Book picks similar to
September in the Rain: The Life of Nelson Riddle by Peter J. Levinson
music
biography
movies
biographies-of-men
Northern Soul
Jimmy Nail - 2004
Jimmy Nail has been a household name since Auf Wiedersehen, Pet hit our screens in the 1980s. since then, his career as an actor and a musician has put on him on the silver screen alongside Madonna and given him a No. 1 hit single. Success on this astonishing scale was beyond the wildest dreams of the working class lad whose harsh childhood and brutal schooling put him on a collision course with Strangeways. But a short spell in prison helped propel Nail onwards and upwards. With the support of his friends and family, it wasn't long before Jimmy's unique talents and single-minded determination brought him attention of a different kind - and changed his life for ever. In A Northern Soul, Jimmy Nail tells his own vivid story in this intriguing, inspiring and sometimes confounding account of how one man rose to fame and fortune by refusing to be anything but himself.
Freak Out the Squares: Life in a Band Called Pulp
Russell Senior - 2015
Freak Out the Squares is Russell's exceptionally witty, unusual and enlightening account of the heady times being a key member of Britpop's best-loved and most enduringly relevant band. The first account of life in Pulp, it takes as its starting point the band's reunion tour in 2011, which culminated in a triumphant Glastonbury performance. It's packed with good stories about Britpop luminaries, including Jarvis of course, and digs back into Pulp's origins in Sheffield and to their glory days at the height of Britpop. Russell Senior is a man too smart to have ever been a pop star. And Pulp were too odd a band ever to have become so big. But we can only be grateful that he was, and they did – and that Freak Out the Squares tells the story in Russell's inimitable, entertaining and fascinating way.
All His Jazz: The Life And Death Of Bob Fosse
Martin Gottfried - 1990
Born in Chicago, young Fosse began his career tap-dancing as part of the Riff Brothers in sleazy strip joints, where he encountered the erotic style that later became his signature. Best known for his Broadway hits (The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, Sweet Charity, and Chicago), he was also a successful movie director. Three of his five films were nominated for Academy Awards: Cabaret, Lenny, and the autobiographical All That Jazz. A compulsive womanizer, he had many affairs, even during his three marriages, the last of which was to actress Gwen Verdon, with whom he shared his most fruitful Broadway collaborations. As his fame grew, so too did his insecurities and addictions. He survived two heart attacks and several epileptic seizures, only to die on a street corner in Washington, D.C., in Verdon’s arms. After his death Fosse became a Broadway legend. Based on interviews with friends, family, and colleagues, this eloquent biography provides a vivid connection between Bob Fosse’s life and his work for stage and screen.
Random Acts of Badness: My Story
Danny Bonaduce - 2001
Now, the co-star of the 1970s hit television series The Partridge Family, one of the most popular sitcoms in syndication, reveals how he not only survived the hazards of success at an early age, but lived to joke about it. The real Danny is as cheeky and irreverent as the pre-adolescent Danny Partridge he portrayed on television, and he tells his story with outrageous wit and refreshing candor. He talks about stepping into the spotlight at a painfully young age; about life on the set of a hit TV show; and about the relationships he formed off camera with the shows stars and executives. He recounts his life after cancellation and the quick slide from star to tabloid fodder; the numerous ways he medicated himself against the hurt and disappointment; and bottoming out financially and emotionally and even, briefly, criminally. But Danny Bonaduce bounced back, and here he tells the incredible story of his journey to personal redemption, including a one-night stand that led to a lifelong commitment, a new family, a successful career, and a new lease on life. As hilarious as it is touching, and told in Bonaduces own irrepressible voice, Random Acts of Badness is a story about a Hollywood prodigy that concludes not in tragedy, but in triumph, and about a career and a life that are not ending, but just beginning.
Fire And Rain: The James Taylor Story
Ian Halperin - 2000
When he was seventeen years old, his demons led him to a Massachusetts mental institution where he confronted them the only way he knew how, by writing his first songs. Thirty years later, Taylor's songs are among the most popular in the annals of music, but the demons are still with him. But unlike many of his contemporaries who faced a similar struggle, Taylor managed to emerge as an inspirational figure. Fire and Rain traces this remarkable path, including his troubled marriage to pop star Carly Simon and the premature alcoholism-related death of his brother: Taylor's ten-month stay in the exclusive private psychiatric institution where he finished high school; His self-imposed exile to England where he submitted some of his music to the Beatles' Apple Records, which signed him to his first record contract in 1968. Paul McCartney mentored Taylor's early career; The story behind his second album, Sweet Baby James, which contained the song "Fire and Rain" about the hopelessness of mental illness and suicide; As Taylor's fame increased, so did his problems with heroin, alcohol, and mental illness. In the seventies, the singer nearly fell over the edge many times.
