and outerspace colonies to personal computers. It housed the controversial work of Warhol (until Governor Rockefeller had it removed); and lured Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Meanwhile, the Fair—and its house band, Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians—sat in the musical shadows of the Beatles and Bob Dylan, who changed rock-and-roll right there in Queens. And as Southern civil rights efforts turned deadly, and violent protests also occurred in and around the Fair, Harlem-based Malcolm X predicted a frightening future of inner-city racial conflict.World's Fairs have always been collisions of eras, cultures, nations, technologies, ideas, and art. But the trippy, turbulent, Technicolor, Disney, corporate, and often misguided 1964-65 Fair was truly exceptional.
Justin Bieber
Edward R. Miller-Jones - 2010
After releasing several massively popular albums and singles, the young singer has cemented his status as today's most talked about personality in pop music. His fans are famous for their devotion and vivid forms of expressing their admiration, creating a frenzy known as ''Bieber Fever''. In order to find out more about this young superstar and his works - read this book.
The Lonely Phone Booth
Peter Ackerman - 2010
Everyone used it from ballerinas and girl scouts, zookeepers and birthday clowns, to cellists and even secret agents! The Phone Booth was so beloved that people would sometimes wait in line to use it. Kept clean and polished, the Phone Booth was proud and happy...until the day a businessman strode by and shouted until a shiny silver object, "I'll be there in ten minutes!" Soon everyone was talking into these shiny silver things, and the Phone Booth stood alone and empty, unused and dejected.
Tony Visconti: The Autobiography: Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy
Tony Visconti - 2007
This is the compelling life story of the man who helped shape music history, and gives a unique, first-hand insight into life in London during the late 1960s and '70s.This memoir takes you on a roller-coaster journey through the glory days of pop music, when men wore sequins and pop could truly rock. Featuring behind-the-scenes stories of big names such as Bowie, Visconti's unique access to the hottest talent, both on stage and off, for over five decades is complemented by unseen photographs from his own personal archive, offering a glimpse at music history that few have witnessed so intimately.Soon after abandoning his native New York to pursue his musical career in the UK, Visconti was soon in the thick of the emerging glam rock movement, launching T.Rex to commercial success and working with the then-unknown David Bowie.Since his fateful move to the land of tea and beer drunk straight from the can, Visconti has worked with such names as T.Rex, Thin Lizzy, Wings, The Boomtown Rats, Marsha Hunt, Procol Harum, and more recently Ziggy Marley, Mercury Rev, the Manic Street Preachers and Morrissey on his acclaimed new album 'Ringleader of the Tormentors'.Even Visconti's personal life betrays an existence utterly immersed in music. Married to first to Siegrid Berman, then to Mary Hopkin and later to May Pang, he counts many of the musicians and producers he has worked with as close friends and is himself a celebrated musician.
Six Steps to Songwriting Success: The Comprehensive Guide to Writing and Marketing Hit Songs
Jason Blume - 1999
Author Jason Blume, a songwriter with the rare distinction of having had songs on the Country, Pop, and R&B charts simultaneously, has packed this book with such key aids as the three-step lyric writing technique used by the pros; lyric, melody, and demo checklists; and tools for self-evaluation–plus many other exercises that work. Blume’s warm, humorous style features motivational anecdotes and entertaining stories of how hit songs came to be written and recorded. Get Six Steps to Songwriting Success, and get on the charts!From the Trade Paperback edition.
Gowanus: Brooklyn's Curious Canal
Joseph Alexiou - 2015
Yet its true origins, man-made character, and importance to the city have been largely forgotten.
One Brain Cell Left: Inside a Classic Rock and Roll Journalist's Storied Vault
Rosy Steve Rosenthal - 2016
He interviewed 82 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ... 174 recording artists who had at least one No. 1 hit. His interviews were heard daily on radio stations around the globe during much of the late ‘70s and ‘80s, until severe bipolar disorder took full control. In One Brain Cell Left, Rosy doesn’t always paint a rosy picture of the Mega-Stars he interviewed. Some were absolute sweethearts; others were absolute assholes. And they’re not always the ones you’d expect. He’s never asked what he talked about with celebrities. People only want to know what the stars were like in person. This book answers the “What were they like?” questions about a cross-section of superstar entertainers, newsmakers and athletes that Rosy interviewed. But it’s equally about the unique and unusual life that he’s led outside the entertainment industry. He REALLY didn’t want to like Paul McCartney. He found George Harrison to be completely down-to-earth. Unfortunately, he can’t say the same about Ringo. He found Madonna to be “Queen Shit with a muffin top.” Mickey Mantle swore at him. Mel Brooks ran after him. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar intentionally treated him like shit. His first words to Lionel Richie were, “So they tell me you’ve become a real asshole since you’ve gotten all this success.” And you’ll laugh at his self-deprecating chapters “Always wear a cup when you play tennis” and “Free drinks, a blind hockey goalie and a goat.” You’ll likewise be drawn in by the poignant “I’m no Belushi, but I’ve become Joe Cocker” and the riveting “A machine gun and explosives.” His stories aren’t always pretty. But they’re always pretty interesting. And he’s got the brain cell to prove it.
