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    During his six-decade career, he has played with all the greats. His career sky-rocketed when Crosby, Stills & Nash played only their second gig together at Woodstock in 1969. With the addition of Neil Young, the band would go on to play the first rock stadium tour in 1974. Stephen Stills is the only person to have been inducted twice in one night into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

    But before this instant accessibility and dizzying array of formats before CDs, the eight-track tape, the radio, and the turntable there was only one recording technology: music notation. It allowed singers and soloists to travel across great distances and perform their work with stunning fidelity, a feat that we now very much take for granted. Thomas Forrest Kelly transports us to the lively and complex world of monks and monasteries, of a dove singing holy chants into the ear of a saint, and of bustling activity in the Cathedral of Notre Dame an era when the only way to share even the simplest song was to learn it by rote, church to church and person to person. With clarity and a sense of wonder, Kelly tells a story that spans five hundred years, leading us on a journey through medieval Europe and showing how we learned to keep track of rhythm, melody, and precise pitch with a degree of accuracy previously unimagined.Kelly reveals the technological advances that led us to the system of notation we use today, placing each step of its evolution in its cultural and intellectual context. Companion recordings by the renowned Blue Heron ensemble are paired with vibrant illuminated manuscripts, bringing the art to life and allowing readers to experience something of the marvel that medieval writers must have felt when they figured out how to capture music for all time."

    In 1988 Frank Zappa toured with a twelve-piece band that had rehearsed for months, learned a repertoire of over 100 songs and played an entirely different set each night. It is why, in Zappa's own words, it was -the best band you never heard in your life- - a reference to East Coast American audiences who never got the chance to see this particular touring ensemble. Zappa appointed bass player Scott Thunes to rehearse the group in his absence. In carrying out this role, Thunes was apparently abrasive, blunt and rude to the other members and two factions quickly developed: Thunes and stunt guitarist Mike Keneally on the one side; the remaining nine band members on the other. The atmosphere deteriorated as the tour progressed through America and on to Europe. Before leaving Europe, Zappa told the band that there were ten more weeks of concerts booked in the USA and asked them: -If Scott's in the band, will you do the tour?- With the exception of Keneally, they all said -no-. Rather than replace Thunes, Zappa cancelled almost three months of concerts and never toured again - claiming to have lost $400,000 in the process. 'Zappa The Hard Way' documents that tour. If you think touring can be fun, think again! Yes there were groupies and the usual paraphernalia associated with rock 'n' roll, but there was also bitterness and skulduggery on a scale that no one could imagine. Author Andrew Greenaway has interviewed the surviving band members and others associated with the tour to unravel the goings on behind the scenes that drove Zappa to call a halt to proceedings, despite the huge personal financial losses. This paperback edition includes a foreword by Zappa's sister Candy, and an afterword by Pauline Butcher, Zappa's former secretary and author of 'Freak Out! My Life With Frank Zappa', 'Zappa The Hard Way' might just be the best book you've never read in your life!

    But perhaps more important is his role as a social critic, and the vital influence his music had on the civil rights movement. "People Get Ready" is the black anthem of the 1960s, and on his soundtrack to the 1972 movie Super Fly, rather than glorifying the blaxploitation imagery of the film, Mayfield wrote and sang one of the most incisive audio portraits of black America on record. In Traveling Soul, Todd Mayfield tells his famously private father’s story in riveting detail. Born into dire poverty, raised in the slums of Chicago, Curtis became a musical prodigy, not only singing like a dream but also growing into a brilliant songwriter. In the 1960s he became a pioneer, opening his own label and production company and working with many other top artists, including the Staple Singers. Curtis’s life was famously cut short by an accident that left him paralyzed, but in his declining health he received the long-awaited recognition of the music industry. Passionate, illuminating, vivid, and absorbing, Traveling Soul will doubtlessly take its place among the classics of music biography.

    Liberally dabbling in his product, his judgment gets cloudier and he starts snorting heroin and sleeping with his supplier’s girlfriend, a green-eyed beauty named Jane. Jason also meets Melanie, a rebellious one-armed high-school girl who’s youthful abandonment leads her deeper into the nomadic world of the Dead. And as his addiction takes hold, Jason reacquaints himself with an old friend of his late father’s who’s near the end of his days. While he struggles with the ghosts of his own past and his exceedingly tenuous future, Jason has to decide where his heart lies and which road will ultimately take him there.

    Like the character, Miley lives a dual life: normal teenager by day and superstar by night. Miley has conquered television, music, and movies--and she's still in high school! What's next for America's favorite teen star?

    All nine songs from the soundtrack to the fantasy film follow-up to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, featuring music from composer Harry Gregson-Williams, as well as Regina Spektor ("The Call") and Switchfoot ("This Is Home"). Also features great full-color scenes from the film. Includes: Arrival at Aslan's How * A Dance 'Round the Memory Tree * The Door in the Air * Journey to the How * The Kings and Queens of Old * Lucy * Return of the Lion.

