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.

    Ultimately, we will all remember Frank Sinatra as the World's Greatest Entertainer. The Voice lives on in this commemorative pictorial tribute to the life and 50-year career of the man who changed the face of music and movies from a humble beginning in Hoboken, New Jersey to his death on May 14, 1998 at age 82. In addition to being written by Nancy Sinatra, Frank's first-born daughter, this is the ONLY book done with the full cooperation of the Sinatra family. Reviewers rave "priceless," "a visual knockout," "a must-have for any Sinatra fan." Rare or previously unpublished photos and dozens of private stories told by his most intimate friends separate myth from the real deal and make this an extremely revealing--and truly poignant--testament to the legend who did it his way. Also features a complete discography and filmography.

    With an afterword by Michael McClure.

    From the moment the metronomic pulse of a heartbeat thudded out to begin "Speak to Me" to the soaring guitar solo that climaxed "Comfortably Numb," these self-effacing men in their late fifties stole the show. Almost a year later, the death of their troubled founder-member Syd Barrett made headline news worldwide. Both events signaled a kind of closure to the remarkable tale of one of the world's biggest bands. Now, in the first full-length history of the group for more than fifteen years, Mark Blake tells the story of how a group of middle-class Englishmen conquered the world. Drawing on his own interviews with all of the band members, interviews with the group's friends, road crew, producers, former housemates and university colleagues, as well as musical contemporaries including Pete Townshend and Alice Cooper, Comfortably Numb follows Pink Floyd all the way from the early psychedelic nights at UFO in the mid-sixties to the stadium-rock and concept-album zenith of the seventies, and finally the acrimonious schism that sundered the band in the '80s and '90s.

    Naming their band after Leonard Skinner, the gym teacher at Robert E. Lee Senior High School who constantly badgered the long-haired aspiring musicians to get haircuts, they were soon playing gigs at parties, and bars throughout the South. During the next decade Lynyrd Skynyrd grew into the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful of the rock bands to emerge from the South since the Allman Brothers. Their hits “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama” became classics. Then, at the height of its popularlity in 1977, the band was struck with tragedy --a plane crash that killed Ronnie Van Zant and two other band members.Lynyrd Skynyrd: Remembering the Free Birds of Southern Rock is an intimate chronicle of the band from its earliest days through the plane crash and its aftermath, to its rebirth and current status as an enduring cult favorite. From his behind-the-scenes perspective as Ronnie Van Zant’s lifelong friend and frequent member of the band’s entourage who was also aboard the plane on that fateful flight, Gene Odom reveals the unique synthesis of blues/country rock and songwriting talent, relentless drive, rebellious Southern swagger and down-to-earth sensibility that brought the band together and made it a defining and hugely popular Southern rock band -- as well as the destructive forces that tore it apart. Illustrated throughout with rare photos, Odom traces the band’s rise to fame and shares personal stories that bring to life the band’s journey. For the fans who have purchased a cumulative 35 million copies of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s albums and continue to pack concerts today, Lynyrd Skynyrd is a celebration of an immortal American band.From the Hardcover edition.

    This biography offers an all-encompassing look at the success of this controversial band.

    The author traces the story of Kate Bush's career, from her up-bringing in the Essex countryside through her first forays into music with a series of home recordings, to her number one debut album that propelled her to international stardom.

    

    and the Clash. The East Coast editor of Launch magazine, Randall is undoubtedly one of the many journalists eager to exclaim "genius!" again, but his biography of the Grammy winners is economical, restrained and unauthorized (band members "respectfully declined" Randall's requests to cooperate). After briefly reenacting the now mythic June 1997 concert at New York City's Irving Plaza, attended by rock's superstar aristocracy (Bono, Lenny Kravitz, Madonna, etc.), Randall smartly spends most of his narrative on the band's fascinating, decade-long conception in and around culturally barren Oxford, whose Radiohead landmarks he visited and lays out. Non- and neo-Anglophiles will especially appreciate Randall's definitions of British terms and background on the British music industry, music press and education system (all five musicians met at the all-male Abingdon School). As for the inevitable "record critique" chapters, Randall rarely throws in his two cents, preferring to sprinkle passages with the band's own pithy observations and recording-session anecdotes culled from magazine interviews. Exit music? Not quite, as Radiohead are pushing the boundaries of pop music (the new record is rumored to include Miles Davis and backwards singing). Because the book will be published right before the new album debuts, it will be nearly out of date by the time it hits bookstores. However, Randall's work will still serve as a reliable introduction to an ever-evolving band.

    This is the autobiography of their lead singer, Ian Gillan. Here he tells his life story, and that of the band he helped to make great. Stories of friction and violence, groupies and non-stop partying, drugs and alcohol, and how, finally, it all spiralled out of control to destroy the band.

    

    The popular recording star and successful songwriter--known in Nashville as the Storyteller--recounts his rise to stardom, provides inside glimpses of the country-music business, and profiles his fellow Opryland stars.

    The indispensable consumers' guide to the music of Frank Zappa.A thorough analysis of every officially released album by Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention, from the groundbreaking albums of the Sixties through Zappa's experimental, avant-garde work, to the most recent posthumous releases.Features include...*An album by album analysis...*Information on when and where the music was recorded...*A useful Zappa bibliography*A special section of compilation, archive and posthumous releases*Sixteen page colour section

    As Iron Maiden’s front man—first from 1981 to 1993, and then from 1999 to the present—Dickinson has been, and remains, a man of legend.But OTT front man is just one of the many hats Bruce wears. In addition to being one of the world’s most storied and well-respected singers and songwriters, he is an airline captain, aviation entrepreneur, motivational speaker, beer brewer, novelist, radio presenter, and film scriptwriter. He has also competed as a world-class level fencer. Often credited as a genuine polymath Bruce, in his own words (and handwritten script in the first instance!), sets forth many personal observations guaranteed to inspire curious souls and hard-core fans alike.Dickinson turns his unbridled creativity, passion, and anarchic humour to reveal some fascinating stories from his life, including his thirty years with Maiden, his solo career, his childhood within the eccentric British school system, his early bands, fatherhood and family, and his recent battle with cancer.Bold, honest, intelligent and very funny, his memoir is an up-close look inside the life, heart, and mind of one of the most unique and interesting men in the world; a true icon of rock.

    He is this century's most ardent advocate of First Amendment rights, a man whose landmark Supreme Court cases are studied by every law student in America. He is the founder and publisher of Hustler magazine, a journal often described as tasteless, crude, scatological, and gynecologically explicit - to which he would reply, "Good!" For Flynt, tastelessness is "a necessary tool in challenging preconceived notions in a world where people are afraid to discuss their attitudes, prejudices, and misconceptions." Born in the hills of Kentucky, in the poorest county in America, Flynt became a teenage runaway, an underage recruit in both the army and the navy, a bootlegger, a scam artist, a bar owner, the proprietor of a string of go-go clubs, an evangelical Christian, an atheist, and eventually a millionaire pornographer and publisher. A prodigious sexual athlete, Flynt was shot down in his prime by an assailant's bullet and paralyzed from the waist down. Wheelchair bound and racked by years of searing pain, he became a pain-medicine junkie and habitue of America's courtrooms. Persecuted by the self-righteous Charles Keating, prosecuted by ambitious district attorneys, sued by moral crusaders like Jerry Falwell, and hounded by the government, Flynt forged a blazing trail through the American legal system. Remarkably, Larry Flynt has never told his story before. This highly personal and reflective account will surprise everyone, offend a few, and entertain many.