Bad Reputation: The Unauthorized Biography of Joan Jett
Dave Thompson - 2011
Bad Reputation is the unexpurgated story of Joan Jett, the single most exciting rocker of the American 1980s, one of the biggest-selling acts of the age, and one of punk rock's most valued elder statespeeps. Through its pages, a welter of exclusive interviews and observations paint what might well be the last great tale of rock hedonism, but one that comes with a twist in its tail. The rockers are women, the groupies are guys. It could have been the plot line for a movie or even a sitcom, but the Runaways, Jett's first band, made it happen, and Jett made it last. The first serious female rocker of the 1980s, Jett became the template for everyone that followed. But unlike so many of her peers and counterparts, she never lost her credibility, never sold out, and never gave up. And she has backed her reputation up with genuine star power, following the chart-topping "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" one of the most played '80s anthems of all time with "Crimson and Clover," "Do You Wanna Touch Me," and "I Hate Myself for Loving You" before the decade ended. And, while the 1990s saw Jett purposefully step away from the spotlight, she remained, and remains, America's number one Queen of Noise.
Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-1992
Tim Lawrence - 2009
With the exception of a few dance recordings, including “Is It All Over My Face?” and “Go Bang! #5,” Russell’s pioneering music was largely forgotten until 2004, when the posthumous release of two albums brought new attention to the artist. This revival of interest gained momentum with the issue of additional albums and the documentary film Wild Combination. Based on interviews with more than seventy of his collaborators, family members, and friends, Hold On to Your Dreams provides vital new information about this singular, eccentric musician and his role in the boundary-breaking downtown music scene.Tim Lawrence traces Russell’s odyssey from his hometown of Oskaloosa, Iowa, to countercultural San Francisco, and eventually to New York, where he lived from 1973 until his death from AIDS-related complications in 1992. Resisting definition while dreaming of commercial success, Russell wrote and performed new wave and disco as well as quirky rock, twisted folk, voice-cello dub, and hip-hop-inflected pop. “He was way ahead of other people in understanding that the walls between concert music and popular music and avant-garde music were illusory,” comments the composer Philip Glass. “He lived in a world in which those walls weren’t there.” Lawrence follows Russell across musical genres and through such vital downtown music spaces as the Kitchen, the Loft, the Gallery, the Paradise Garage, and the Experimental Intermedia Foundation. Along the way, he captures Russell’s openness to sound, his commitment to collaboration, and his uncompromising idealism.
From My Heart: The Autobiography
Linda Nolan - 2018
And I’ve chosen not to spend it constantly stressing about cancer. I’ve chosen to enjoy the little things. I’ve chosen to laugh. And I’ve chosen to look back on my life and thank God for it.'
In March 2017, Linda Nolan was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer and was given the terrible news that, while it was treatable, it was not curable. Her first thought was to worry about her family, who were still grieving the loss of their sister Bernie. Her second was, ‘But I’m alive and I’m going to fight it.’In From My Heart, Linda writes honestly about growing up in her big Irish family and finding fame with her sisters in The Nolans and reveals the shocking family secrets and feuds that threatened to tear them apart. She also describes her original battle with breast cancer and how the death of her husband left her deeply depressed, to the point of feeling suicidal. Just as she’d learned to embrace life again, and even to start dating, the cancer came back . . . In this warm, brave and funny memoir, Linda shows that it’s never too late to learn what really matters.
It Ain't No Sin To Be Glad You're Alive: The Promise of Bruce Springsteen
Eric Alterman - 1999
Eric Alterman investigates the man, his music and his audience.
The Endless Journey: 50 Years of Pink Floyd
Mick Wall - 2014
Earlier this year he published the Kindle-only No.1 bestseller, Paranoid, a dark, twisted and frequently hilarious memoir of his time working at the heavy end of the music business in the 1970s and 80s.Now comes his sensational Kindle-only biography of Pink Floyd, The Endless Journey: 50 Years Of Pink Floyd. Timed to coincide with The Endless River, the first all-new Pink Floyd album for 20 years, this is the book Wall describes as “The one I’ve been waiting all my life to write.”As the book explains, ‘Spread across four sides of music The Endless River is very much a Pink Floyd album in the historic, legendary sense. One meant to be listened to as one, long continuous, flowing piece.’As David Gilmour comments on the official Pink Floyd website, “I think the way the three of us, me, Nick and Rick have something when we play together, that has a magic that is louder than words.”This book is a tribute to that magic. The story of Pink Floyd, then and now, ebbing and flowing, like the tides of the moon, across time and space, to bring you to now.