Garcia: A Signpost To New Space


Jerry Garcia - 1972
    The guitarist and de facto leader of the Grateful Dead was a gregarious talker, keenly engaged with the new world exploding around him. In 1972, Garcia was visited by Charles Reich, a Yale law professor, and Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone. Garcia was just thirty-one years old but already viewed--to his lasting dismay--as a social avatar for the new sensibility sweeping the land, an anarchist streak with a populist undercurrent that had roots in Ken Kesey's pranksters, the writers of the Beat Generation, and the libertine tradition of the American transcendentalists. In this interview, Garcia reveals how he is a combination of these and other influences, a high-school dropout and autodidact blessed with a gift for eloquent turns of phrase and a refreshing directness. He speaks of the saga of the Grateful Dead and his hoodlum youth growing up in San Francisco's Mission district. He delves into fascinating discourses on the music that shaped his own playing and writing, and freely discusses his use of drugs and explains why he felt it was important to stay high. Like the Grateful Dead's best music, Garcia: A Signpost to New Space is familiar, friendly, and inviting.

Mustn't Grumble


Terry Wogan - 2006
    Written in a style familiar to his millions of listeners, rich with warmth and irony, Terry introduces his post-emergency Ireland, his chain-smoking maiden-aunts, his quick-witted mother and hard-working father and explains exactly how he's managed to avoid a hard day's work from childhood to knighthood.

Frank Sinatra: My Father


Nancy Sinatra - 1985
    the only authorized biography of the phenomenal superstar. From his boyhood in Hoboken to his first big breaks, from the heights and depths of Hollywood to Washington, New York, Brazil and the world, Nancy gives us the story of The Voice through many other voices, among them Cary Grant, Bing Crosby, Mia Farrow, Richard Burton, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. - and frequently in specially written personal commentary by Frank Sinatra himself. For the first time we come to know the complex, generous, controversial, charismatic man behind the elusive image. Much has been written about Francis Albert Sinatra - but the truth behind his agonies and triumphs is now revealed with the intimate understanding that only his daughter posesses.

The Clash: Return of the Last Gang in Town


Marcus Gray - 2002
    Revised and updated to cover the Clash's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the band members' post-Clash careers, The Clash: Return of the Last Gang in Town now includes the first full account of Joe Strummer's "Wilderness Years," his triumphant comeback with the Mescaleros, and his sudden and tragic early death. Extensively revised and updated from both its 1995 and 2001 incarnations, The Clash traces the band members' progress from dispiriting rehearsals in damp London basements to packed American stadiums. A fascinatingly detailed account of the first band to take punk's radical politics to the masses and survive for a decade against all the odds, it also offers an intriguing investigation into the gap between rock mythology and rock reality.

Rap Dad: A Story of Family and the Subculture That Shaped a Generation


Juan Vidal - 2018
    Throughout his life, neglectful men were the rule—his own dad struggled with drug addiction and infidelity—a cycle that, inevitably, wrought Vidal with insecurity. At age twenty-six, with only a bare grip on life, what lessons could he possibly offer a kid? Determined to alter the course for his child, Vidal did what he’d always done when confronted with life’s challenges. He turned to the counterculture. “The counterculture took the place of a father I could no longer touch. Since things like school and church couldn’t get through to me, I was being trained up outside of organized institutions. What I gravitated to were these movements that not only felt redeeming, but also freeing. They were almost everything I needed.” In Rap Dad, the musician-turned-journalist takes a thoughtful and inventive approach to exploring identity and examining how we view fatherhood in a modern context. To root out the source of his fears around parenting, Vidal revisits the flash points of his juvenescence, a feat that transports him, a first-generation American born to Colombian parents, back to the drug-fueled streets of 1980s–90s Miami. It’s during those pivotal years that he’s drawn to skateboarding, graffiti, and the music of rebellion: hip-hop. As he looks to the past for answers, he infuses his personal story with rap lyrics and interviews with some of pop culture’s most compelling voices—plenty of whom have proven to be some of society’s best, albeit nontraditional, dads. Along the way, Vidal confronts the unfair stereotypes that taint urban men—especially Black and Latino men—in today’s society. An illuminating journey of discovery, Rap Dad is a striking portrait of modern fatherhood that is as much political as it is entertaining, personal as it is representative, and challenging as it is revealing.

Tom Waits on Tom Waits: Interviews and Encounters


Paul Maher Jr. - 2011
    But along with Bob Dylan, he stands as one of the last elder statesmen still capable of putting out music that matters.            Journalists intent upon cracking the code are more likely to come out of a Waits interview with anecdotes about the weather, insects, or medieval medicine. He is, in essence, the teacher we wished we had, dispensing insights such as: “Vocabulary is my main instrument;” “We all like music, but what we really want is for music to like us;” “Anything you absorb you will ultimately secrete;” “Growth is scary, because you’re a seed and you’re in the dark and you don’t know which way is up, and down might take you down further into a darker place . . .;” and “There is no such thing as nonfiction. . . . People who really know what happened aren’t talking. And the people who don’t have a clue, you can’t shut them up.”           Tom Waits on Tom Waits is a selection of over fifty interviews from the more than five hundred available. Here Waits delivers prose as crafted, poetic, potent, and haunting as the lyrics of his best songs.

Harry Styles: 150 Facts You Need To Know!


Jessica Stewart - 2013
    Discover 150 Amazing facts and secrets about British superstar Harry Styles!Do you know everything there is to know about Harry Styles? In 150 Facts You Need to Know about Harry, author and Directioner Jessica Stewart brings you 150 fantastic facts about your favorite hearthrob, including: What his family thinks of him What he looks for in a girl What his life was like before the fame His weird hobbies and habits What drives him crazy Funny Stories And MUCH MORE!!Find out if you're a true Directioner!

