The Golden Road and Beyond: A Grateful Dead Primer


Grateful Dead - 2011
    Includes brand-new artwork, listenable discography, and original essays by Dennis McNally, the band's longtime publicist.

James Taylor Long Ago and Far Away: His Life and His Music


Timothy White - 2001
    This new edition has been updated by his friend and former Rolling Stone comrade Mitch Glazer and includes an epilogue about the memorial concerts for Timothy that James Taylor helped organize.

L.E.O.: The True Stories of Lt. Wayne Cotes


Wayne Cotes - 2018
    Some of his tales will seem far fetched, unless you're a cop and then you know that anything can happen - and just when you think you've seen it all, someone will surprise you.

Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man


Marcus Baram - 2014
    He tantalized audiences with his charismatic stage presence, and his biting, observant lyrics in such singles as "The Bottle" and "Johannesburg" provide a time capsule for a decade marked by turbulence, uncertainty, and racism. While he was exalted by his devoted fans as the “black Bob Dylan” (a term he hated) and widely sampled by the likes of Kanye West, Prince, Common, and Elvis Costello, he never really achieved mainstream success. Yet he maintained a cult following throughout his life, even as he grappled with the personal demons that fueled so many of his lyrics. Scott-Heron performed and occasionally recorded well into his later years, until eventually succumbing to his life-long struggle with addiction. He passed away in 2011, the end to what had become a hermit-like existence.In this biography, Marcus Baram--an acquaintance of Gil Scott-Heron's--will trace the volatile journey of a troubled musical genius. Baram will chart Scott-Heron's musical odyssey, from Chicago to Tennessee to New York: a drug addict's twisted path to redemption and enduring fame. In Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man, Marcus Baram puts the complicated icon into full focus.

Preachin' the Blues: The Life & Times of Son House


Daniel Beaumont - 2011
    So begins Preachin' the Blues, the biography of American blues signer and guitarist Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. (1902 - 1988). House pioneered an innovative style, incorporating strong repetitive rhythms with elements of southern gospel and spiritual vocals. A seminal figure in the history of the Delta blues, he was an important, direct influence on such figures as Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson. The landscape of Son House's life and the vicissitudes he endured make for an absorbing narrative, threaded through with a tension between House's religious beliefs and his spells of commitment to a lifestyle that implicitly rejected it. Drinking, womanizing, and singing the blues caused this tension that is palpable in his music, and becomes explicit in one of his finest performances, "Preachin' the Blues." Large parts of House's life are obscure, not least because his own accounts of them were inconsistent. Author Daniel Beaumont offers a chronology/topography of House's youth, taking into account evidence that conflicts sharply with the well-worn fable, and he illuminates the obscurity of House's two decades in Rochester, NY between his departure from Mississippi in the 1940s and his "rediscovery" by members of the Folk Revival Movement in 1964. Beaumont gives a detailed and perceptive account of House's primary musical legacy: his recordings for Paramount in 1930 and for the Library of Congress in 1941-42. In the course of his research Beaumont has unearthed not only connections among the many scattered facts and fictions but new information about a rumoured murder in Mississippi, and a charge of manslaughter on Long Island - incidents which bring tragic light upon House's lifelong struggles and self-imposed disappearance, and give trenchant meaning to the moving music of this early blues legend.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: A Life Beyond Her Wildest Dreams


