An influence on Rod Stewart, Marriott is adored by Blur, Oasis, and Paul Weller.All Too Beautiful was published in hardcover to universal critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the 2005 US ARSC (Association for Recorded Sound Collections) Awards for excellence in historical recording research.

    Except it wasn’t that simple. Self-confessed latch-key kids, theirs was far from an easy ride.Inspired by both the energy of British punk bands like the Sex Pistols and Buzzcocks and cult American bands such as Dead Kennedys and Husker Du, Green Day formed in 1989. The band gigged relentlessly across the US, quickly selling out every underground club that booked them, and their 1994 major label debut Dookie was a 10-million-selling worldwide hit album that seized the zeitgeist while rock music was still reeling from the death of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. They toured the world, headlined all the big festivals, won countless awards and released multi-million selling albums.In 2004 Green Day reached a career pinnacle with the concept album American Idiot, a sophisticated commentary on modern life—not least dissatisfaction with their president and America’s continued cultural and economic imperialism. The No. 1 success of the Grammy-winning album extended Green Day's fan base even further—from pre-teen kids to previously skeptical critics.This book is the world’s first full biography on Green Day. An authority on punk and hardcore, author Ben Myers charts the band members’ difficult childhoods, the context of the band within the US and world punk scene and their glittering rise to success. Myers has also interviewed the band for various magazines at different stages of their career.

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    Burdon was ripped off by unscrupulous agents, accountants, and record labels, hounded by the police, and framed for a crime he didn't commit. Yet through it all, he never became bitter. He was the first rocker to play behind the Iron Curtain. He sang with Jimi Hendrix, chased Jim Morrison out of his house with a .44, and introduced John Lee Hooker to the toughest venue Hooker ever played. Eric Burdon explains how he became the "Egg Man" in the Beatles' "I am the Walrus." With the enthusiasm and good humor of his live shows, Burdon recalls the tense reunion between John Lennon and Lennon's long-estranged father; racing motorcycles across the California desert with Steve McQueen; picketing the offices of MGM Records for nonpayment of royalties; performing in wartime Sarajevo with a symphony orchestra; getting run out of Meridian, Mississippi for promoting black music, and singing his heart out year after year. A complete discography and fifty photographs, many never before published, are included in this unforgettable memoir. "Burdon has lived like a real rocker." -New York Times Book Review "Riveting and informative."-Los Angeles Times "These reminiscences will delight Burdon's fans . . . in general."-Library Journal

    A child prodigy as a pianist and a virtuoso conductor of symphonics and operas, Barenhoim has known and worked with many of the most distinguished and exciting musicians of the 20th century, including Rubinstein, Furtwangler, Zubin Meta, Pierre Boulez, Fisher-Diskau, Pablo Casals, and not least his wife, Jacqueline du Pre. Recent years have included his work at the annual Wagner festival Bayreuth; in Berlin at the rebirth of the State Opera House; taking over from George Solti's 22-year regin in Chicago; his summer festival in Weimar, Germany, where young Arabs and Israelis can play music together; and his worldwide travels. Barenboim has revised and updated his memoir, giving us trenchant thoughts on Israel today, the problems facing young musicians, and the changing world of music at the beginning of the 21st century.-One of the world's greatest musicians, Barenboim has a dedicated following who will be interested in reading about his life in his own words.-Barenboim was married to celebrated cellist Jacqueline du Pre, the subject of the controversial film Hilary and Jackie.-His championship of peaceful coexistence with Palestinians is highly controversial, as is his insistence on playing Wagner in Israel.

    In 1982, he retired to concentrate on painting, leaving the mythology he'd stoked himself to grow untamed over the years. John French is better qualified than anyone to talk about Beefheart, joining the Magic Band in 1966 at the age of 17 just before recording their Safe As Milk debut album, finding himself plunged into a tyrannical regime which would dominate his life for the next 14 years as he played a major role in eight subsequent albums, including translating the mindblowing avant-blues assault of 1969's Trout Mask Replica into readable music for the Magic Band from the Captain's piano poundings under torturous conditions he likens to a cult. French's remarkable memoir starts with a vivid description of the rarely-documented early 60s Lancaster garage-rock scene...

    But just as this was no ordinary home, theirs was no ordinary family. Lynn Knight tells the remarkable story of the three adoptions within it: of her great-grandfather, a fairground boy given away when his parents left for America in 1865; of her great-aunt, rescued from an Industrial School in 1909; and of her mother, adopted as a baby in 1930 and brought to Chesterfield from London."--Front flyleaf of book jacket.

    A 750-mile walk through Japan. A life that will never be the same.Todd Wassel fled a normal life just after graduation. Over half a decade later he’s lost in Japan, unable go home but unwilling to give up. Convinced there was more to life, he risks everything to return to the one place he found answers years before: the ancient Shikoku Henro pilgrimage. Walking the 750-mile henro path, sleeping outside each night, Todd is armed with only a Japanese map. Between the 88 Buddhist temples he finds help from a wandering ascetic hiding from the Freemasons; naked Yakuza trying to shake him down; a scam artist pilgrim; and a vengeful monk. Can he find what he’s looking for before the path, or his new friends, break him? Walking in Circles is an addictive, fun, inspirational travel memoir set in a Japan few outsiders ever get to see. Award-winning writer Todd Wassel draws on over twenty years in Japan to retell his epic journey through the contradictions of contemporary Japan while overcoming the forces that keep us from living a truly happy life. Buy the book today to join Todd Wassel on his unforgettable Japanese adventure!

