Kennedy. Marilyn Monroe. A page-turning reconstruction of an enchanting after-party by the New York Times bestselling author of Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer. On the night of May 19, 1962, the marquee of the old Madison Square Garden boasted: “BEST THING TODAY…JOHN F. KENNEDY / 2ND BEST THING…MARILYN MONROE.”Few things illustrate the magnetism of the Kennedy era like Marilyn Monroe co-headlining the President’s massive birthday fundraiser, and suggestively crooning “Happy Birthday.” But only a privileged few know what happened months earlier, when the two icons spent a weekend at a private summit hosted by Bing Crosby, and later, after the New York extravaganza, at the top secret, invitation-only midnight affair at a millionaire’s Manhattan town house.For more than half a century, this exclusive, no-press-allowed after-party has been shrouded in rumor and myth. Lot 6191 in the 2010 auction of White House photographer Cecil Stoughton’s archive—“Marilyn Monroe at JFK Party”—included twenty-three prints. Their negatives, marked in Stoughton’s hand with “Sensitive material, Do not file,” were seized by the National Archives. Among the collection: the sole existing photograph of Marilyn and the president. Spellbound by the intimacy of the image and the force of public imagination, bestselling historian James Swanson masterfully reconstructs the fabled soiree, bringing alive a night that history nearly left behind.

    It broadcast its final song, Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” in August 2009. In between, WBCN became the musical, cultural, and political voice of the young people of Boston and New England, sustaining a vibrant local music scene that launched such artists as the J. Geils Band, Aerosmith, James Taylor, Boston, the Cars, and the Dropkick Murphys, as well as paving the way for Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, U2, and many others. Along the way, WBCN both pioneered and defined progressive rock radio, the dominant format for a generation of listeners. Brilliantly told by Carter Alan—and featuring the voices of station insiders and the artists they loved—Radio Free Boston is the story of a city; of artistic freedom, of music and politics and identity; and of the cultural, technological, and financial forces that killed rock radio.

    In "Unforgivable Blackness," the prizewinning biographer Geoffrey C. Ward brings to vivid life the real Jack Johnson, a figure far more complex and compelling than the newspaper headlines he inspired could ever convey. Johnson battled his way from obscurity to the top of the heavyweight ranks and in 1908 won the greatest prize in American sports-one that had always been the private preserve of white boxers. At a time when whites ran everything in America, he took orders from no one and resolved to live as if color did not exist. While most blacks struggled just to survive, he reveled in his riches and his fame. And at a time when the mere suspicion that a black man had flirted with a white woman could cost him his life, he insisted on sleeping with whomever he pleased, and married three. Because he did so the federal government set out to destroy him, and he was forced to endure a year of prison and seven years of exile. Ward points out that to most whites (and to some African Americans as well) he was seen as a perpetual threat-profligate, arrogant, amoral, a dark menace, and a danger to the natural order of things."Unforgivable Blackness" is the first full-scale biography of Johnson in more than twenty years. Accompanied by more than fifty photographs and drawing on a wealth of new material-including Johnson's never-before-published prison memoir-it restores Jack Johnson to his rightful place in the pantheon of American individualists.

    Tales of nocturnal journeys, radical music making, and polymorphous sexuality flow through the arteries of Love Saves the Day like hot liquid vinyl. They are interspersed with a detailed examination of the era’s most powerful djs, the venues in which they played, and the records they loved to spin—as well as the labels, musicians, vocalists, producers, remixers, party promoters, journalists, and dance crowds that fueled dance music’s tireless engine.Love Saves the Day includes material from over three hundred original interviews with the scene's most influential players, including David Mancuso, Nicky Siano, Tom Moulton, Loleatta Holloway, Giorgio Moroder, Francis Grasso, Frankie Knuckles, and Earl Young. It incorporates more than twenty special dj discographies—listing the favorite records of the most important spinners of the disco decade—and a more general discography cataloging some six hundred releases. Love Saves the Day also contains a unique collection of more than seventy rare photos.

