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Books > Music > Composers & musicians
Riverdance exploded across the stage at Dublin's Point Theatre one
spring evening in 1994 during a seven-minute interval of the
Eurovision Song Contest hosted by Ireland. It was a watershed
moment in the cultural history of a country embracing the future, a
confident leap into world music grounded in the footfall of the
choreographed kick-line. It was a moment forty-five years in the
making for its composer. In this tenderly unfurled memoir Bill
Whelan rehearses a lifetime of unconscious preparation as step by
step he revisits his past, from with his Barrington Street home in
1950s Limerick, to the forcing ground of University College Dublin
and the Law Library during the 1960s, to his attic studio in
Ranelagh. Along the way the reader is introduced to people and
places in the immersive world of fellow musicians, artists and
producers, friends and collaborators, embracing the spectrum of
Irish music as it broke boundaries, entering the global slipstream
of the 1980s and 1990s. As art and commerce fused, dramas and
contending personalities come to view behind the arras of stage,
screen and recording desk. Whelan pays tribute to a parade of those
who formed his world. He describes the warmth and sustenance of his
Limerick childhood, his parents and Denise Quinn, won through
assiduous courtship; the McCourts and Jesuit fathers of his early
days, the breakthrough with a tempestuous Richard Harris who
summoned him to London; Danny Doyle, Shay Healy, Dickie Rock,
Planxty, The Dubliners and Stockton's Wing, Noel Pearson, Sean O
Riada; working with Jimmy Webb, Leon Uris, The Corrs, Paul
McGuinness, Moya Doherty, John McColgan, Jean Butler and Michael
Flatley. Written with wry, inimitable Irish humour and insight,
Bill Whelan's self deprecation allows us to to see the players in
all their glory, vulnerability and idiosyncracy. This fascinating
work reveals the nuts, bolts, sheer effort and serendipities that
formed the road to Riverdance in his reinvention of the Irish
tradition for a modern age. As the show went on to perform to
millions worldwide, Whelan was honoured with a 1997 Grammy Award
when Riverdance was named the 'Best Musical Show Album.' Richly
detailed and illustrated, The Road to Riverdance forms an enduring
repository of memory for all concerned with the performing arts.
An annotated reference guide to Barber's life, works and
achievements, it will prove valuable for anyone seeking information
on him.
The BBC Proms is the world's biggest and longest-running classical
music festival and one of the jewels in the crown for the BBC. Held
every summer at the Royal Albert Hall in London, it is one of the
strongest brand names in the music world and attracts a glittering
array of artists and orchestras. Whether you're a first-time
visitor or an experienced Prommer, watching at home or listening on
radio or online, the BBC Proms Guide will be an excellent companion
to a remarkable summer of music, which you can treasure and return
to in years to come. Filled with the latest programme details and
illuminating articles by leading experts, journalists and writers,
the BBC Proms Guide gives a wide-ranging insight into the
performers and repertoire, as well as thought-provoking opinion
pieces about audiences, music and music-making. The contents for
2021 include a specially commissioned short story by award-winning
author Chibundu Onuzo; an exploration of music and silence by
author, commentator and broadcaster Will Self; a celebration of the
history and influence of the iconic Royal Albert Hall 150 years
after its opening by historian, author, curator and television
presenter Lucy Worsley; a tribute to anniversary composer Igor
Stravinsky; and an article spotlighting the remarkable Kanneh-Mason
siblings (spearheaded by royal-wedding cellist Sheku).
