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.

    With unique insight and unparalleled access, Peter Guralnick brings to life the people, the songs, and the performance that forever changed not only the American music scene but America itself.

    This version of the Beatles legend smoothed the rough edges and filled in the fault lines, and for more than forty years this manicured version of the Beatles story has sustained as truth - until now.The product of almost a decade of research, hundreds of unprecedented interviews, and the discovery of scores of never-before-revealed documents, Bob Spitz's The Beatles is the biography fans have been waiting for -- a vast, complete account as brilliant and joyous and revelatory as a Beatles record itself. Spitz begins in Liverpool, a hard city knocked on its heels. In the housing projects and school playgrounds, four boys would discover themselves -- and via late-night radio broadcasts, a new form of music called rock 'n roll.Never before has a biography of musicians been so immersive and textured. Spitz takes us down Penny Lane and to Strawberry Field (John later added the s), to Hamburg, Germany, where -- amid the squalor and the violence and the pep pills -- the Beatles truly became the Beatles. We are there in the McCartney living room when Paul and John learn to write songs together; in the heat of Liverpool's Cavern Club, where jazz has been the norm before the Beatles show up; backstage the night Ringo takes over on drums; in seedy German strip clubs where George lies about his age so the band can perform; on the lonely tours through frigid Scottish towns before the breakthrough; at Abbey Road Studios, where a young producer named George Martin takes them under his wing; at the Ed Sullivan Show as America discovers the joy and the madness; and onward and upward: up the charts, from Shea to San Francisco, through the London night, on to India, through marmalade skies, across the universe...all the way to a rooftop concert and one last moment of laughter and music.It is all here, raw and right: the highs and the lows, the love and the rivalry, the awe and the jealousy, the drugs, the tears, the thrill, the magic never again to be repeated. Open this book and begin to read -- Bob Spitz's masterpiece is, at long last, the biography the Beatles deserve.

    Blood on the Tracks was composed as Dylan's twelve-year marriage began to unravel, and songs like "Tangled Up in Blue" and "Shelter from the Storm" have become templates for multidimensional, adult songs of love and loss. Yet the story behind the creation of this album has never been fully told; even the credits on the present-day album sleeve are inaccurate. Dylan recorded the album twice-once in New York City and again in Minneapolis, with a rag-tag gang of local musicians, quickly rewriting many of the songs in the process. For A Simple Twist of Fate, the authors have interviewed the musicians and producers, industry insiders, and others, creating an engaging chronicle of how one musician channeled his pain and confusion into great art.

    The story of their band spans thirty years and thirty albums, and through all the changes in the band's line-up and musical direction, the spirit of Genesis has remained constant and undimmed."Genesis: Chapter & Verse" is the ultimate addition to any fan's collection, setting the record straight as the band's members tell their story their way. Remarkably, the band survived the high-profile departure of not one lead vocalist, but two (Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins), two influential guitarists (Anthony Phillips and Steve Hackett), and its best-known drummer (Phil Collins). Genesis simply got stronger and bigger - matching the huge solo success of Gabriel, Collins, and Mike + The Mechanics.A collaboration between all the members of Genesis, past and present, "Genesis: Chapter and Verse" is the band's definitive autobiography: an intimate, no-holds-barred, no-stone-unturned history that allows character and personality to come to the forefront. Covering the band's story as well as the writing and performance of significant songs from each period, this treasure trove of text and photographs provides long-awaited insight into the way this exceptional group of songwriters worked together, allowing the band to dispatch more than a few sacred cows along the way. It is a book like none other, and an exclusive look into the life and times of one of rock's most influential and lasting groups.

    Formed in Toronto in 1968, the rock trio Rush has gone on to multiplatinum success behind the distinctive high register and virtuosic bass-playing of frontman Geddy Lee, the legendary drumming and lyric-writing of Neil Peart, and the guitar heroics of Alex Lifeson. Despite having just four chart-topping singles since the release of their debut LP in 1974, Rush has nonetheless sold more than 25 million albums in the U.S. and more than 40 million worldwide. The Canadian trio may be the definition of an "album band," and this new book from prolific rock journalist and acknowledged Rush authority Martin Popoff pays tribute to the band's discography by moderating in-depth, frank, and entertaining conversations about all 20 of Rush's studio albums. Inside, the author gathers 20 rock journalists and authors who offer insights, opinions, and anecdotes about every release. Together, the conversations comprise a unique historical overview of the band, as well as a handsome discography. Popoff also includes loads of sidebars that provide complete track listings, details on album personnel, information on where and when the albums were recorded, and sidebar facts about the albums, their songs, and the band.

    The recording engineer heard a car pull into the lot, and soon the biggest man he had ever seen walked through the door. Six foot three, 500 pounds, the guy looked like a house carrying an 'ukulele. When he stepped into the studio, the floated floor shifted unnervingly beneath the engineer's feet. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole engulfed the engineer's hand in his and said, "Hi, bruddah." The product of that impromptu late-night recording session, a delicate medley of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful World," has driven sales of 1993's Facing Future to nearly two million copies. Each time the medley is licensed to appear in advertisements, in movies, even on American Idol, Mainlanders embrace it anew as a touch of the unfamiliar in their otherwise staid record collections. But in Hawai'i, a state struggling like no other with the responsibility of its native heritage, Facing Future is much more. Gaining unprecedented access to Israel's family, friends, bandmates, lawyer, and label, Dan Kois tells the remarkable story of Bruddah Iz and the album that changed his life--and his death.

