Music-History & Criticism

With striking photographs and personal insight, a compelling biography of the great American saxophonist and free jazz innovator Ornette Coleman. Ornette Coleman's career encompassed the glory years of jazz and the American avant-garde. Born in segregated Fort Worth, Texas, during the Great Depression, the...

Known for The Fest, Less Than Jake and Hot Water Music, Gainesville became a creative hub in the 1980s and '90s for many of punk rock's greats.Whether playing at the Hardback or wild house parties, earnest acts like Against Me!, Spoke and Roach Motel...

Rap music from New York and Los Angeles once ruled the charts, but nowadays the southern sound thoroughly dominates the radio, Billboard, and MTV. Coastal artists like Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, and Ice-T call southern rap "garbage," but they're probably just jealous, as artists like...

It's October 1977, and the Rolling Stones are in a Paris recording studio. They're under siege. Keith Richards's legal troubles after his arrest for heroin possession threaten the band's future, and the broad consensus among rock aficionados is that the band will never again...

1985. Dinosaur, still without the Jr. Not hardcore anymore, but not yet anything else either. First live shows: fearsomely loud. First record, a fearsome mess: a raw miscellany thrown together from small-town ennui, the apathy of the middle classes, and all the things teenage...

It has been more than thirty-five years since Jimi Hendrix died, but his music and spirit are still very much alive for his fans everywhere. Charles R. Cross vividly recounts the life of Hendrix, from his difficult childhood and adolescence in Seattle through his...

Last Night's Fun's is a sparking celebration of music and life that is itself a literary performance of the highest order. Carson's inspired jumble of recording history, poetry, tall tales, and polemic captures the sound and vigor of a ruthlessly unsentimental music. Last Night's...

Issued on America's premier rap label at the peak of the thrash metal movement, Slayer's controversial Reign in Blood remains the gold standard for extreme heavy metal, a seamless 29-minute procession of ten blindingly fast, apocalyptic songs. The first English book about Slayer explores...

Hailed by Publishers Weekly as "not only the best writing on the ever-changing folk singer, but also some of the best writing about any musician around," Studio A presents Bob Dylan's unique literary legacy in a collection that is quintessentially Dylan: mosaic, offbeat, poetic....

Steven Hyden explores nineteen music rivalries and what they say about life in this "highly entertaining" book (Rolling Stone) perfect for every passionate music fan. Beatles vs. Stones. Biggie vs. Tupac. Kanye vs. Taylor. Who do you choose? And what does that say about...

Previously published as Invisible Republic and already considered a classic of modern American cultural criticism, this is an updated edition of Greil Marcus's acclaimed book on the secret music made by Bob Dylan and the Band in 1967, which introduced a phrase that has...

For more than thirty years, Jerry Garcia was the musical and spiritual center of the Grateful Dead, one of the most popular rock bands of all time. In Dark Star, the first biography of Garcia published after his death, Garcia is remembered by those...

The Wollongong music scene is now well and truly on the map, thanks to Hockey Dad, the Yours and Owls Festival and the Farmer and the Owl label. They spearheaded a golden age for the local scene, where people outside Wollongong finally realised what...

The wood used by master craftsmen to create many of the world's legendary stringed instruments--violins and cellos, mandolins and guitars--comes from seven near-mythic European forests. In his latest book, Jeffrey Greene takes the reader into those woodlands and into luthiers' workshops to show us...

A funny, fierce, and uninhibited musical chronicle of the convulsive recent past from one of our finest cultural critics "A one-of-a-kind guide to rock music's resonance in every aspect of our lives."--David Kirby, Wall Street Journal "A smart set of suggestions for further reading,...

"[The book] should appeal greatly to the string performer, student or teacher, and to the enthusiast of music history." -- Choice. "Nelson's book should be read by every player and teacher of violin and viola . . . Her chapter 'Education for Survival' must...