Leonard Cohen opens in Los Angeles on the last night of the man s
life in 2016. Alone in his final hours, the beloved writer and
musician ponders his existence in a series of flashbacks that
reveal the ups and downs of a storied career. A young Cohen traded
in the promise of steady employment in his family s Montreal
garment business for the unlikely path of a literary poet. His life
took another sharp turn when, already in his thirties, he recorded
his first album to widespread international acclaim. Along the way
he encountered a who s who of musical luminaries, including Lou
Reed, Nico, Janis Joplin, and Joni Mitchell. And then there s Phil
Spector, the notorious music impresario who held a gun to Cohen s
head during a coke-fueled, all-night recording session. Later in
Cohen s life, there s the story of Hallelujah, one of his most
famous songs, and its slow rise from relative obscurity when first
recorded in the 1980s to its iconic status a decade later with
covers by John Cale and Jeff Buckley. And the period when Cohen
went broke after his manager embezzled his lifetime savings, which
ironically sparked an unlikely career resurgence and several
worldwide tours in the 2000s. Written with careful attention to
detail and drawn with a palette of warm, lush colors by the
Quebec-based cartoonist Philippe Girard, Leonard Cohen is an
engaging portrait of a cultural icon.
The most widely used piano technique book ever written, The
Virtuoso Pianist was designed to develop agility and strength in
all the fingers as well as flexibility of the wrists. Exercises are
sequenced so that in each successive exercise, the fingers are
rested from the fatigue caused by the previous one. Translated from
the original French, this Masterwork edition includes the complete
Exercises 1-60 and is clearly engraved for easy reading. Hanon's
original introduction is included. He recommends that a student
have at least one year of experience before starting this book.
A General MIDI disk is available separately (Item #5715). The disk
contains varied styles of accompaniments including pop, classical
and jazz for Exercises 1-20.
When it comes to how societies commemorate their own distant dreams
and catastrophes, we often think of books, archives, or memorials
carved from stone. But in Time's Echo, Jeremy Eichler makes a
revelatory case for the power of music as culture's memory, an art
form uniquely capable of carrying forward meaning from the past.
Eichler shows how four towering composers - Richard Strauss, Arnold
Schoenberg, Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich - lived
through the era of the Second World War and the Holocaust and later
transformed their experiences into deeply moving works of music,
scores that carry forward the echoes of lost time. A lyrical
narrative full of insight and compassion, this book deepens how we
think about the legacies of war, the presence of the past, and the
profound possibilities of art in our lives today.
The lives, loves, adventures and trailblazing musical careers of
four extraordinary women from a stunning debut biographer.
'Magnificent.' Kate Mosse 'Riveting.' Antonia Fraser 'A breath of
fresh air.' Kate Molleson 'Fascinating.' Alexandra Harris
'Wonderful.' Claire Tomalin 'Splendid.' Miranda Seymour
'Remarkable.' Fiona Maddocks 'Pioneering.' Andrew Motion Ethel
Smyth (b.1858): Famed for her operas, this trailblazing queer
Victorian composer was a larger-than-life socialite, intrepid
traveller and committed Suffragette. Rebecca Clarke (b.1886): This
talented violist and Pre-Raphaelite beauty was one of the first
women ever hired by a professional orchestra, later celebrated for
her modernist experimentation. Dorothy Howell (b.1898): A prodigy
who shot to fame at the 1919 Proms, her reputation as the 'English
Strauss' never dented her modesty; on retirement, she tended
Elgar's grave alone. Doreen Carwithen (b.1922): One of Britain's
first woman film composers who scored Elizabeth II's coronation
film, her success hid a 20-year affair with her married composition
tutor. In their time, these women were celebrities. They composed
some of the century's most popular music and pioneered creative
careers; but today, they are ghostly presences, surviving only as
muses and footnotes to male contemporaries like Elgar, Vaughan
Williams and Britten - until now. Leah Broad's magnificent group
biography resurrects these forgotten voices, recounting lives of
rebellion, heartbreak and ambition, and celebrating their musical
masterpieces. Lighting up a panoramic sweep of British history over
two World Wars, Quartet revolutionises the canon forever.
