I Talk Too Much: My Autobiography


Francis Rossi - 2019
    . . This is Francis Rossi as you have never seen him before. Status Quo have sold over 100 million records worldwide, including 65 hit singles and 32 hit albums. The legendary band's career has mirrored the evolution of rock music. From the struggles of the flower-power '60s, the highs of the denim-clad '70s, the coke- and tequila-induced blur of the '80s, to fighting for musical integrity in the '90s and '00s and a fresh lease of life from new band members in recent years, Rossi has been there for the entirety of Quo's turbulent history.In I Talk Too Much, Rossi will reveal the truth behind one of the biggest rock bands of all time, as well as the personal highs and lows of a career spanning over 50 years. He lifts the lid on the man behind the music - from humble beginnings in Forest Hill and being labelled a has-been by the press in his twenties to opening Live Aid in 1985 - and why he's still going strong at seventy. Along the way he has fathered eight children with three mothers and beaten both alcoholism and cocaine addiction. Rossi comes clean about the time he almost left the band, what he really thinks about the music industry today and the complexities of his fifty-year friendship with Rick Parfitt.Painfully honest, riotously funny and frequently outrageous, I Talk Too Much covers the glory years, the dark days and the real stories behind the creation of some of the greatest rock music of all time.

The Beatles: Unseen Archives


Tim Hill - 2000
    The collection includes over 200 photographs from negatives never previously printed and they are published here for the first time.

Dancing with Demons: The Authorized Biography of Dusty Springfield


Penny Valentine - 2000
    Her signature voice made songs such as, "I Only Want to Be With You," "Son of A Preacher Man," and "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me," international hits. In Dancing With Demons, two of her closest friends, Valentine and Wickham, capture, with vivid memories and personal anecdotes, a Dusty most people never glimpsed in this no-holds-barred yet touching portrait of one of the world's true grand dames of popular music.

Tell Me Why: The Beatles: Album By Album, Song By Song, The Sixties And After


Tim Riley - 1988
    Riley offers a new, deeper understanding of the Beatles by closely considering each song and album they recorded in an exploration as rigorous as it is soulful. He tirelessly sifts through the Beatles discography, making clear that the legendary four were more than mere teen idols: They were brilliant innovators who mastered an extremely detailed art. Since the first publication of Tell Me Why in 1988, much new primary source material has appeared -- Paul McCartney's authorized biography, the Anthology CDs and videos, the complete Parlophone-sequenced albums on CD, the Live at the BBCsessions, and the global smash 1. Riley incorporates all the new material in an update that makes this a crucial book for Beatles fans.

Paramore


Ben Welch - 2009
    Combining muscular guitars and driving rhythms with an irresistible pop sensibility, their blistering live show and endlessly dynamic front woman Hayley Williams has taken them from club shows in their hometown to sell-out arena dates across the world - and earned them a fiercely dedicated fan-base along the way. But with their success has come the pressure of growing up under the media's scrutiny. Small-town kids from Tennessee thrust into international stardom, they have had to negotiate their adolescence alongside the demands of a gruelling tour schedule and numerous line-up changes. This test of character brought them to the brink of collapse. And yet, from this adversity Paramore returned with their most confident, accomplished and deeply personal album to date - Brand New Eyes. This unauthorised book is the first to tell their story and details the early years forming the band, their explosive debut record, the strident, platinum-selling follow-up Riot! and their status in late 2009 as the 'next major rock act' in the world.

Life on Two Legs


Norman J. Sheffield - 2013
    For the next 15 years, Trident Studios, was at the epicentre of the music industry, recording some of the era's greatest artists, from The Beatles and David Bowie to Elton John and Genesis. Trident also developed their own talent, including a raw and demanding four-piece band called Queen. After an acrimonious split with Trident, their volatile leader Freddie Mercury famously dedicated a song to Norman: Death On Two Legs. In Life On Two Legs, this legendary music figure breaks his forty year silence and sets the record straight, not just about Freddie and Queen but also about artists from John Lennon and Marc Bolan to Harry Nilsson and Phil Collins and the recording of such classics as Hey Jude by The Beatles and Space Oddity by David Bowie. Funny, fascinating and occasionally irreverent - and with a foreword by Sir Paul McCartney - this is an unmissable memoir that brings to vivid life some of rock's greatest characters as well as the era and the studio that produced some of its classic music.