Paul McCartney and John Lennon described him as the Beatles' "favorite group," he won Grammy awards, wrote and recorded hit songs, and yet no figure in popular music is as much of a paradox, or as underrated, as Harry Nilsson. In this first ever...

From the critically acclaimed author of Temperament, a narrative account of the most defining moments in musical history--classical and jazz--all of which forever altered Western culture "A fascinating journey that begins with the origins of musical notation and travels through the centuries reaching all...

A map and guide to where it was at in Los Angeles from the dawn of rock'n'roll to the beginnings of punk - from Central Avenue R&B clubs to Rodney's English Disco. Featured are homes and hangouts, recording studios and label HQs, with an...

World Music: A Global Journey, Fifth Edition, explores the diversity of musical expression around the world, taking students across the globe to experience cultural traditions that challenge the ear, the mind, and the spirit. It surveys world music within a systematic study of the...

Few music groups have been able to sustain a fan base as passionate and dedicated as that of Pearl Jam, and this entertaining guide rewards those fans with everything they need to know about the band in a one-of-a-kind format. Packed with history, trivia,...

Released in 1970, Workingman's Dead was the breakthrough album for the Grateful Dead, a cold-water-shock departure from the Acid Test madness of the late '60s. It was the band's most commercially and critically successful release to date. More importantly, these songs established the blueprint...

So much, popular and scholarly, has been written about the synthesizer, Bob Moog and his brand-name instrument, and even Wendy Carlos, the musician who made this instrument famous. No one, however, has examined the importance of spy technology, the Cold War and Carlos's gender...

The story behind the making of the album that signaled the descent of Sylvester Sly Stone Stewart into a haze of drug addiction and delirium is captivating enough for the cinema. In the spacious attic of a Beverly Hills mansion belonging to John and...

From the field cries and work chants of Southern Negroes emerged a rich and vital music called the country blues, an intensely personal expression of the pains and pleasures of black life. This music--recorded during the twenties by men like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Big...

The term 'world music' encompasses both folk and popular music across the globe, as well as the sounds of cultural encounter and diversity, sacred voices raised in worship, local sounds, and universal values. It emerged as an invention of the West from encounters with...

A revised edition of this cult classic photographic exploration of 1980s music and fashion, alongside hundreds of never-seen-before photographs that will delight both fans of Sam Knee's work and new music and fashion aficionados. ''A glorious photographic compendium of styles and street cultures from...

Record Store Day: the Most Improbable Comeback of the 21st Century provides the official inside story on how Record Store Day managed to revive the vinyl format from oblivion over the past fifteen years with some of the biggest artists jumping at the chance...

While Eric Burdon may be best remembered for his unforgettable vocals on the Animals' platinum hit, "House of the Rising Sun," this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member has never stopped having adventures. Burdon was ripped off by unscrupulous agents, accountants, and record...

In the spring of 2013, the cicadas in the Northeastern United States emerged from their seventeen-year cycle--the longest gestation period of any animal. Those who experienced this great sonic invasion compared their sense of wonder to the arrival of a comet or a solar...

This book discusses the political content of music over the past 200 years, from the classical to the hip-hop genres and everything in between. Beginning with Beethoven, Courtney Brown describes how Beethoven's music has been used to support a wide variety of political views...

In the spring of 1969, the inauspicious release of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band's Trout Mask Replica, a double-album featuring 28 stream-of-consciousness songs filled with abstract rhythms and guttural bellows, dramatically altered the pop landscape. Yet even if the album did cast its...

Acclaimed for his writings on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as his passionate defense of black youth culture, Michael Eric Dyson has emerged as the leading African American intellectual of his generation. Now Dyson turns his attention to one of...

"Completely absorbing.... A comprehensive and hugely rewarding look at the Beatles' creativity." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) The Beatles changed the lifestyles and fashions of youth throughout the world, and were cultural leaders of a generation. This book does what no other Beatles book...