Wild Mood Swings: Disintegrating The Cure Album by Album, Martin
Popoff's innovative new project on iconic post-punk pioneers The
Cure, celebrates 50 years now since key actor of the band Robert
Smith got hold of his first guitar. And the form this celebration
takes is a critical analysis of the band's 13 studio albums,
utilising a panel of thoughtful and engaging music critics culled
from the author's and Marco D'Auria's video channel, The
Contrarians. Presented in easy-to-read Q&A format, Martin
gathers these wise music swamis into small teams with an aim toward
deconstructing and reassembling each album, hopefully generating
myriad new ways for the reader and Cure fan to appreciate the
band's seminal records, beginning with Three Imaginary Boys in 1979
and ending with 4:13 Dream in 2008. As bonus to the discussion,
Popoff has created a detailed timeline linked to each album,
echoing the format used for his many celebrated visual biographies
issued through Wymer Publishing in recent years. The end result
presents a fresh methodology with which to consider a band's
catalogue, with the hope being that the mix of hard chronological
reference material and freewheeling opinion, review and analysis
makes for a lively celebration of-and subsequent richer
appreciation for-everything Robert Smith has done for millions of
Cure fans around the world, much of it therapeutic, redemptive and
in so many inspiring instances, urgently life-saving.
In 1976 with punk rock all the rage a trio called The Police hopped
on board, but bassist/vocalist Sting and drummer Stewart Copeland
had an ulterior motive. They posed as punks in hopes of getting
signed and would then make the sophisticated music they truly
wanted to. With Stewart's brother Miles as manager, the gambit paid
off and the debut single 'Fall Out' was issued in 1977. When
seasoned guitarist Andy Summers saw the band, he forced his way in
which led to Henry Padovani departing and the classic lineup was
now in place. From 1978-1983 The Police released five brilliant
albums that took in rock, reggae, world music and more. By 1983
they'd become the biggest band in the world, but egos and arguments
took their toll and Sting left to become a massive solo success and
the group split in 1986. A reunion tour in 2007-08 broke box office
records and happily closed the door on the band. This book details
every song and album from the first single to the last, making it a
comprehensive guide to the music of one of the greatest bands in
music history with sales of over 100 million worldwide
Newly discovered recordings of a music legend in his own remarkable
words: punk, Buzzcocks and the inspiration behind some of greatest
songs ever written. *** A ROUGH TRADE UK BOOK OF THE YEAR A LOUDER
THAN WAR BOOK OF THE YEAR "Fascinating" - MOJO "As close as anyone
was ever going to get to really understanding Pete Shelley" - UNCUT
"The memoir that Pete Shelley never had a chance to write" - LOUDER
THAN WAR "Lots of great stories... A fascinating insight." - JOHN
MAHER, Buzzcocks When Pete Shelley, lead singer of legendary punk
band Buzzcocks, passed away in 2018 we lost the chance to hear one
of music's brightest stars tell his story. Or so it seemed. Now,
recordings have surfaced of a series of remarkable interviews in
which Pete tells the story of his life, his band and his place at
the beating heart of the punk explosion in fascinating detail.