Duran Duran: Notorious


Steve Malins - 2005
    With their punk roots, state-of-the-art videos, and notoriously hedonistic lifestyle, they captivated audiences around the world. This new book traces their remarkable story: their rise to fame, their split in 1985, and the ensuing splinter groups, drug addiction, and rehabilitation. In 2001, the original five members regrouped and are enjoying a level of recognition and popularity that few serious music critics would have predicted. Their mixture of synth and swagger has ultimately triumphed due to the core friendships of the band, their flair for memorable pop hooks, and an ambition that dwarfed most of their contemporaries.

Dave Matthews Band: Step Into the Light


Morgan Delancey - 1998
    This revised edition includes 75 exclusive photos and two new chapters that chart the band’s activities from 1998 to 2001, right up to the release of Everyday and the mysterious discovery of the Lillywhite sessions. Included is fascinating commentary on Before These Crowded Streets, Live at Luther College, and Listener Supported. The personal lives of each band member are expanded upon, and new coverage of DMB tours, the creation of Dave’s own record label, and the worldwide growth of DMB fans is provided.

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: The Short and Gilded Life of Tara Browne, the Man Who Inspired The Beatles' Greatest Song


Paul Howard - 2016
    One of Swinging London's most popular faces, he lived fast, died young and was immortalized for ever in the opening lines of 'A Day in the Life', a song that many critics regard as The Beatles' finest. But who was John Lennon's lucky man who made the grade and then blew his mind out in a car?Author Paul Howard has pieced together the extraordinary story of a young Irishman who epitomized the spirit of the times: racing car driver, Vogue model, friend of The Rolling Stones, style icon, son of a peer, heir to a Guinness fortune and the man who turned Paul McCartney on to LSD.I Read the News Today, Oh Boy is the story of a child born into Ireland's dwindling aristocracy, who spent his early years in an ancient castle in County Mayo, and who arrived in London just as it was becoming the most exciting city on the planet. The Beatles and the Stones were about to conquer America, Carnaby Street was setting the style template for the world and rich and poor were rubbing shoulders in the West End in a new spirit of classlessness. Among young people, there was a growing sense that they could change the world. And no one embodied the ephemeral promise of London's sixties better than Tara Browne.Includes a sixteen-page plate section of stunning colour photographs.

Patti Smith: Dream of Life


Steven Sebring - 2008
    Except for this month's Patti Smith: Dream of Life, which isn't so much a glossy centerpiece as it is an addictive pictorial of the godmother of punk's life as a poet, activist, mother, style icon, and all-around kick-ass front woman." ~Elle "With the Rizzoli imprint, we have come to expect certain things: perfect printing, the highest quality papers, flawless binding, superior layouts and type. This historic book is no different." ~SoHo Journal

The King and Dr. Nick: What Really Happened to Elvis and Me


George Nichopoulos - 2009
    Nick."Dr. Nichopoulos spent a decade with Elvis on the road and at Graceland, trying to maintain the precarious health of one of the world’s greatest entertainers. But on August 16, 1977, he found himself in the ambulance with Elvis on that fateful last trip to the ER. He signed the death certificate.From that day forward, Dr. Nick became the focus of a media witch hunt that threatened his life and all but destroyed his professional reputation. Now, for the first time, Dr. Nick reveals the true story behind Elvis’s drug use and final days—not the version formed by years of tabloid journalism and gross speculation. Put aside what you’ve learned about Elvis’s final days and get ready to understand for the first time the inner workings of “the king of rock n’ roll.”