Author: Per NilsenISBN-10: 1789521017ISBN-13: 9781789521016Publisher: Sonicbond PublishingLanguage: EnglishPublished: 07/15/2021Pages: 192Format: PaperbackWeight: 0.50lbsSize: 8.20h x 5.80w x 0.60d

In the early 1970s, the Minneapolis music scene was no scene at all. Radio stations played Top 40 music; bars and clubs booked only rock cover bands and blues bands. Meanwhile, cities like New York, Detroit, and London were spawning fresh and innovative and...

How does an underground oddity become a cultural phenomenon? For over 40 years, the rock band Kiss has galvanized the entertainment world with an unparalleled blitz of bravado, theatricality, and shameless merchandizing, garnering generations of loyally rabid fans. But if not for a few...

Ween now seems like a permanent fixture on the pop-cultural landscape, but when the band first hit MTV in the early '90s, their longevity wasn't so secure. Nearly two decades on, though, Aaron "Gene Ween" Freeman and Mickey "Dean Ween" Melchiondo preside over one...

After Rumours became the best-selling single album of all-time, Fleetwood Mac asked Warner Brothers Records to buy them a studio (the label refused, costing both Warner Brothers and the band significant cash in the long run) and then handed the reins to their guitarist...

The Jazz Masters: Setting the Record Straight is a celebration of jazz and the men and women who created and transformed it. In the twenty-one conversations contained in this engaging and highly accessible book, we hear from the musicians themselves, in their own words,...

This nostalgic, fully-illustrated history of boy bands -- written by culture critic and boy band stan Maria Sherman -- is a must-have for diehard fans of the genre and beyond. The music, the fans, the choreography, the clothes, the merch, the hair. Long after...

It's the summer of 1979. A fifteen-year-old boy listens to WNEW on the radio in his bedroom in Brooklyn. A monotone voice (it's the singer's) announces into dead air in between songs "The Talking Heads have a new album, it's called Fear of Music"...

An Epic Journey through the Golden Era of Rock & Roll Embark on a thrilling musical voyage with The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 1. The book traces the evolution of rock and roll from its humble origins in the 1920s, culminating in...

Desperados is the first full history to describe the development of ountry rock, the genre that spawned the world's bestselling record, The Eagles Greatest Hits (which has surpassed Michael Jackson's Thriller .Author: John EinarsonISBN-10: 0815410654ISBN-13: 9780815410652Publisher: Cooper Square PressLanguage: EnglishPublished: 01/16/2001Pages: 320Format: PaperbackWeight: 1.02lbsSize:...

Noted jazz author Ashley Kahn brings to life the behind-the-scenes story of Impulse Records, one of the most significant record labels in the history of popular music. "Kahn mingles engaging stories of corporate politics with insider accounts of music-making and anecdotal takes on particular...

In these fifty-two interviews, the greatest songwriters of our time go straight to the source of the magic of songwriting by offering their thoughts, feelings, and opinions on their art. Representing almost every genre of popular music, from folk to Tin Pan Alley to...

"There are no definitive histories," writes Elijah Wald, in this provocative reassessment of American popular music, "because the past keeps looking different as the present changes." Earlier musical styles sound different to us today because we hear them through the musical filter of other...

" A] vivid and lively account of those hectic and historic three days....The best fly-on-the-wall account, tantamount to having had a backstage pass to an iconic event."--New York PostCelebrate the 50th Anniversary of Woodstock with the definitive book on the festival.The Woodstock music festival...

1768 saw the birth of a century of struggle for democracy by the working people of Great Britain; it was also the golden age of the broadside ballad - inexpensive songsheets sold on the street, often spotlighting popular figures and spreading the word of...

Caravan have a history that stretches back over half a century, with a catalogue of music that ranges from progressive rock classics to pop gems that should have been hits. Lumped into that strange category known as 'the Canterbury Sound', they are both the...