Book picks similar to
The Letters of Arturo Toscanini by Harvey Sachs
autobio-bio-memoirs
italy
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music
Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues
Joel Selvin - 2014
His heart damaged by rheumatic fever as a youth, Berns was not expected to live to see 21. Although his name is little remembered today, Berns worked alongside all the greats of the era—Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler, Burt Bacharach, Phil Spector, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, anyone who was anyone in New York rhythm and blues. In seven quick years, he went from nobody to the top of the pops—producer of monumental r&b classics, songwriter of “Twist and Shout,” “My Girl Sloopy,” “Piece of My Heart,” and others.His fury to succeed led Berns to use his Mafia associations to muscle Atlantic Records out of their partnership and intimidate new talents like Neil Diamond and Van Morrison, whom he had signed to his record label. Berns died at age 38 from a long-expected heart attack, just when he was seeing his grandest plans and life’s ambitions frustrated and foiled.
Caravaggio: A Life
Helen Langdon - 1998
In this vivid and beautifully written biography, Helen Langdon tells the story of the great painter's life and times in a way that leaves the reader with a renewed appreciation of his art.
Skinhead... The Life I Chose: Memoirs of a Real Skin
Spike Pitt - 2014
It is NOT about Nazism, or Neo-Nazism, and definitely not about politics; it is the story of how the ebullience of youth can be corrupted and misinterpreted by propaganda and the media. Warning This story contains a lot of strong language, British slang and outspoken opinions that may be offensive to some; it is nevertheless the truth.
Catching Babies
J.D. Kleinke - 2011
Two ends of the same spectrum. And sometimes the only person standing between is a tired, overworked resident with personal problems of her own.Welcome to the world of Catching Babies. In the halls of a busy metropolitan teaching hospital, a group of OB/GYN doctors complete their residencies and embark on ambitious careers, all while trying to hold their lives together at the seams. Jay is running from a life he’s tried to leave behind, while Katie sacrifices everything she has to serve an endless parade of needy patients. Anna is out trying to save the world, while Tracy is trying to save twins dying in utero. Based on true stories from delivery rooms and labor decks, Catching Babies spins the doctors’ stories into a gripping mosaic of the obsessions, the anxieties, and the heroism of doctors who have chosen to preside over life’s greatest medical drama—high-risk childbirth.
Spin: 20 Years of Alternative Music: Original Writing on Rock, Hip-Hop, Techno, and Beyond
Will Hermes - 2005
Through the introduction of MTV and the alternative rock revolution, it's been many things. Rude. Brilliant. Soulful. Snotty. Angry. Delirious. In the past two decades, genres have spawned like mad, from goth, indie rock, and gangsta rap to emo and the garage rock revival. This twentieth-anniversary tribute celebrates the passion and fury of the music, with original essays, quotes, and photographs by contributors who are as hopelessly obsessed with it as you are. SPIN: 20 Years of Alternative Music features: Alan Light on Beastie Boys, Ann Powers on U2, Charles Aaron on R.E.M., Dave Eggers on The Smiths + Morrissey, Marc Spitz on Goth, Simon Reynolds on Depeche Mode + Synth-pop, Dave Itzkoff on ’80s Teen Movies, Chuck Klosterman on Weezer, Will Hermes on Radiohead, Neil Strauss on Nine Inch Nails + Industrial, Sacha Jenkins on Public Enemy, Andy Greenwald on Emo, RJ Smith on Gangsta Rap, Jon Dolan on The White Stripes, Chris Norris on Nirvana, Doug Brod on Oasis + Britpop, Jim DeRogatis on Smashing Pumpkins, Laura Sinagra on Courtney Love, Ta-Nehisi Coates on Tupac
Fretboard Theory
Desi R. Serna - 2008
Hands-on approach to guitar theory gives you total command of the fretboard and music's most critical elements by visualizing shapes, patterns and how they connect. Content includes: What scales to learn and how including pentatonic and major scale patterns Guitar CAGED chord system including inversions and arpeggio patterns Guitar chord progressions and playing by numbers (Nashville Number System) Roots, keys and applying scalesUnderstanding music modes and modal scales such as Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and LocrianPlaying and using intervals including thirds, fifths and sixthsAdding extensions such as "add 9," "suspended 4," and "major 7" Details to how hundreds of popular songs were playedNot only does Fretboard Theory teach guitar music theory in a refreshing new manner, but it takes things a step farther by associating everything to your favorite songs. This is the ONLY GUITAR THEORY RESOURCE that includes important details to hundreds of popular songs. Pop, rock, acoustic, blues, metal and more!This new generation of guitar instruction is perfect whether you want to jam, compose or just understand the music you play better. For acoustic and electric guitar players. At 9x12 and 150 pages, Fretboard Theory includes twice the content of ordinary books. Four chapters are also available on DVD (see Getting Started with the Pentatonic Scale, CAGED Template Chord System, Guitar Chord Progressions and Playing By Numbers, Guitar Modes - The Modal Scales of Popular Music).
