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Complete Lyrics of Bob Marley: Songs of Freedom.


Bob Marley - 2001
    From his earliest songs of the 1960s to his years with Island Records, these are the potent lyrics to the international reggae sound that was to make Bob Marley an unforgettable music legend.

Jonah Lomu Autobiography


Jonah Lomu - 2004
    His size and pace seemed to make him unstoppable - and he was still just 20, having only recently learned to play on the wing. How much better would he get? But a year later, a rare and serious kidney disorder threatened more than his career. He fought back, and continued to score tries at a remarkable rate.Lomu's astonishing story is not just about tries, but about adapting to becoming rugby's first superstar of the professional era, a life lived in the spotlight. This is an extraordinary tale from an extraordinary man.

Midnight Riders: The Story of the Allman Brothers Band


Scott Freeman - 1995
    This history includes the band's blues roots, their wild early days on the road and their recent resurgence.

The Nick Tosches Reader


Nick Tosches - 2000
    He can be elegant as a slow blues." The Nick Tosches Reader is the author's own selection of his best work over the past thirty years, including fiction, poetry, interviews, rock writing, investigative journalism, and criticism. First published in major magazines, obscure underground periodicals, and his own best-selling books, many of these selections deal with rock 'n' roll and cultural icons—but there are also pieces on everything from William Faulkner to organized crime to heavyweight boxing, including the Vanity Fair feature that gave rise to Tosches's major new book on Sonny Liston, published by Little, Brown. Here is "a unique and darkly impressionistic cultural history" of the last three decades as only Nick Tosches could write it.

Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman


Nancy B. Reich - 1985
    At once artist, composer, editor, teacher, wife, and mother of eight children, she was an important force in the musical world of her time. To show how Schumann surmounted the obstacles facing female artists in the nineteenth century, Nancy B. Reich has drawn on previously unexplored primary sources: unpublished diaries, letters, and family papers, as well as concert programs. Going beyond the familiar legends of the Schumann literature, she applies the tools of musicological scholarship and the insights of psychology to provide a new, full-scale portrait.The book is divided into two parts. In Part One, Reich follows Clara Schumann's life from her early years as a child prodigy through her marriage to Robert Schumann and into the forty years after his death, when she established and maintained an extraordinary European career while supporting and supervising a household and seven children. Part Two covers four major themes in Schumann's life: her relationship with Johannes Brahms and other friends and contemporaries; her creative work; her life on the concert stage; and her success as a teacher.Throughout, excerpts from diaries and letters in Reich's own translations clear up misconceptions about her life and achievements and her partnership with Robert Schumann. Highlighting aspects of Clara Schumann's personality and character that have been neglected by earlier biographers, this candid and eminently readable account adds appreciably to our understanding of a fascinating artist and woman.For this revised edition, Reich has added several photographs and updated the text to include recent discoveries. She has also prepared a Catalogue of Works that includes all of Clara Schumann's known published and unpublished compositions and works she edited, as well as descriptions of the autographs, the first editions, the modern editions, and recent literature on each piece. The Catalogue also notes Schumann's performances of her own music and provides pertinent quotations from letters, diaries, and contemporary reviews.

Double Nickels on the Dime


Michael T. Fournier - 2007
    Including extensive interviews with Mike Watt and many others close to and inspired by the band, this is a great tribute to a classic piece of American underground music.Included are extensive interviews with Mike Watt, the band's bass player, as well as interviews with several artists, musicians, studio owners, and fanzine writers who have been devoted followers of the band for years.

Captain Beefheart: The Biography


Mike Barnes - 2000
    The owner of a remarkable four-and-one-half octave vocal range, he employs idiosyncratic rhythms, absurdist lyrics, and an unholy alliance of free jazz, Delta blues, latter-day classical music, and rock & roll to create a singular body of work virtually unrivalled in its daring creativity.

The Best Bar Trivia Book Ever: All You Need for Pub Quiz Domination


Michael O'Neill - 2014
    president's daughter?Brimming with answers to popular questions like these, The Best Bar Trivia Book Ever arms you with the knowledge your team needs to annihilate your bar trivia competition. This must-have guide features hundreds of facts, covering everything from sports and pop culture to history and science, so that you're always ready to deliver the ultimate trivia smackdown. You'll also get all the ins and outs of your favorite event with information on important bar trivia rules, assembling a team, and claiming victories week after week.Whether you're new to the scene or want to dominate at your local bar, this book will help your team outsmart the competition every single week!

Driving Stevie Fracasso


Barry Divola - 2021
    What could possibly go wrong? For fans of Nick Hornby, David Nicholls and Jonathan Tropper.Jaded music journalist Rick McLennan knows his life is going south when he loses his job, his apartment and his long-term girlfriend all on the same day. But then he is thrown a lifeline - a commission to write the story of his ex-rock-star brother, Stevie, and drive him from Austin, Texas, to New York to play one final gig. One small problem: the brothers haven't spoken in thirty years.Rick knows it's a bad idea. But he's out of choices. So he gets behind the wheel of a beaten-up 1985 Nissan Stanza and drives towards his destiny. He's about to find everything he didn't know he was missing. It's September 2001.From award-winning journalist and author Barry Divola comes a glorious, music-infused, rollicking road-trip novel - think High Fidelity meets The Big Lebowski meets The Darjeeling Limited. A smart, funny and wholly endearing story about how, though we may at times lose ourselves along the way, the road always leads back to family and the things that bring us joy.'Of course this road trip comes with a top-quality mix-tape - it's by Barry Divola - but it's the layers to this story, and its humour and its heart, that make this journey irresistible.' - Nick Earls'This book is the super f∗∗∗ing gnarly lead break of rock-lit novels.' - John Birmingham'Driving Stevie Fracasso reads as great as the fifth Replacements album sounds. It's a New York-centric, music-obsessive tale of humour and poignancy, the literary equivalent of hanging with folks who think going to church is finding a record fair. A+' - Stuart CoupeAn interpreter of the listening experience forced to listen to experience? This novel will be read in between flippin' records. Go for the ride. You'll be spent, you'll be grateful.' - Tim Rogers'If I could go back in time and take a different fork in the road, I would have lived like Barry Divola. But poor choices can't be unmade, and if Driving Stevie Fracasso is the only ride available I'll take it. Damn you, Barry Divola, you've been having everyone else's fun.' - Malcolm Knox