Darwin Porter - 2014
    So does Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, who lives again in this "warts-and-all" portrait. It's being released on the 20th anniversary of the tragic death, in 1994, of the icon who changed America's beliefs about what a woman of style, power, and influence could accomplish "behind the throne" of men whose careers changed the course of history. During her tumultuous life, she zealously guarded her privacy and her secrets, but in the wake of her death, more and more revelations have emerged about her frustrations, her rage, her passions, her towering strengths, and her delicate fragility, which she hid from the glare of the world behind oversized sunglasses. Within this posthumous biography, a three-dimensional woman emerges through the compilation of some 1,000 eyewitness testimonials from men and women who knew her over a period of decades. The public epitome of charm, grace, and elegance, the private, chain-smoking Jackie was known for her sharp wit and her acid tongue, dissing some of the great men and women she encountered. Examples include such figures as Nancy Reagan ("I heard she used to give the best head in Hollywood when she was a starlet at MGM"); Queen Elizabeth II ("pompous, stuffy, a heavy trip, and seriously pissed off at me for turning on Philip"); or Martin Luther King, Jr. ("a terrible man and a tricky, phony, skirt-chaser and race baiter"). This outspoken testimonial to the flimsier side of Camelot contains a cornucopia of gossip and intrigue, including details about Jackie's scandalous love affairs with her two brothers-in-law (Bobby and Teddy), and her penchant for movie star seductions (Warren Beatty, Paul Newman, William Holden). Also detailed are her famous feuds with Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, and Maria Callas; her almost unknown love affairs with Spain's greatest matador and with Peter Lawford; her night in Georgetown coping with LBJ's aborted seduction; her friend Rudolf Nureyev's pursuit of both her and Bobby; her interchanges with Lem Billings, JFK's homosexual "First Friend" whom Bobby defined as "Jack's other wife"); her blood feud with Christina Onassis; her sibling rivalry with Lee Radziwill; her illicit affair with a senator nicknamed "Gorgeous George; her love-hate relationship with Frank Sinatra; and her Italian fling with Fiat's kingpin, Gianni Agnelli, who taught her all about La Dolce Vita during the summer of 1962. Conceived in direct and sometimes defiant contrast to the avalanche of more breathlessly respectful testimonials to the life and legacy of "America's Queen," this book is the latest installment in Blood Moon's endlessly irreverent BABYLON series.

Ronnie


Ronnie Wood - 2007
    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.

Love Him Madly: An Intimate Memoir of Jim Morrison


Judy Huddleston - 2013
    Judy Huddleston’s parents had just gotten divorced, and she spent her last year of high school attending Doors concerts. Transformed from a perceptive child into a rebellious teenager bent on attracting boys and fueled by psychedelics, she had lost her sense of self. Then Jim Morrison came into her life.Love Him Madly chronicles Judy’s four-year relationship with the singer. Honest and funny, written in the idealistic but jaded voice of a teenager, this intensely intimate memoir is a cautionary tale about sex, codependence, and misplaced spirituality. It also provides a direct and unprecedented view of a late-1960s Los Angeles subculture, an emotional portrayal of a sexual relationship with a man whose demons haunted everyone he knew, and a vivid portrait of Jim Morrison as a complex human being. A balanced portrait of an unbalanced relationship, Love Him Madly is an intense, moving, and poetic journey through one teenage girl’s unforgettable fall from innocence.

A Woman Like Me


Bettye LaVette - 2012
    An inspiring, no-holds-barred, audacious memoir by Bettye LaVette, one of R&B's greatest legends - guaranteed to make news, and make hearts break, too.

The Curious Story of Malcolm Turnbull, the Incredible Shrinking Man in the Top Hat


Andrew P. Street - 2016
    You know, again.

The Sixth String of Vilayat Khan


Namita Devidayal - 2018
    He broke hearts and he broke rules. He tinkered as furiously with his car as he did with his instrument, which he transformed technically to create the new sitar standard. And always there was the music, at the centre of his being, protected and unharmed—music that contained the sound of ‘fairies dancing, elephants walking’. Vilayat Khan saw music. He was the man who made the sitar sing. .Namita Devidayal, author of the acclaimed bestseller, The Music Room, recreates the extraordinary life of an artiste who fundamentally and forever changed Indian instrumental music. She follows his footsteps from Calcutta, through Delhi, Bombay, Shimla and Dehradun, to Princeton, USA, where he spent his last years. Filled with previously untold stories about the man and the musician, this is an intimate portrait of an uncommon genius. .It is also an absolute feat of research—and storytelling. .‘Vilayat Khan and Ravi Shankar promised each other they would never perform together after this. Kishan Maharaj later told someone, ‘If these two eyes of India play together again, one will shut for ever.’ i