Recorded over a series of late-night calls with a close friend, the
tapes hear Pete talk song-by-song through Buzzcocks releases to
reveal the personal memories behind the music and the inspiration
for masterpieces such as 'Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You
Shouldn't've)' and 'What Do I Get?'. Published for the first time
and with the blessing of Pete's estate, Ever Fallen In Love: The
Lost Buzzcocks Tapes is a tribute to a founding member of punk and
a chance to hear one of music's true visionaries tell his own story
at last. "Perfectly executed, highly detailed, incredibly
interesting." - HENRY ROLLINS, Black Flag "Pete and Buzzcocks were
there right from the beginning." -BERNARD SUMNER, Joy Division, New
Order "A true gentleman and a great artist and songwriter." - PETER
HOOK, Joy Division, New Order "Shot through with self-doubt and
mild regret, Pete Shelley's lovesick pop classics have a
bittersweet charm that will forever speak to the young romantic" -
JOHN COOPER CLARKE "Buzzcocks were the blue touchpaper for my love
of music. Pure pop met punk and the result was perfection." - TIM
BURGESS, The Charlatans
Roger Daltrey is the voice of a generation. That generation was the
first to rebel, to step out of the shadows of the Second World
War... to invent the concept of the teenager. This is the story
from his birth at the height of the Blitz, through tempestuous
school days to his expulsion, age 15, for various crimes and
misdemeanours within a strict school system. Thanks to Mr
Kibblewhite, his authoritarian headmaster, it could all have ended
there. The life of a factory worker beckoned. But then came rock
and roll. He made his first guitar from factory off-cuts. He formed
a band. The band became The Who - Maximum R&B - and, by luck
and by sheer bloody-mindedness, Roger Daltrey became the frontman
of one of the biggest rock bands on the planet. This is the story
of My Generation, Tommy and Quadrophenia, of smashed guitars,
exploding drums, cars in swimming pools, fights, arrests and
redecorated hotel rooms. But it is also the story of how that
post-war generation redefined the rules of youth. Out of that, the
modern music industry was born - and it wasn't an easy birth.
Money, drugs and youthful exuberance were a dangerous mix. This is
as much a story of survival as it is of success. Four years in the
making, this is the first time Roger Daltrey has told his story. It
is not just his own hilarious and frank account of more than 50
wild years on the road. It is the definitive story of The Who and
of the sweeping revolution that was British rock 'n' roll.
The definitive biography of country legend Merle Haggard by the New
York Times bestselling biographer of Clint Eastwood, Cary Grant,
The Eagles, and more.Merle Haggard was one of the most important
country music musicians who ever lived. His astonishing musical
career stretched across the second half of the 20th Century and
into the first two decades of the next, during which he released an
extraordinary 63 albums, 38 that made it on to Billboard's Country
Top Ten, 13 that went to #1, and 37 #1 hit singles. With his ample
songbook, unique singing voice and brilliant phrasing that
illuminated his uncompromising commitment to individual freedom,
cut with the monkey of personal despair on his back and a chip the
size of Monument Valley on his shoulder, Merle's music and his
extraordinary charisma helped change the look, the sound, and the
fury of American music.The Hag tells, without compromise, the
extraordinary life of Merle Haggard, augmented by deep secondary
research, sharp detail and ample anecdotal material that biographer
Marc Eliot is known for, and enriched and deepened by over 100 new
and far-ranging interviews. It explores the uniquely American life
of an angry rebellious boy from the wrong side of the tracks bound
for a life of crime and a permanent home in a penitentiary, who
found redemption through the music of "the common man."Merle
Haggard's story is a great American saga of a man who lifted
himself out of poverty, oppression, loss and wanderlust, to
catapult himself into the pantheon of American artists admired
around the world. Eliot has interviewed more than 100 people who
knew Haggard, worked with him, were influenced by him, loved him or
hated him. The book celebrates the accomplishments and explore the
singer's infamous dark side: the self-created turmoil that
expressed itself through drugs, women, booze, and betrayal. The Hag
offers a richly anecdotal narrative that will elevate the life and
work of Merle Haggard to where both properly belong, in the
pantheon of American music and letters.The Hag is the definitive
account of this unique American original, and will speak to readers
of country music and rock biographies alike.
'This band has no past' was the first line of the farcical
biography printed on the inner sleeve of Cheap Trick's first album,
but the band, of course, did have a past--a past that straddles two
very different decades: from the tumult of the sixties to the
anticlimax of the seventies, from the British Invasion to the
record industry renaissance, with the band's debut album arriving
in 1977, the year vinyl sales peaked. This Band Has No Past tells
the story of a bar band from the Midwest--the best and weirdest bar
band in the Midwest-- and how they doggedly pursued a most unlikely
career in rock'n'roll. It traces every gnarly limb of the family
tree of bands that culminated in Cheap Trick, then details how this
unlikely foursome paid their dues--with interest--night after
night, slogging it out everywhere from high schools to bars to
bowling alleys to fans' back yards, before signing to Epic Records
and releasing two brilliant albums six months apart. Drawing on
more than eighty original interviews, This Band Has No Past is
packed full of new insights and information that fans of the band
will devour. How was the Cheap Trick logo created? How did the
checkerboard pattern come to be associated with the band? When did
Rick Nielsen start wearing a ballcap 24/7? Who caught their mom and
dad rolling on the couch? What kind of beer did David Bowie drink?