Abba Gold


Elisabeth Vincentelli - 2004
    More than that, its release in 1992 heralded the critical rehabilitation of a group which had, since its demise a decade earlier, become little more than a memory of trashy costumes and cheesy tunes to many people. Here, Elisabeth Vincentelli charts the circumstances surrounding the birth of Abba Gold, looks at the impact it had on the music world, and tells the stories behind some of the greatest pop songs ever recorded.

The Ultimate Scale Book


Troy Stetina - 1999
    Everything you ever wanted to know about scales, but were afraid to ask! This book fills you in on major and minor scales; the modes; the blues scale; harmonic minor, melodic minor, chromatic, whole tone & diminished scales; other exotic and ethnic scales; and more. Includes easy-to-read fretboard diagrams, and a bio of Troy Stetina.

Smallwood's Piano Tutor


William Smallwood - 1994
    The player is then guided through elementary daily exercises and eventually introduced to major and minor scales with complimentary short pieces which makes use of the appropriate scale progression. This tutor also includes a very useful dictionary of musical terms.

Joni: The Creative Odyssey of Joni Mitchell


Katherine Monk - 2012
    When her peers were focused on feminism, Mitchell was plumbing the depths of her own human condition. When arena rock was king, she turned to jazz. When all others hailed Bob Dylan as a musical messiah, Mitchell saw a fraud burdened with halitosis. Unafraid to "write in her own blood," regardless of the cost, Mitchell has been vilified as a diva and embraced as a genius, but rarely has she been recognized as an artist and a thinker.This new portrait of the reclusive icon examines how significant life events;failed relationships, the surrender of her infant daughter, debilitating sicknes have influenced her creative expression. Katherine Monk captures the rich legacy of her multifaceted subject in this offbeat account, weaving in personal reflections and astute cultural observations, and revealing the Mitchell who remains misunderstood.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Biography


Piero Melograni - 2003
    His substantial oeuvre contains works that are considered to be among the most exquisite pieces of symphonic, chamber, and choral music ever written. His operas too cast a long shadow over those staged in their wake. And since his untimely death in 1791, he remains an enigmatic figure—the subject of fascination for aficionados and novices alike. Piero Melograni here offers a wholly readable account of Mozart’s remarkable life and times. This masterful biography proceeds from the young Mozart’s earliest years as a Wunderkind—the child prodigy who traveled with his family to perform concerts throughout Europe—to his formative years in Vienna, where he fully absorbed the artistic and intellectual spirit of the Enlightenment, to his deathbed, his unfinished Requiem, and the mystery that still surrounds his burial. Melograni’s deft use of Mozart’s letters throughout confers authority and vitality to his recounting, and his expertise brings Mozart’s eighteenth-century milieu evocatively to life. Written with a gifted historian’s flair for narrative and unencumbered by specialized analyses of Mozart’s music, Melograni’s is the most vivid and enjoyable biography available.At a time when music lovers around the world are paying honor to Mozart and his legacy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will be welcomed by his enthusiasts—or anyone wishing to peer into the mind of one of the greatest composers ever known.

Scram!: The Gripping First-hand Account of the Helicopter War in the Falklands


Harry Benson - 2012
    This is the thrilling untold story of the young helicopter pilots -- most barely out of their teens -- who risked their lives during this brief but ferocious war. In April 1982 Harry Benson was a 21 year-old Royal Navy commando helicopter pilot, fresh out of training and one of the youngest helicopter pilots to serve in the Falklands War. These pilots, nicknamed 'junglies', flew most of the land-based missions in the Falklands in their Sea King and Wessex helicopters. Much of what happened in the war -- the politics, task force ships, Sea Harriers, landings, Paras and Marines -- is well-known and documented. But almost nothing is known of the young commando helicopter pilots and aircrewmen who made it all happen on land and sea. This is their 'Boys Own' story, told for the very first time. Harry Benson has interviewed forty of his former colleagues for the book creating a tale of skill, initiative, resourcefulness, humour, luck, and adventure. This is a fast-paced, meticulously researched and compelling account written by someone who was there, in the cockpit of a Wessex helicopter.  None of these pilots has spoken before about: - The two helicopter crashes and eventual rescue following a failed SAS mission high up on an in hospitable glacier in South Georgia - The harrowing story of the Exocet strike that sunk the transport ship Atlantic Conveyor - The daring missile raid on the Argentine high command in Port Stanley - The constant mortar fire faced while supporting troops and evacuating casualties - The hair-raising head-on attacks by Argentine jets on British helicopters - The extraordinary courage shown during the evacuation of the bombed landing ship 'Sir Galahad'  If you liked Apache, Vulcan 607 and Chickenhawk, you'll love Scram!  The word "Scram" was coined by Falklands helicopter pilots to warn other 'junglies' to go to ground or risk being shot down as Argentinean jets blasted through 'bomb alley'. The term has never been used before or since.