Maria Callas: An Intimate Biography
Anne Edwards - 2001
Now Anne Edwards, well known for her revealing and insightful biographies of some of the world's most noted women, tells the intimate story of Maria Callas—her loves, her life, and her music, revealing the true woman behind the headlines, gossip and speculation.The second daughter of Greek immigrant parents, Maria found herself in the grasp of an overwhelmingly ambitious mother who took her away from her native New York and the father she loved, to a Greece on the eve of the Second World War. From there, we learn of the hardships, loves and triumphs Maria experienced in her professional and personal life. We are introduced to the men who marked Callas forever—Luchino Visconti, the brilliant homosexual director who she loved hopelessly, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, the husband thirty years her senior who used her for his own ambitions, as had her mother, and Aristotle Onassis, who put an end to their historic love affair by discarding her for the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy. Throughout her life, Callas waged a constant battle with her weight, a battle she eventually won, transforming herself from an ugly duckling into the slim and glamorous diva who transformed opera forever, whose recordings are legend, and whose life is the stuff of which tabloids are made.Anne Edwards goes deeper than previous biographies of Maria Callas have dared. She draws upon intensive research to refute the story of Callas's "mystery child" by Onassis, and she reveals the true circumstances of the years preceding Callas's death, including the deception perpetrated by her close and trusted friend. As in her portraits of other brilliant, star-crossed women, Edwards brings Maria Callas—the intimate Callas—alive.
Sinatra! the Song is You: A Singer's Art
Will Friedwald - 1995
It draws on interviews with musicians, perfomers, arrangers and songwriters with whom Sinatra has worked.
Shotgun Angels: My Story of Broken Roads and Unshakeable Hope
Jay Demarcus - 2019
You'll follow his intensely personal journey through big breaks and broken dreams, desperate dashboard prayers, and limelight glories. Along the way, you'll find the same constant source of strength that he has--hope that is powerful enough to hold you up through whatever trials come your way.