Dancing on My Grave


Gelsey Kirkland - 1986
    The shattering story of a dream which became a heartbreaking nightmare for one of America's most famous ballerinas, Gelsey Kirkland, who chronicles her brilliant start as a dancer with George Balanchine, her legendary partnership with Mikhail Baryshnikov, her agonizing descent into drugs, and her struggles to rise again.

God, Guns Rock'N'Roll


Ted Nugent - 2000
    Rock and Roll legend Ted Nugent contends that a lot of what is wrong with this country could be remedied by a simple, but controversial concept: gun ownership.

Crossroads: The Life and Music of Eric Clapton


Michael Schumacher - 1995
    His brilliant musicianship inspired his fans in London to scrawl graffiti in the underground train proclaiming, "Clapton is God." Nearly forty years later, this multi-million selling, Grammy award-winning virtuoso guitarist is still winning adulation from a whole new generation of fans.Crossroads, the definitive portrait of the man and his music, reveals with compassion and insight both the depths of Clapton's pain and the roots of his musical power. Michael Schumacher traces his career from the early years of the Yardbirds and John Mayall to the legendary supergroups Cream and Derek and the Dominoes to the solo career that has lasted a quarter of a century. Crossroads also explores the tumultuous life -- his heroin addiction, the excruciating relationship with Patti Boyd (George Harrison's wife and the woman who inspired the classic "Layla"), the year of 1990 when he lost four close friends, and the devastating death of his four-year-old son Connor the following year. Both revealing and sympathetic, this is the ultimate look at the enduring legend who transformed personal suffering into lasting artistic triumph.-- Revised and updated to include details on Clapton's new marriage and his recent recordings and tour-- Complete with a comprehensive discography and tour history

Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince


Alex Hahn - 2003
    Few artists have accomplished what Prince Rogers Nelson has: he has topped the R&B, pop and dance charts, he has overwhelmed musicians and critics with his seemingly endless wealth of talent, he has outraged, and he has inspired.

Is That It?


Bob Geldof - 1986
    He has rallied the forces of rock performers all over the world and inspired millions to raise millions for the starving in Africa. He has met with world leaders and demanded that they change their aid policies. He has travelled in Africa and seen famine first-hand, and he has overseen the disbursement of the millions that Band Aid has raised. In this vividly honest autobiography, written with wit, candour and characteristic energy, Geldof recounts his extraordinary childhood in Dublin and schooldays that were both horrifying and funny. He describes the origins of New Wave music and the beginnings, triumphs, and eventual eclipse of the Boomtown Rats. He writes of his years with Paula Yates, the formation of Band Aid and its achievements and he writes of his hopes for the future. Widely admired, Bob Geldof is nonetheless ferociously independent and remains the most charismatic and controversial public figure in Britain today.

Pearl Jam: Place/Date


Lance Mercer - 1998
    Having sold over 30 million albums since its triumphant 1991 debut 10, Pearl Jam brought the hard-edged, estranged and oftentimes angry sound of Seattle to the musical forefront. They pioneered a movement in music and culture that quickly became known as grunge. Imitators followed, and the band could have quickly lost touch with its fans and unpretentious ideals and become simply a money-making celebrity group. Instead, Eddie Vedder and the members of Pearl Jam took on the establishment: challenging Ticketmaster's control over concert venues and ticket prices and refusing media any access to the band--even through music videos--during the peak of their success. Pearl Jam's disappearance from media and from traditional touring has intensified the loyalty of its fans and has refocused the band's attention on its original musical center. Despite the lack of advertising and recent shifts in musical trends, Pearl Jam concerts repeatedly sell out within hours for the hundreds of thousands who remain devoted to a group that continues to uphold its musical and political integrity. Allowed access to the concerts, jam sessions, and private moments of Pearl Jam's members, photographers Charles Peterson and Lance Mercer provide a heretofore unseen record of the Pearl Jam experience for new and diehard fans alike.

Mary Wells: The Tumultuous Life of Motown's First Superstar


Peter Benjaminson - 2012
    Based in part on four hours of previously unreleased and unpublicized deathbed interviews with Wells, this account delves deeply into her rapid rise and long fall as a recording artist, her spectacular romantic and family life, the violent incidents in which she was a participant, and her abuse of drugs. From tumultuous affairs, including one with R&B superstar Jackie Wilson, to a courageous battle with throat cancer that climaxed in her gutsiest performance, this history draws upon years of interviews with Wells’s friends, lovers, and husband to tell the whole story of a woman whose songs crossed the color line and whose voice captivated the Beatles.

The Rise of David Bowie, 1972-1973


Mick Rock - 2016
    With it landed Bowie s Stardust alter-ego: A glitter-clad, mascara-eyed, sexually-ambiguous persona who kicked down the boundaries between male and female, straight and gay, fact and fiction into one shifting and sparkling phenomenon of 70s self-expression. Together, Ziggy the album and Ziggy the stage spectacular propelled the softly spoken Londoner into one of the world s biggest stars.A key passenger on this glam trip into the stratosphere was fellow Londoner and photographer Mick Rock. Rock bonded with Bowie artistically and personally, immersed himself in the singer s inner circle, and, between 1972 and 1973, worked as the singer s photographer and videographer.This collection, featuring around 50 percent previously unpublished images, brings together spectacular stage shots, iconic photo shoots, as well as intimate backstage portraits. With a lenticular cover of different headshots, it celebrates Bowie s fearless experimentation and reinvention, while offering privileged access to the many facets of his personality and fame. Through the aloof and approachable, the playful and serious, the candid and the contrived, the result is a passionate tribute to a brilliant and inspirational artist whose creative vision will never be forgotten.