Book picks similar to
Festival of Popular Songs by Reader's Digest Association
music
m-music
music-books
non-fiction
One Direction: The Ultimate Fan Book
Sarah-Louise James - 2012
Each of the 1D teen idols gets his own picture spread and biography, followed by an exciting series of photo essays that tell the One Direction story from its unlikely beginning to its fabulous glory days. Separate spreads recount the early years . . . the birth of the band . . . the band's amazing American tour . . . their fans . . . their music . . . their awards . . . and their exciting plans for the future. Sparkling color photos, complemented with Sarah-Louise James's lively narrative sketches, fill every page of the book that every ID fan will want to own, enjoy, and share with friends. One Direction: The Ultimate Fan Book is certain to become a collector's item among fans of the most sensational boy band to capture the hearts of today's teens. Dramatic color photos on every page!
Harry: The Unauthorized Biography
Danny White - 2021
From his childhood and his journey to fame on the X-Factor to releasing solo music and becoming fashion royalty, this book gets you closer to Harry than ever before. From the start of his career we follow the roller coaster of emotions as One Direction broke up, and we learn how Harry reinvented himself. Free from the shackles of being in a boyband he was able to be the rock star he had always dreamed of being and conquer the US by himself.Not content with being one of the world's biggest popstars, Harry has also cultivated a career as a film and television star, featuring in box-office hits like Dunkirk as well as presenting Saturday Night Live. He's also making a name for himself as fashion royalty – presenting the fashion event of the year, the Met Gala, with Serena Williams and Lady Gaga and regularly modelling for iconic brand Gucci. He has even partnered with the meditation app Calm to record a story designed to help listeners drift off. This is a book that gets you to the heart of a very modern pop star – a must read for all of Harry's fans.
The King and Dr. Nick: What Really Happened to Elvis and Me
George Nichopoulos - 2009
Nick."Dr. Nichopoulos spent a decade with Elvis on the road and at Graceland, trying to maintain the precarious health of one of the world’s greatest entertainers. But on August 16, 1977, he found himself in the ambulance with Elvis on that fateful last trip to the ER. He signed the death certificate.From that day forward, Dr. Nick became the focus of a media witch hunt that threatened his life and all but destroyed his professional reputation. Now, for the first time, Dr. Nick reveals the true story behind Elvis’s drug use and final days—not the version formed by years of tabloid journalism and gross speculation. Put aside what you’ve learned about Elvis’s final days and get ready to understand for the first time the inner workings of “the king of rock n’ roll.”
Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed
Aidan Levy - 2015
On a personal level, too, he seemed to take pleasure in insulting everyone who crossed his path. How did this Jewish boy from Long Island, an adolescent doo-wop singer, rise to the status of Godfather of Punk? And how did he maintain that status for decades?Dirty Blvd.—the first new biography of Reed since his death in 2013—digs deep to answer those questions. And along the way it shows us the tender side of his prickly personality.Born in Brooklyn, Reed was the son of an accountant and a former beauty queen, but he took the road less traveled, trading literary promise for an entry-level job as a budget-label songwriter and founding the Velvet Underground under the aegis of Andy Warhol. The cult of personality surrounding his transformation from downtown agent provocateur to Phantom of Rock and finally to patron saint of the avant-garde was legendary, but there was more to his artistic evolution than his abrasive public persona. The lives of many American rock stars have had no second act, but Reed’s did.Dirty Blvd. not only covers the highlights of Reed’s career but also explores lesser-known facets of his work, such as his first recordings with doo-wop group the Jades, his key literary influences and the impact of Judaism upon his work, and his engagement with the LGBT movement. Drawing from new interviews with many of his artistic collaborators, friends, and romantic partners, as well as from archival material, concert footage, and unreleased bootlegs of live performances, author Aidan Levy paints an intimate portrait of the notoriously uncompromising rock poet who wrote “Heroin,” “Sweet Jane,” “Walk on the Wild Side,” and “Street Hassle”—songs that transcended their genre and established Lou Reed as one of the most influential and enigmatic American artists of the past half-century.
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.
Live at the Fillmore East and West: Getting Backstage and Personal with Rock's Greatest Legends
John Glatt - 2014
Author John Glatt tells the story of the Fillmores through the lives of Bill Graham, Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Carlos Santana, and an all-star supporting cast. Joplin opened the Fillmore East and delivered some of her greatest performances there and at its San Francisco twin. Carlos Santana grew up as a performer at the Fillmore West after being discovered by Graham on audition night. Always unpredicatable, Grace Slick’s electrifying Jefferson Airplane was the de facto resident band at both Fillmores. Chronicling the East and West Coast cultures of the late ’60s and early '70s—New York City with its speed, heroin, and the Velvet Underground versus San Francisco with the LSD-drenched Summer of Love—Glatt reveals how Graham the made it all possible . . . that is, until August 1969 when Woodstock changed everything and musicians suddenly realized their power. But why did Bill Graham shutter both Fillmores within weeks of each other in 1971, during the height of their popularity? Live at the Fillmore East and West reveals how Graham’s claim that “The flowers wilted and the scene changed,” was not quite the whole story.