And when might characters like Chuck Berry, Frank Zappa, Don
Johnson, Otis Redding, Eddie Munster, Kim Fowley, John Belushi, Jim
Belushi, Elvis Presley, Leslie West, Groucho Marx, Robert F.
Kennedy, Patti Smith, Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, The Coneheads, Tom
Petty, Harvey Weinstein, Michael Mann, Linda Blair, Eddie Van
Halen, Elvis Costello, Matt Dillon, and Pam Grier turn up? Read on
and find out.
As featured in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, The A.V. Club,
Consequence, Mashable, Mental Floss, Book Riot and more! "Weird Al"
Yankovic continues as one of our most beloved comedians, actors,
and musicians. A skilled accordion player and lyricist, the
California native not only crafts meticulous parodies, but also
creates hilarious originals and pop culture-themed polkas. Now in
his fifth decade of recording and performing, Al has maintained a
career that has outlasted many of the artists that he has
lampooned. Since 1980, Al's drummer Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz has been
by his side, photographing and documenting his career. Jon has
taken more than 20,000 images of Al in his element: on tour, in the
studio, on video sets, and backstage. Lights, Camera, Accordion!
presents over 300 images of Al, culled from Jon's personal
collection of color photography, all restored from the original
negatives. This exhaustive volume represents the 25 years that Jon
shot Al on 35mm color film, from 1981 to 2006, before switching to
digital photography. Jon additionally provides previously unheard
stories and anecdotes throughout. From "Eat It" and "Like a
Surgeon" to later classics such as "Smells Like Nirvana," "Amish
Paradise," and the Star Wars parody "The Saga Begins," Lights,
Camera, Accordion! showcases a body of work that spans ten albums,
five Grammys, and nearly 2,000 concerts to millions of fans - and
is packed with the weirdness and fun that always surrounds the
undisputed king of comedic music.
An American drummer, a bass player from Newcastle and a guitarist a
decade older than the other two, with little in common other than
their musical brilliance and towering ambition, formed one of the
most successful bands in history. Covering the years 1977-1986 and
the brief reincarnation in 2007-2008, acclaimed biographers
Caroline and David Stafford chronicle the rise and fall of the
Police. Much like Reservoir Dogs but without the light relief, it's
a tale of jealousy, anger and attrition both on the road and in the
studio. And yet, despite - or perhaps because of - the battles,
these three musicians, Sting, Andy and Stewart, each supremely
talented in his own right, together achieved a symbiosis that
produced music of soaring magnificence.
Interest in Pink Floyd remains as intense as ever even 40 years
after the release of Dark Side of the Moon, with lavish box-sets
collecting demos and out-takes, and Roger Waters' world tours of
The Wall playing to packed stadiums. Now, Mark Blake's superbly
comprehensive and engrossing history of the group, rightly
acclaimed as the definitive book on the band, has been fully
revised and extended with new interviews to bring the story up to
date with the recent appearances of David Gilmour and Nick Mason
with Roger Waters at a London date on his The Wall tour.
THE SUNDAY TIMES MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR A TELEGRAPH BEST MUSIC BOOK
OF THE YEAR A NEW STATESMAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Faith, Hope and
Carnage is a book about Nick Cave's inner life. Created from more
than forty hours of intimate conversations with the journalist Sean
O'Hagan, this is a profoundly thoughtful exploration, in Cave's own
words, of what really drives his life and creativity. The book
examines questions of belief, art, music, freedom, grief and love.