The Rise and Fall of the House of Bo


John Garnaut - 2012
    Now, as the Party's 18th National Congress oversees the biggest leadership transition in decades, and installs the Bo family's long-time rival Xi Jinping as president, China's rulers are finding it increasingly difficult to keep their poisonous internal divisions behind closed doors.Bo Xilai's breathtaking fall from grace is an extraordinary tale of excess, murder, defection, political purges and ideological clashes going back to Mao himself, as the princeling sons of the revolutionary heroes ascend to control of the Party. China watcher John Garnaut examines how Bo's stellar rise through the ranks troubled his more reformist peers, as he revived anti-'capitalist roader' sentiment, even while his family and associates enjoyed the more open economy's opportunities. Amid fears his imminent elevation to the powerful Standing Committee was leading China towards another destructive Cultural Revolution, have his opponents seized their chance now to destroy Bo and what he stands for? The trigger was his wife Gu Kailai's apparently paranoid murder of an English family friend, which exposed the corruption and brutality of Bo's outwardly successful administration of the massive city of Chongqing. It also led to the one of the highest-level attempted defections in Communist China's history when Bo's right-hand man, police chief Wang Lijun, tried to escape the ruins of his sponsor's reputation.Garnaut explains how this incredible glimpse into the very personal power struggles within the CCP exposes the myth of the unified one-party state. With China approaching super-power status, today's leadership shuffle may set the tone for international relations for decades. Here, Garnaut reveals a particularly Chinese spin on the old adage that the personal is political.

Everything Is Combustible


Richard Lloyd - 2017
    Lloyd recounts the founding of Television, the band's rise alongside other bands and personalities in the 1970’s New York Music scene, and the legend-making of the unparalleled music venue CBGB. As the rock ‘n’ roll tales unfold, he accompanies them with insights into his approach to music and the electric guitar.Lloyd’s mid-career vignettes detail his solo years, including the backstory of critically praised records such as Alchemy and Field of Fire, his drug addiction and recovery, his 90s-era work, and touring adventures with artists such as Matthew Sweet, John Doe, and Robert Quine. Throughout the book is an undercurrent—Lloyd’s continually evolving spiritual-philosophical approach to life, emerging from the conscious digestion of the highs and the lows—both ends of the same stick.In Everything is Combustible, Richard Lloyd relates his life, both inner and outer, in the narrative style, digging beneath the events and revealing their meanings.Considered a foundational band of alternative rock, Television’s debut record, Marquee Moon, is widely viewed by critics and musicians as one of the greatest albums ever recorded. As one half of Television’s unique guitar sound, and a legendary solo artist in his own right, Richard Lloyd’s music has influenced a range of bands and artists from U2, Johnny Marr and Joy Division to R.E.M., Sonic Youth, Wilco and John Frusciante.

Party Out of Bounds: The B-52's, R.E.M., and the Kids Who Rocked Athens, Georgia


Rodger Lyle Brown - 1991
    (Music)

Walk This Way: Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song That Changed American Music Forever


Geoff Edgers - 2019
     The early 1980s were an exciting time for music. Hair metal bands were selling out stadiums, while clubs and house parties in New York City has spawned a new genre of music. At the time, though, hip hop's reach was limited, an artform largely ignored by mainstream radio deejays and the rock-obsessed MTV network.But in 1986, the music world was irrevocably changed when Run-DMC covered Aerosmith's hit "Walk This Way" in the first rock-hip hop collaboration. Other had tried melding styles. This was different, as a pair of iconic arena rockers and the young kings of hip hop shared a studio and started a revolution. The result: Something totally new and instantly popular. Most importantly, "Walk This Way" would be the first rap song to be played on mainstream rock radio.In Walk This Way, Geoff Edgers sets the scene for this unlikely union of rockers and MCs, a mashup that both revived Aerosmith and catapulted hip hop into the mainstream. He tracks the paths of the main artists--Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Joseph "Run" Simmons, and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels--along with other major players on the scene across their lives and careers, illustrating the long road to the revolutionary marriage of rock and hip hop. Deeply researched and written in cinematic style, this music history is a must-read for fans of hip hop, rock, and everything in between.