Chocolate and Cheese


Hank Shteamer - 2011
    Nearly two decades on, though, Aaron "Gene Ween" Freeman and Mickey "Dean Ween" Melchiondo preside over one of the most devoted cult fan bases in American music. So how exactly did Ween manage to transcend joke-band oblivion?One answer is that, in the years following their MTV breakthrough, Ween gradually polished their output, turning their staunchly primitive musical sketches into hi-fi paintings. Chocolate and Cheese, released in 1994, marked Freeman and Melchiondo's first crucial steps in this direction. Based on new, in-depth interviews with both members of Ween, as well as producer Andrew Weiss and associates ranging from Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) to Spike Jonze, this book explores the song-by-song creation of Chocolate and Cheese and how the album served as a bridge between Ween's original two-guys-and-a-4-track incarnation and the rich, virtuosic rock & roll force they would later become.

Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four's Instruments, from Stage to Studio


Andy Babiuk - 2002
    New Large Hardcover with dust jacket

The Walrus and the Elephants: John Lennon's Years of Revolution


James A. Mitchell - 2013
    Lennon was quickly embraced by radicals and revolutionaries, the hippies and Yippies at odds with the establishment. Settling in Greenwich Village, the heart of Manhattan's counterculture, the former Beatle was soon on the frontlines of the antiwar movement, and championing a range of causes and issues. Seen as a savior by a generation in need of cultural heroes, Lennon was just as passionately hounded by a government eager to find enemies within. The FBI and White House considered Lennon a threat; a plan was devised to deport the singer prior to the election as a "strategic counter-measure" to preserve Richard Nixon's presidency in 1972.The Walrus and the Elephants is told by the unlikely cast of friends, including the musicians of Elephant's Memory, who were among the few with a chance to see the man behind the Beatle. Exclusive interviews include writer and feminist leader Gloria Steinem; congressional black caucus cofounder Ron Dellums; "Chicago Seven" veteran Rennie Davis; immigration attorney Leon Wildes; and legendary poet-activist John Sinclair, whose imprisonment for marijuana--a ten-year sentence for two joints--kicked off Lennon's American journey.It was a busy year of making albums, controversial TV appearances and what would be Lennon's last full-length concert at Madison Square Garden; it was a time of great change in America, the confrontations that began brewing in the sixties reaching an end for many movements . . . and the beginning of a new era. John Lennon fought for peace and was treated with scorn by some, suspicion by others--including a government wishing to silence the singer. The Walrus and the Elephants is a look back by those who fought the fight; he was a dreamer, but he wasn't the only one.

Instamatic Karma: Photographs of John Lennon


May Pang - 2008
    I didn't want to intrude on these moments, but John insisted. He felt that I captured him in ways that no one else did because of his comfort level with me...For years, only my closest friends got to see these photos--which were literally tucked away in a shoebox in my closet. They were surprised that these images did not convey the John that was portrayed in the press during our time together. In fact, they saw a side of John seldom seen."--From INSTAMATIC KARMAJohn Lennon is the most famously photographed Beatle--everyone from Iain MacMillian to Annie Lebowitz took iconic images of him--but there have never been pictures of him like these taken by May Pang, Lennon's girlfriend from 1973 to 1975. In INSTAMATIC KARMA, they're collected for the first time. With very few exceptions, these photos are that rare thing: never-before-seen images of an icon. The photos here show Lennon in a variety of settings: at work, at play, at home, and away. They show a playful Lennon, a casual, unguarded Lennon; they're the kind of photos one lover takes of another. May has written rich captions to accompany her photos--taken together, they tell a simple story of the time May and Lennon spent together; a time, according to legend, when Lennon was unhappy and unproductive, estranged from his family and bandmates. Pang's photos clearly tell another story--they show Lennon clowning around, working on his hit album "Walls and Bridges," embracing old friends and family, hanging out in their apartment on Manhattan's East 52nd Street, relaxing in the country in upstate New York or spending peaceful days swimming in the waters of Long Island.The photographs in INSTAMATIC KARMA are both color and black & white, casual Polaroids and more composed shots. Each one is an intimate glimpse into a fascinating time in John Lennon's life.