    What started as five young men with a common dream of becoming rock stars eventually disintegrated into in-fighting, ego clashes, and financial disputes, until in 1995, following the release of Definitely Maybe, things came to a head and Tony left the band. Here, Tony reveals the truth about the early years before the band was formed. He discusses the drug consumption, the sexual activities, his much-publicized rift with Noel Gallagher, and how he was duped into signing a less-than-favorable record contract. His recollections include stories involving David Beckham, Prince, Eric Cantona, and John McEnroe. Witty, revealing, and fascinating, this book is a must-read for Oasis fans.

    This book reveals how five distinct African civilizations have shaped the specific cultures of their New World descendants.

    When female fans appear in these stories it is often through the eyes and from the perspectives of men – as muses, groupies or fangirls – meaning that women’s own experiences, ideas and arguments about the music they love are marginalised or glossed over. Women in music are frequently fetishised and objectified both in song lyrics and in real life, viewed purely in relation to men and through their impact on the male ego. But this hasn’t stopped generations of women from loving, being moved by and critically appreciating music – however that music may feel about them.Under My Thumb: The Songs that Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them is a study of misogyny in music through the eyes of women. It will bring together stories from music writers and fans about artists or songs they love despite their questionable or troubling gender politics, as well as looking at how these issues intersect with race, class and sexuality.The collection explores the joys of loving music and the tensions, contradictions and complexities it can involve. It is intended to be as much celebration as critique - a kind of feminist guilty pleasures.

    Eurocentrism. Caribbean Studies. British Studies. To the forces of cultural nationalism hunkered down in their camps, this bold hook sounds a liberating call. There is, Paul Gilroy tells us, a culture that is not specifically African, American, Caribbean, or British, but all of these at once, a black Atlantic culture whose themes and techniques transcend ethnicity and nationality to produce something new and, until now, unremarked. Challenging the practices and assumptions of cultural studies, "The Black Atlantic" also complicates and enriches our understanding of modernism.Debates about postmodernism have cast an unfashionable pall over questions of historical periodization. Gilroy bucks this trend by arguing that the development of black culture in the Americas arid Europe is a historical experience which can be called modern for a number of clear and specific reasons. For Hegel, the dialectic of master and slave was integral to modernity, and Gilroy considers the implications of this idea for a transatlantic culture. In search of a poetics reflecting the politics and history of this culture, he takes us on a transatlantic tour of the music that, for centuries, has transmitted racial messages and feeling around the world, from the Jubilee Singers in the nineteenth century to Jimi Hendrix to rap. He also explores this internationalism as it is manifested in black writing from the "double consciousness" of W. E. B. Du Bois to the "double vision" of Richard Wright to the compelling voice of Toni Morrison.In a final tour de force, Gilroy exposes the shared contours of black and Jewish concepts of diaspora in order both to establish a theoretical basis for healing rifts between blacks and Jews in contemporary culture and to further define the central theme of his book: that blacks have shaped a nationalism, if not a nation, within the shared culture of the black Atlantic.

    But this community once had an impact on American history that rivaled the far larger black worlds of Harlem and Chicago. It published the most widely read black newspaper in the country, urging black voters to switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party and then rallying black support for World War II. It fielded two of the greatest baseball teams of the Negro Leagues and introduced Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Pittsburgh was the childhood home of jazz pioneers Billy Strayhorn, Billy Eckstine, Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner; Hall of Fame slugger Josh Gibson—and August Wilson himself. Some of the most glittering figures of the era were changed forever by the time they spent in the city, from Joe Louis and Satchel Paige to Duke Ellington and Lena Horne. Mark Whitaker’s Smoketown is a captivating portrait of this unsung community and a vital addition to the story of black America. It depicts how ambitious Southern migrants were drawn to a steel-making city on a strategic river junction; how they were shaped by its schools and a spirit of commerce with roots in the Gilded Age; and how their world was eventually destroyed by industrial decline and urban renewal. Whitaker takes readers on a rousing, revelatory journey—and offers a timely reminder that Black History is not all bleak.