Comrade Rockstar: The Life and Mystery of Dean Reed, the All-American Boy Who Brought Rock 'n' Roll to the Soviet Union
Reggie Nadelson - 2006
Failing to gain recognition for his music in his native United States, he achieved celebrity in South America in the early 1960s and then, unbelievably, became the biggest rock star in the Soviet Union, where he was awarded the Lenin Prize and his icons were sold alongside those of Josef Stalin. His albums went gold from Bulgaria to Berlin. He made highly successful movies and, naively earnest, was an unwitting acolyte for socialism; everywhere he went, he was mobbed by his fans. And then, in 1986, at the height of his fame, right after 60 Minutes had devoted a segment to him, finally giving him the recognition he had never attained at home, he drowned in mysterious circumstances in East Berlin.Drawn magnetically to his story, Reggie Nadelson pursued the mystery of Dean Reed's life and death across America and Eastern Europe, her own journey mirroring his. As she traveled, the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union crumbled, and Reed became an increasingly alluring figure, his life an unrepeatable tale of the Cold War world. Encountering the characters— musicians and DJs, politicians and public figures, lovers and wives—who peopled Reed's life, Nadelson was drawn further and further into a seedy, often hilarious subculture of sex, politics, and rock 'n' roll. Part biography, part memoir and personal journey, Comrade Rockstar is an unforgettable chronicle of an utterly improbable life
Teaching Music with Passion: Conducting, Rehearsing and Inspiring
Hal Leonard Corporation - 2002
Teaching Music with Passion is a one-of-a-kind, collective masterpiece of thoughts, ideas and suggestions about the noble profession of music education. Both inspirational and instructional, it will surely change the way you teach (and think) about music. Filled with personal experiences, anecdotes and wonderful quotations, this book is an easy-to-read, essential treasure! "One of the most 'real' writings I have read during my 35 years in music education." Mel Clayton, President, MENC: The National Association for Music Education Click here for a YouTube video on Teaching Music with Passion
My Spiritual Inheritance: Walking in your destiny
Juanita Bynum - 2004
You can experience salvation and receive a new heart but still miss receiving your full spiritual inheritance. Juanita Bynum, best-selling author of Matters of the Heart, minces no words in explaining the scriptural significance for believers to understand the role spiritual authority plays in your inheriting all God destines for you. Your Spiritual inheritance comes only from submission. Looking in-depth at the lives of Samson, Saul, Uzziah, and Jesus, as well as her own life, Bynum explains the pattern for receiving - and not squandering - the mantle of anointing from God. Discover how submission to instruction and receiving correction from spiritual authority can draw you into destiny. The Bible's pattern is clear - spiritual leaders are to lead, and believers are to submit to their leadership for spiritual direction. Your spiritual inheritance - reserved especially for you - is awaiting your full obedience. Will you embrace the greatness God has put within you?
Mount Rainier: A Climbing Guide
Mike Gauthier - 1999
Name any route on Rainier, and he can describe its rewards and specific challenges (he's summited Rainier more than 170 times during all seasons and under intense conditions). Whether you choose the classic Liberty Ridge route, the drama of Success Cleaver, or the rarely attempted Mowich Face, Gauthier provides all the details you'll need for a successful and enjoyable climb.This edition presents the information on logistics, regulations, and permits. It includes expanded material on understanding and surmounting Rainier's famed glaciers; tips on selecting a guide service; excellent mountaineering training sites around Rainier for those bound for the world's highest peaks; and bonus routes on adjacent Little Tahoma, Washington's third highest peak.
Tour:Smart: And Break the Band
Martin Atkins - 2007
More than 100 luminaries and leading organizations from the world of touring—among them Chris Connelly, Henry Rollins, the House of Blues, and the Vans Warped Tour, as well as club owners, tour managers, and even sex advisors—provide handy insider know-how along with insight on mistakes commonly made by novice bands. Chapters address the nitty-gritty of touring, with instructions on how to secure venues and publicity, how to stay healthy on the road, and how to keep the budget in the black. Loaded with hundreds of years' worth of collective hands-on experience from those steeped in the music business, this is a must-have resource for creating an unforgettable tour.
Behind the Grand Ole Opry Curtain: Tales of Romance and Tragedy
Robert K. Oermann - 2008
We'll hear of the great love stories ranging from Johnny Cash and June Carter in the 1960s to Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, who married in 2005. We'll get the truth of the tragedies that led to the loss of three stars all in the same month, starting the rumor of the "Opry Curse." We'll learn how after being stabbed, shot, and maimed, Trace Adkins calls his early honky-tonk years "combat country," and we'll find inspiration from DeFord Bailey, an African American harmonica player in 1927 crippled by childhood polio who rose to fame as one of the first Opry stars. Our hearts will break for Willie Nelson, who lost his only son on Christmas Day, and soar for Amy Grant and Vince Gill, who found true love. Based on over 150 firsthand interviews with the stars of The Grand Ole Opry, these are stories that tell the heart of country--the lives that are lived and inspire the songs we love.