    Like Einstein in science or Picasso in art, Toscanini (1867–1957) transcended his own field, becoming a figure of such renown that it was often impossible not to see some mention of the maestro in the daily headlines.Acclaimed music historian Harvey Sachs has long been fascinated with Toscanini’s extraordinary story. Drawn not only to his illustrious sixty-eight-year career but also to his countless expressions of political courage in an age of tyrants, and to a private existence torn between love of family and erotic restlessness, Sachs produced a biography of Toscanini in 1978. Yet as archives continued to open and Sachs was able to interview an ever-expanding list of relatives and associates, he came to realize that this remarkable life demanded a completely new work, and the result is Toscanini—an utterly absorbing story of a man who was incapable of separating his spectacular career from the call of his conscience.Famed for his fierce dedication but also for his explosive temper, Toscanini conducted the world premieres of many Italian operas, including Pagliacci, La Boheme, and Turandot, as well as the Italian premieres of works by Wagner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Debussy. In time, as Sachs chronicles, he would dominate not only La Scala in his native Italy but also the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. He also collaborated with dozens of star singers, among them Enrico Caruso and Feodor Chaliapin, as well as the great sopranos Rosina Storchio, Geraldine Farrar, and Lotte Lehmann, with whom he had affairs.While this consuming passion constantly blurred the distinction between professional and personal, it did forge within him a steadfast opposition to totalitarianism and a personal bravery that would make him a model for artists of conscience. As early as 1922, Toscanini refused to allow his La Scala orchestra to play the Fascist anthem, "Giovinezza," even when threatened by Mussolini’s goons. And when tens of thousands of desperate Jewish refugees poured into Palestine in the late 1930s, he journeyed there at his own expense to establish an orchestra comprised of refugee musicians, and his travels were followed like that of a king.Thanks to unprecedented access to family archives, Toscanini becomes not only the definitive biography of the conductor, but a work that soars in its exploration of musical genius and moral conscience, taking its place among the great musical biographies of our time.

    Thoughtfully curated and expertly researched, this is a book of classical music to keep you company: whoever you are, wherever you're from.'The only requirements for enjoying classical music are open ears and an open mind.' Clemency Burton-HillPlaylists are available on most streaming music platforms including Apple Music.

    Traces the evolution of the Dave Matthews Band, and describes their experiences on the road.

    For more than three decades since then, Ronnie, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts have formed the core of the greatest rock 'n' roll band in history. This book is Ronnie's autobiography, and like the band it can only be talked about in superlatives: it's simply one of the biggest, most outrageous, most extraordinary and most fun rock 'n' roll memoirs ever to be published.From early 1960s Britain, when acts like The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Who and The Rolling Stones crisscrossed the country's club scene in clapped-out vans, barely making ends meet but having the time of their lives, through to the global mega stadium concerts of the 21st century (in 2006 the Stones played live to more than two million people in Rio), Ronnie takes us on a journey through his life and through rock history. Filled with unforgettable characters and truly eye-popping stories, his autobiography reveals Ronnie the husband, father, grandfather, artist and rock star the way you have never seen any rock star before. Ronnie is an up-front and personal look at life as a Rolling Stone, from the inside, and at the Stones as the rest of the world has never seen them. After Ronnie , sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll will never be the same again.

    There couldn't be a better person to put together this tome than Hot Water Music's Chuck Ragan and here he's collected tales from members of the Gaslight Anthem, Rise Against, At The Drive-In and more, all of whom share their own unique perspective on travel. The road isn't always glamorous but for some of us it's in our blood. These are those stories.

    Later, this Bermondsey boy would become known as Tommy Steele . In this engaging memoir Tommy recalls his childhood years growing up in Bermondsey. He relives with great fondness Saturdays as a young boy, spent gazing at the colourful posters for the Palladium and days spent wandering up Tower Bridge Road to Joyce's Pie Shop for pie and mash. But he also brings to life with extraordinary vividness what it was like to live through the devastation of the Blitz. Yet it was once he joined the merchant navy and began singing and performing for his fellow seamen that his natural ability as an entertainer marked him out as a favourite. And it was while ashore in America that he became hooked on rock'n'roll and a legend was born . From Tommy's humble beginning to life at sea and finally as a performer, Bermondsey Boy is a colourful, charming and deeply engaging memoir from a much-loved entertainer.

    He continued to make great music while slowly returning to his Catholic roots. His hard-won wisdom filters through his stories whether he's recalling how he went shopping with John Lennon and ended up on the cover of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band or what it was like to travel in the Jim Crow South with Sam Cooke.Praise for Dion... "To this day nobody, nobody can rock like Dion."—Lou Reed "He always had the name that said it all...Dion."—Bruce Springsteen "If you want to hear a great singer, listen to Dion. His genius has never deserted him."—Bob DylanThe audio edition of this book can be downloaded via Audible.