How Black Was Our Sabbath: An Unauthorized View from the Crew
David Tangye - 2004
As the group grew in fame and notoriety, incidents of bad behavior mounted alarmingly. Whether it's Geezer's lyrical journeys into the underworld or the gun-obsessed Ozzy Osbourne at home in Atrocity Cottage, this is Sabbath as you've never known them before. A real-life Spinal Tap, this is a warm, funny tribute to four mates from Birmingham who became the biggest heavy rock band in the world.
Lunch With The Wild Frontiers: A History of Britpop and Excess in 13½ Chapters
Phill Savidge - 2019
Savidge was co-founder and head of legendary public relations company Savage and Best, the company that represented most of the artists associated with the scene, including Suede, Pulp, The Verve, Elastica, Kula Shaker, Spiritualized, Menswear, The Auteurs, and Black Box Recorder. Savidge published her first book, Lunch With The Wild Frontiers as Phill Savidge but had transitioned just prior to its publication and she is now known as Jane Savidge. In Lunch .. she suggests that Britpop came about by accident because she refused to represent any American bands. She subsequently ended up with an extremely accessible, media-friendly roster that lived around the corner and included the most exciting press-worthy acts of the era.Savidge's unique experience at the epicentre of Britpop led to many intimate, not entirely self-congratulatory encounters with a who's who of popular culture including Brett Anderson, Damon Albarn, Roy Orbison, David Bowie, Joe Strummer, Lou Reed, Michael Barrymore, Richard Ashcroft, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Mick Jagger, George Lucas, Damien Hirst, and Dave Stewart, among others. But did she really Sellotape a cassette of Suede's 'Animal Nitrate' single to a purple velvet cushion with a note that said 'another great disappointment' and then bike it to the NME? And could she and Jarvis Cocker really have fallen out simply because a journalist thought she was more glamorous than the Pulp front man?If you've ever wondered what it's like to represent Hirst, Cocker, and The Verve in the same decade, and then wake up in bed with Keith Allen in the Ritz in Paris courtesy of Mohammed Al Fayed then you should read this book. Imagine David Sedaris with a hangover and an expense account and you're halfway to appreciating the delinquent delights of Lunch With The Wild Frontiers.Savidge is currently working on her second book.
Pet Shop Boys Versus America
Chris Heath - 1993
In the spring of 1991 they decided to grapple with the beast, taking a theatrical tour that would exaggerate their differences. By turns enraptured by and disdainful of America and its obsession with celebrity they brushed shoulders with the famous (Axl Rose, Liza Minelli and Joni Mitchell) travelled, played and uttered their detached commentary on what was happening. Throughout they were shadowed by the author Chris Heath and photographer Pennie Smith.
Entertain Us: The Rise and Fall of Alternative Rock in the Nineties
Craig Schuftan - 2012
It left the business of rock stardom to rock stars. But by 1992 alternative rock had spawned a revolution in music and style that transformed youth culture and revived a moribund music industry. Five years later, alternative rock was over, leaving behind a handful of dead heroes, a few dozen masterpieces, and a lot more questions than answers. What, if anything, had the alternative revolution meant? And had it been possible - as so many of its heroes had insisted - for it to be both on MtV and under the radar? Had it used the machinery of corporate rock to destroy corporate rock? In ENtERtAIN US! Craig Schuftan takes you on a journey through the nineties - from Sonic Youth's 'Kool thing' to Radiohead's 'Kid A', NEVERMIND to ODELAY, Madchester to Nu-Metal, Lollapalooza to Woodstock '99 - narrated in the voices of the decade's most important artists. this is the story of alternative rock - the people who made it, the people who loved it, the industry that bought and sold it, and the culture that grew up in its wake - in the last decade of the twentieth century.
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.
I Saw the Light: The Story of Hank Williams
Colin Escott - 2015
In his brief life, Hank Williams created one of the defining bodies of American music. Songs such as "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Hey, Good Lookin'," and "Jambalaya" sold millions of records and became the model for virtually all country music that followed. But by the time of his death at age twenty-nine, Williams had drunk and drugged and philandered his way through two messy marriages and out of his headline spot on the Grand Ole Opry. Even though he was country music's top seller, toward the end he was so famously unreliable that he was lucky to get a booking in a beer hall. Colin Escott's enthralling, definitive biograph -- now the basis of the major motion picture I Saw the Light -- vividly details the singer's stunning rise and his spectacular decline, revealing much that was previously unknown or hidden about the life of this country music legend. Originally published as Hank William: The Biography.
Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece
Michael Streissguth - 2004
The concert and the live album, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, propelled him to worldwide superstardom. He reached new audiences, ignited tremendous growth in the country music industry, and connected with fans in a way no other artist has before or since.Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison is a riveting account of that day, what led to it, and what came after. Scrupulously researched, rich with the author's unprecedented access to Folsom Prison's and Columbia Records' archives, illustrated with more than 100 photos, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison shows how Johnny Cash forever became a champion of the downtrodden, as well as one of the more enduring forces in American music.
Free Pizza for Life, or The Early Days of Plan-It-X Records
Chris Clavin - 2012
It's about their adventures in pizza. It's about them discovering the DIY punk community and starting a record label. It's about a lot of other stuff too."