It draws candidly on Cave's life, from his early childhood to the
present day, his loves, his work ethic and his dramatic
transformation in recent years. Faith, Hope and Carnage offers
ladders of hope and inspiration from a true creative visionary.
Pete Brown is a lot of things. A major songwriting talent who was
responsible for Cream's classic musical moments, important
collaborations with Jack Bruce and such notable experiments in jazz
and rock as The Battered Ornaments, Graham Bond and countless
progressive music groups. A talented poet who helped pioneer the
emerging UK Beat scene in the sixties, making history with his
earliest performances and going poetic toe to toe with the likes of
Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso. He was
also a child of war and the memories of The Blitz are still with
him to this day. He is an anarchist at heart who believes in the
mantra of telling it like it is and has done as much through the
decades of a songwriter, musician, producer and poet. Within
certain circles Pete Brown is a legend, a creative force of nature
who is constantly on the move to the next big thing. To much of the
world, Pete Brown is an unknown quantity, known for his Cream fame
and not much else. With this book, Pete Brown: The Poet Who Rocks,
the creative whirlwind will be on full display. This is Pete Brown.
Now his story can be told.
A household name, an Australian rock icon, the elder statesman of
Ozrock - there isn't an accolade or cliche that doesn't apply to
Jimmy Barnes. But long before Cold Chisel and Barnesy, long before
the tall tales of success and excess, there was the true story of
James Dixon Swan - a working class boy whose family made the
journey from Scotland to Australia in search of a better life.
Working Class Boy is a powerful reflection on a traumatic and
violent childhood, which fuelled the excess and recklessness that
would define, but almost destroy, the rock'n'roll legend. This is
the story of how James Swan became Jimmy Barnes. It is a memoir
burning with the frustration and frenetic energy of teenage sex,
drugs, violence and ambition for more than what you have. Raw,
gritty, compassionate, surprising and darkly funny - Jimmy Barnes's
childhood memoir is at once the story of migrant dreams fulfilled
and dashed. Arriving in Australia in the Summer of 1962, things
went from bad to worse for the Swan family - Dot, Jim and their six
kids. The scramble to manage in the tough northern suburbs of
Adelaide in the 60s would take its toll on the Swans as dwindling
money, too much alcohol, and fraying tempers gave way to violence
and despair. This is the story a family's collapse, but also a
young boy's dream to escape the misery of the suburbs with a
once-in-a-lifetime chance to join a rock'n'roll band and get out of
town for good.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2021 AND THE PENDERYN MUSIC
BOOK PRIZE 2022 THE LANDMARK MEMOIR OF A GLOBAL MUSIC ICON Sinead
O'Connor's voice and trademark shaved head made her famous by the
age of twenty-one. Her recording of Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U
made her a global icon. She outraged millions when she tore up a
photograph of Pope John Paul II on American television. O'Connor
was unapologetic and impossible to ignore, calling out hypocrisy
wherever she saw it. She has remained that way for three decades.
Now, in Rememberings, O'Connor tells her story - the heartache of
growing up in a family falling apart; her early forays into the
Dublin music scene; her adventures and misadventures in the world
of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll; the fulfilment of being a mother;
her ongoing spiritual quest - and through it all, her abiding
passion for music. Rememberings is intimate, replete with candid
anecdotes and full of hard-won insights. It is a unique and
remarkable chronicle by a unique and remarkable artist. 'Inspiring,
liberating, hilarious and fascinating' Irish Times 'Beautifully
observed ... lyrical, funny and anguished' Guardian 'Her voice on
the page is as fearless, riveting and unforgettable as her voice in
song. The cadence alone is hypnotic, her story essential.
Rememberings is a must-read' Michael Stipe 'So good, you'll want to
read it twice' Sunday Independent 'A soul-bearing, brutally honest
account of an extraordinary life' BBC Online 'Tremendous . . .
fierce and funny' Sunday Times Books of the Year
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