Brian Eno: His Music And The Vertical Color Of Sound
Eric Tamm - 1989
Best known in recent years for producing U2's sensational albums, Eno began his career as a synthesizer player for Roxy Music. He has since released many solo albums, both rock and ambient, written music for film and television soundtracks, and collaborated with David Bowie, David Byrne, Robert Fripp, and classical and experimental composers. His pioneering ambient sound has been enormously influential, and without him today's rock would have a decidedly different sound. Drawing on Eno's own words to examine his influences and ideas, this book—featuring a new afterword and an updated discography and bibliography—will long remain provocative and definitive.
The Rolling Stones Discover America
Michael Lydon - 2013
His long, intimate piece on the tour, The Rolling Stones Discover America, captures the highs and lows of the grueling tour and has become a classic of rock ‘n’ roll journalism—one that the Maysles brothers studied to guide the editing of their film, Gimme Shelter.
Full Moon: The Amazing Rock and Roll Life of Keith Moon
Dougal Butler - 1981
In 1967 Peter 'Dougal' Butler became a roadie for the Who and their mercurial genius drummer Keith Moon. Soon he would be Moon's personal assistant, chauffeur, and all-purpose wingman. The ride lasted a tumultuous ten years, ending just prior to Moon's untimely death in 1978. "Full Moon" is Butler's memoir of that ride: essential reading for Who fans, and a masterclass in the mayhem caused by rock 'n' roll excess.
Read the Beatles: Classic and New Writings on the Beatles, Their Legacy, and Why They Still Matter
June Skinner Sawyers - 2006
Consisting of more than fifty articles, essays, interviews, record and movie reviews, poems, and book excerpts-many of them rare and hard to find-Read the Beatles is an unprecedented compilation that follows the arc of the Fab Four's iconic and idiosyncratic career, from their early days in Liverpool through their tragic and triumphant histories after the group's split. The book also includes original essays from noted musicians and journalists about the Beatles' lasting influence and why they still matter today.
Mustn't Grumble
Terry Wogan - 2006
Written in a style familiar to his millions of listeners, rich with warmth and irony, Terry introduces his post-emergency Ireland, his chain-smoking maiden-aunts, his quick-witted mother and hard-working father and explains exactly how he's managed to avoid a hard day's work from childhood to knighthood.
Def Leppard: The Definitive Visual History
Ross Halfin - 2011
This fully authorized visual history of the band follows them from the new wave of British heavy metal to their massive Pyromania and Hysteria albums to the sustained power of their records and tours today. Legendary rock photographer Ross Halfin has been shooting Def Leppard since 1978, and his candid and definitive pictures have helped capture and shape the image of the band. Def Leppard includes more than 450 classic and unseen photographs, along with text from Halfin and stories and commentary by the band members and others. The book's publication coincides with the release of an all-new Def Leppard album in the spring and a worldwide tour in the summer.
Brando Unzipped: A Revisionist and Very Private Look at America's Greatest Actor
Darwin Porter - 2005
Brando Unzipped is the definitive gossip guide to the late, great actor's life New York Daily News. Lurid, raunchy, perceptive, and certainly worth reading, it's one of the best show-biz biographies of the year. London's Sunday Times. Brando Unzipped received an Honorable Mention from Foreword Magazine in its Book of the Year competition, and it won a Silver Ippy award for Best Biography from the Independent Publisher's Association."
Pocket Bowie Wisdom: Witty Quotes and Wise Words from David Bowie
Hardie Grant Books - 2016
A collection of some of Bowie's most famous and insightful words that will continue to inspire gener....
Justin Bieber: Uncovered!: Unauthorized
Tori Kosara - 2010
An Internet phenomenon, the R&B cutie has nearly two million followers on Twitter and three million on Facebook, and his music videos have gained more than 130 million hits on YouTube. Signed by music legend Usher, his second album shot straight to the top of the charts, and he found himself singing at the White House Christmas celebration and appearing on Saturday Night Live. This brilliant book gives fans the low-down on the whirlwind rise of the world’s hottest teen star. Crammed with cool quotes, top trivia, fun quizzes, gorgeous photos, and fantastic facts, fans can find out everything about their favorite star.
A Shiver of Wonder: A Life of C. S. Lewis
Derick Bingham - 2004
He had no posterity, but few men in history have been so deeply loved by children. He was but a mirror reflecting another Face. He was an Oxford Don and a Cambridge Professor. He was an expert in Medieval and Renaissance English who gripped the imagination of millions through his wartime broadcasts of Christian truth for the BBC—broadcasts that later became his famous book, Mere Christianity. He was C. S. Lewis, a name synonymous with legendary kindness, intellectual rigour, a love of nature and perhaps his greatest creation, Aslan and the land of Narnia. His writings still compel countless readers to shiver with wonder at the great imagination and depth of understanding he possessed. Controversial genius that he was, his life is a beacon for all who struggle with doubt and faith in Christ.