    Set in the studio, on the stage, and in great cities and small towns across the country, this book captures life on the road for Marsalis and his musicians, evoking its ritual and renewal, energy and spirituality. Describing the art of improvisation, the book's two voices mirror the interplay at the heart of jazz. "On the road and on the bandstand," Marsalis writes, "something great may happen at any moment, something that might even change your life." Alternately luminous and boisterous, often poignant, and always passionate, Marsalis and Vigeland's extraordinary dialogue is a must for fans, musicians, and anyone curious about America's only indigenous art form.

    . . A WONDERFUL STORY."--The Boston GlobeThe father is a high-ranking Communist officer, a Jew who survived Stalin's purges. The son is a "refusenik," who risked his life and happiness to protest everything his father held dear. Now, Chaim Potok, beloved author of the award-winning novels The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev, unfolds the gripping true story of a father, a son, and a conflict that spans Soviet history. Drawing on taped interviews and his harrowing visits to Russia, Potok traces the public and privates lives of the Slepak family: Their passions and ideologies, their struggles to reconcile their identities as Russians and as Jews, their willingness to fight--and die--for diametrically opposed political beliefs."[A] vivid account . . . [Potok] brings a novelist's passion and eye for detail to a gripping story that possesses many of the elements of fiction--except that it's all too true."--San Francisco Chronicle

    Around 1900, the phenomenon known as Wagnerism saturated European and American culture. Such colossal creations as The Ring of the Nibelung, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal were models of formal daring, mythmaking, erotic freedom, and mystical speculation. A mighty procession of artists, including Virginia Woolf, Thomas Mann, Paul Cézanne, Isadora Duncan, and Luis Buñuel, felt his impact. Anarchists, occultists, feminists, and gay-rights pioneers saw him as a kindred spirit. Then Adolf Hitler incorporated Wagner into the soundtrack of Nazi Germany, and the composer came to be defined by his ferocious antisemitism. For many, his name is now almost synonymous with artistic evil.In Wagnerism, Alex Ross restores the magnificent confusion of what it means to be a Wagnerian. A pandemonium of geniuses, madmen, charlatans, and prophets do battle over Wagner's many-sided legacy. As readers of his brilliant articles for The New Yorker have come to expect, Ross ranges thrillingly across artistic disciplines, from the architecture of Louis Sullivan to the novels of Philip K. Dick, from the Zionist writings of Theodor Herzl to the civil-rights essays of WEB Du Bois, from O Pioneers! to Apocalypse Now.In many ways, Wagnerism tells a tragic tale. An artist who might have rivaled Shakespeare in universal reach is undone by an ideology of hate. Still, his shadow lingers over twenty-first century culture, his mythic motifs coursing through superhero films and fantasy fiction. Neither apologia nor condemnation, Wagnerism is a work of passionate discovery, urging us toward a more honest idea of how art acts in the world.

    Despite being one of the most open and vocal pop superstars on the planet, George Michael is also fiercely protective of his privacy. From the formation of Wham! In 1981 he immediately found fame and fortune beyond his wildest dreams. This all-access biography uncovers the secret life of the pop star, following his skyrocket to fame and fortune through his solo career and up to the present day. His music formed the soundtrack to the 1980s and he achieved all of this despite growing up in a dysfunctional family where his father openly proclaimed that George had no talent. Wham! split in 1986 but Michael went on to greater things as a solo artist. Along the way Michael has been embroiled in several controversies—among them a court case with Sony; an arrest in a Los Angeles public toilet; minor run-ins over class-C drugs; and traffic offenses in London—but in a refreshing contrast from other superstars, he has been happy to address his issues head-on in and out of the media.Rob Jovanovic's biography tackles all the factors and issues that formed George Michael as superstar as he stands today, and his place as a cultural icon. It also, for the first time, analyses Michael's musical output and groundbreaking videos, and discusses for the first time his recent acclaimed worldwide triumphant 2006 tour, the first in 15 years as Michael returned from the music wilderness.

    He invited his friends over to tag all the possessions in his apartment, and he systematically put them up for sale on eBay. An unopened box of taco shells, half a bottle of mouthwash, almost all of his clothes, his favorite records, his sideburns (in a plastic bag), his family's Christmas presents (not yet given), furniture: John didn't let sentiment or utility stand in his way. Soon his belongings were sold all over the world, with a bag of Porky's BBQ Pork Skins making its way to Japan, and a chair ending up in the Museum of Modern Art. With almost all the objects in his life now gone, he started the second phase of his journey: to go visit his one-time possessions in their new surroundings.All My Life for Sale is an extraordinary book that functions as an autobiography, a travel narrative, and a meditation on what the objects we surround ourselves with actually mean to us and what happens when we set them free. Designed by the author himself, it is visually striking, surprisingly moving, and will change the way you look at the things that surround you.

    Having run out of options, former YouTube star Dax Flame must get a job at an ice cream shop in order to make ends meet.

    Together with the band, he achieved an incredible 14 No.1 singles (a record beaten only by the Beatles) sold 44 million records and was adored by fans the world over.Everything he touched turned to gold, or so it seemed. Like many others, he had piled his fortunes into the Irish property boom and when the bubble burst, Shane struggled with mounting debt. Just ten days after Westlife’s final farewell concert, in front of a sold-out crowd of 80,000 fans, Shane was declared bankrupt with debts of €23 million – losing everything.But this wasn’t the end for Shane Filan – a devoted singer and family man, Shane circled back to his roots and a year later he launched his solo career. In My Side of Life Shane shares his story for the first time – his early years growing up as part of a large Irish family in Co. Sligo, the phenomenal success of Westlife and the ups and downs of their time together, the breakup of the band, his financial devastation, and finally going it alone as a solo artist.This is Shane’s side of the story.