    With record-collector zeal, Cook analyzes everything from Sidney Bechet's 78s to Norah Jones' recent chart-topper.

    Known as the man who led the United States through the Great Depression and World War II, Roosevelt was a leader and a statesman, a scholar, and a politician. Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only president to have served for three consecutive terms and voted in for a fourth, a fact that allows him to stand out among the long list of American presidents. Outside of his role as president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt lived a full life. He was a father and a son, a husband and a career man. He was a bank officer and attended prestigious universities—Harvard University and Columbia University Law School—before practicing law. Additionally, he served as vice president for the Fidelity and Deposit Company. Perhaps most famously, Roosevelt served as governor of New York and president of the United States while he suffered from polio. Instead of allowing the disease to keep him from living a full life, he went above and beyond, training himself to walk without the power of his legs so that his voters would not know that he suffered in any capacity. What this book aims to do is determine who Franklin D. Roosevelt was as a person outside of the spotlight. This book wants to answer questions about this man. How did he interact with his wife and family? What were his exploits and his vices? His favored hobbies? Franklin Roosevelt: A Captivating Guide to the Life of FDR is an outline of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s life that not only gives a brief overview of his best-known feats but also provides a glimpse into who he was as a person. Some of the topics covered in this book include: FDR's Childhood and Education His Personal Life Early Political Career Polio and Governing of New York 1932 Presidential Election First Term in Presidency Second Term in Presidency Third Term in Presidency Relations with Foreign Leadership And much more! Scroll to the top and select the "BUY NOW" button for instant download

    Lanegan's voice is one of the most distinct and recognizable in rock, but his talents aren't limited to his vocal skills. Lanegan's lyrics are on par with the best of them, exploring with Blake-like insight the stark and scorched emotional terrain that exists somewhere beyond sadness, addiction, trauma, and spiritual longing. With a body of work that now includes seven albums with the Screaming Trees, eleven acclaimed solo albums, three albums of duets with Belle and Sebastian's Isobel Campbell (including the Mercury Prize-shortlisted Ballad of the Broken Seas), and collaborative albums and singles with the likes of Queens of the Stone Age, Moby, Soulsavers, Twilight Singers, and countless others, Mark Lanegan occupies a singular space in rock music. Now, for the first time ever, the reclusive singer presents a comprehensive look at his lyrics, the stories behind them, and the making of his albums. I Am the Wolf is a rare and candid glimpse into the inner workings and creative process of a legend.

    Rock music was flying off in every direction, just as America itself seemed about to split at its seams. Following the circumscribed grooves and ambiance of In A Silent Way; coming off a tour with a burning new quintet-called 'The Lost Band'-with Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette; he went into the studio with musicians like frighteningly talented guitarist John McLaughlin, and soulful Austrian keyboardist Joe Zawinul. Working with his essential producer, Teo Macero, Miles set a cauldron of ideas loose while the tapes rolled. At the end, there was the newly minted Prince of Darkness, a completely new way forward for jazz and rock, and the endless brilliance and depth of Bitches Brew.Bitches Brew is still one of the most astonishing albums ever made in either jazz or rock. Seeming to fuse the two, it actually does something entirely more revolutionary and open-ended: blending the most avant-garde aspects of Western music with deep grooves, the album rejects both jazz and rock for an entirely different idea of how music can be made.

    Robert Reed Church, became the largest landowner in Tennessee. Hannah Elias, the mistress of a New York City millionaire, used the land her lover gave her to build an empire in Harlem. Orphan and self-taught chemist Annie Turnbo-Malone, developed the first national brand of hair care products. Mississippi school teacher O. W. Gurley, developed a piece of Tulsa, Oklahoma, into a “town” for wealthy black professionals and craftsmen that would become known as “the Black Wall Street.” Although Madam C. J Walker was given the title of America’s first female black millionaire, she was not. She was the first, however, to flaunt and openly claim her wealth—a dangerous and revolutionary act.Nearly all the unforgettable personalities in this amazing collection were often attacked, demonized, or swindled out of their wealth. Black Fortunes illuminates as never before the birth of the black business titan.