    Unlike many forms of popular music, whose fans are fickle and transitory, metalheads tend to embrace their favorite bands and follow them over decades. Metal is not only a pastime for these people; it's a lifestyle and obsession that permeates every aspect of their being.The book will feature over 250 interviews conducted by renowned journalists Jon Wiederhorn and Katherine Turman over the past 25 years. The book will include candid and confessional commentary from late icons of the genre. In addition, the book will feature comprehensive interviews with established metal musicians discussing their often-traumatic upbringings, musical histories, battles with substance abuse, sexual exploits, plus expert analysis of the heavy metal scene from the '60s to the present. Industry insiders (managers, record label A&R people, family members, friends, scenesters, groupies, journalists, porn stars and tattoo artists) will provide additional insight.

    This experience gave Carducci a unique perspective on music and "Rock And The Pop Narcotic" is perhaps the only book of popular music criticism that attempts to achieve a genuine aesthetic of rock music. The content runs the gamut of music, touching on everything from the Allman Brothers to Husker Du to Black Flag.

    Among the highlights are the seminal Rolling Stone interviews -- anthologized here for the first time -- by Jann Wenner, Jonathan Cott, Kurt Loder, and Mikal Gilmore, as well as Nat Hentoff's legendary 1966 Playboy interview. Surprises include Studs Terkel's radio interview in 1963 on WFMT in Chicago, the interview Dylan gave to screenwriter Jay Cocks when he was a student at Kenyon College in 1964, a 1965 interview with director Nora Ephron, and an interview Sam Shepard turned into a one-act play for Esquire in 1987. Dylan expert Jonathan Cott writes an introduction to this must-have collection of the artist in his own words.

    Having risen from obscurity as a precocious producer through the ranks of Jay Z's Roc-A-Fella records, by the time he released My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (MBDTF) in late 2010, West had evolved into a master collagist, an alchemist capable of transfiguring semi-obscure soul samples and indelible beats into a brash and vulnerable new art form.A look at the arc of his career, from the heady chipmunk soul exuberance of The College Dropout (2004) to the operatic narcissism of MBDTF, tells us about the march of pop music into the digital age and, by extension, the contradictions that define our cultural epoch. In a cloud-based and on-demand culture – a place of increasing virtualization, loneliness, and hyper-connectivity – West straddles this critical moment as what David Samuels of The Atlantic calls "the first true genius of the iPhone era, the Mozart of contemporary American music." In the land of taking a selfie, honing a personal brand, and publicly melting down online, Kanye West is the undisputed king.Swallowing the chaos wrought by his public persona and digesting it as a grandiose allegory of self-redemption, Kanye sublimates his narcissism to paint masterstroke after masterstroke on MBDTF, a 69-minute hymn to egotistical excess. Sampling and ventriloquizing the pop music past to tell the story of its future – very much a tale of our culture's wish for unfettered digital ubiquity – MBDTF is the album of its era, an aesthetic self-acquittal and spiritual autobiography of our era's most dynamic artist.

    Before turning his hand to writing, he ran a jazz club in Tokyo, and from The Beatles' Norwegian Wood to Franz Liszt's Years of Pilgrimage, the aesthetic and emotional power of music permeates every one of his much-loved books. Now, in Absolutely on Music, Murakami fulfills a personal dream, sitting down with his friend, acclaimed conductor Seiji Ozawa, to talk, over a period of two years, about their shared interest. Transcribed from lengthy conversations about the nature of music and writing, here they discuss everything from Brahms to Beethoven, from Leonard Bernstein to Glenn Gould, from record collecting to pop-up orchestras, and much more. Ultimately this book gives readers an unprecedented glimpse into the minds of the two maestros. It is essential reading for book and music lovers everywhere.

    With two EPs (combined into the classic CD 13 songs) and two albums (1990's genre-defining Repeater and 1991's impressionistic follow-up Steady Diet of Nothing) inside of five years, Fugazi was on creative roll, astounding increasingly large audiences as they toured, blasting fist-pumping anthems and jammy noise-workouts that roared into every open underground heart. When the album debuted on the now-SoundScan-driven charts, Fugazi had never been more in the public eye.Few knew how difficult it had been to make this popular breakthrough. Disappointed with the sound of the self-produced Steady Diet, the band recorded with legendary engineer Steve Albini, only to scrap the sessions and record at home in D.C. with Ted Niceley, their brilliant, under-known producer. Inadvertently, Fugazi chose an unsure moment to make In on the Kill Taker: as Nirvana and Sonic Youth were yanking the American rock underground into the media glare, and "breaking" punk in every possible meaning of the word. Despite all of this, Kill Taker became an alt-rock classic in spite of itself, even as its defiant, muscular sound stood in stark contrast to everything represented by the mainstreaming of a culture and worldview they held dear.This book features new interviews with all four members of Fugazi and members of their creative community.

    Icons of anti-celebrity rock, who bacame huge celebrity rock stars, they were, according to the story, the first U.S. post new-wave band who were both commercially successful and cool. Drawing on exclusive interviews with Mike Mills, Peter Buck and other members of R.E.M.'s nuclear family, Fiction re-evaluates the music and career of a group who sold almost no records for the first half of their existence, then became 'the biggest rock group in the world' in the second half.

    when it was released in 1996, and what makes it still resonate today, is the way in which it loosens itself from the mooring of the known and sails off into an uncharted territory that seems to exist both in and out of time. Josh Davis is not only a master sampler and turntablist supreme, he is also a serious archeologist with a world-thirsty passion (what Cut Chemist refers to as Josh's spidey sense) for seeking out, uncovering and then ripping apart the discarded graces of some other generation that pile of broken dreams and weaving them back together into a tapestry of chronic bleakness and beauty. Over the course of severallong conversations with Josh Davis (DJ Shadow), we learn about his early years in California, the friends and mentors who helped him along the way, his relationship with Mo'Wax and James Lavelle, and the genesis and creation of his widely acknowledged masterpiece, Endtroducing....