"Book of the Year." -- MOJO Magazine"Outstanding Book of the Year." --The Herald (Glasgow) A Best Book of the Year by NPR, Pitchfork, The Telegraph, and UncutA tender and intimate memoir by one of the most remarkable, trailblazing, and tenacious women in music, the two-time Grammy Award-winning "premiere song-stylist and songwriter of her generation" (Hilton Als), Rickie Lee Jones This troubadour life is only for the fiercest hearts, only for those vessels that can be broken to smithereens and still keep beating out the rhythm for a new song. Last Chance Texaco is the first-ever no-holds-barred account of the life of two-time Grammy Award-winner Rickie Lee Jones in her own words. It is a tale of desperate chances and impossible triumphs, an adventure story of a girl who beat the odds and grew up to become one of the most legendary artists of her time, turning adversity and hopelessness into timeless music. With candor and lyricism, the "Duchess of Coolsville" (Time) takes us on a singular journey through her nomadic childhood, to her years as a teenage runaway, through her legendary love affair with Tom Waits and ultimately her longevity as the hardest working woman in rock and roll. Rickie Lee's stories are rich with the infamous characters of her early songs - "Chuck-E's in Love," "Weasel and the White Boys Cool," "Danny's All-Star Joint," and "Easy Money"-- but long before her notoriety in show business, there was a vaudevillian cast of hitchhikers, bank robbers, jail breaks, drug mules, a pimp with a heart of gold and tales of her fabled ancestors. In this tender and intimate memoir by one of the most remarkable, trailblazing, and tenacious women in music are never-before-told stories of the girl in the raspberry beret, a singer-songwriter whose music defied categorization and inspired American pop culture for decades.

Morton Feldman: Friendship and Mourning in the New York Avant-Garde documents the collaborations and conflicts essential to the history of the post-war avant-garde. It offers a study of composer Morton Feldman's associations and friendships with artists like John Cage, Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, Frank O'Hara, Charlotte Moorman, and others. Arguing that friendship and mourning sustained the collective aesthetics of the New York School, Dohoney has written an emotional and intimate revision of New York modernism from the point of view of Feldman's agonistic community.

Sex, death and nostalgia are among the impulses driving Beatles fandom: the metaphorical death of the Beatles after their break-up in 1970 has fueled the progressive nostalgia of fan conventions for 48 years; the death of John Lennon and George Harrison has added pathos and drama to the Beatles' story; Beatles Monthly predicated on the Beatles' good looks and the letters page was a forum for euphemistically expressed sexuality. The Beatles and Fandom is the first book to discuss these fan subcultures. It combines academic theory on fandom with compelling original research material to tell an alternative history of the Beatles phenomenon: a fans' history of the Beatles that runs concurrently with the popular story we all know.

Legendary founding KISS drummer Peter "Catman" Criss has lived an incredible life in music, from the streets of Brooklyn to the social clubs of New York City to the ultimate heights of rock 'n' roll success and excess. KISS formed in 1973 and broke new ground with their elaborate makeup, live theatrics, and powerful sound. The band emerged as one of the most iconic hard rock acts in music history. Peter was the heartbeat of the group. From an elevated perch on his pyrotechnic drum riser, he had a unique vantage point on the greatest rock show of all time, with the KISS Army looking back at him night after night.
Peter Criscuola had come a long way from the homemade drum set he pounded on nonstop as a kid growing up in Brooklyn. He endured lean years, street violence, and the roller-coaster music scene of the sixties, but he always knew he'd make it. Now Peter tells of his eye-opening journey from the pledge to his ma that he'd one day play Madison Square Garden to doing just that. He also faced the perils of stardom and his own mortality, including drug abuse, treatment in 1982, near suicides, two broken marriages, and a hard-won battle with breast cancer. "Makeup to Breakup" is the heartfelt account of one of music's most iconic figures, and the importance of faith and family. Rock 'n' roll has been chronicled many times, but never quite like this. "A must-read for all past and present KISS fans and fans of no-holds-barred rock 'n' roll tell-alls."

'Bowie, Cambo & All the Hype' traces the extraordinary and pivotal friendship between David Bowie and drummer John Cambridge, from the time when Bowie made his first major career breakthrough in 1969 to his death from cancer in 2016. John 'Cambo' Cambridge lived with Bowie at Haddon Hall when he had his first hit record 'Space Oddity' and toured with him in Junior's Eyes. He was there when Bowie lost his father, passed his driving test and played his first Glam Rock gig with Hype, even acting as best man when Bowie married Angela Barnett in 1970. And if John had not persuaded his former Rats colleague Mick Ronson to join Bowie in February 1970, there might never have been a Ziggy Stardust or the stellar career which followed. In this book we get a backstage pass to meet the key people and witness the events of those crucial times in a funny, moving, story of a unique friendship that survived the Hype.

Offering a fresh way to look at one of the best-selling hip hop artists of the early 21st century, this book presents Eminem's words, images, and music alongside comments from those who love and hate him, documenting why Eminem remains a cultural, spiritual, and economic icon in global popular culture. Eminem: The Real Slim Shady examines the rapper, songwriter, record producer, and actor who has become one of the most successful and well-known artists in the world. Providing far more than a biography of his life story, the book provides a comprehensive description, interpretation, and analysis of his personas, his lyrical content, and the cultural and economic impact of Eminem's work through media. It also contains the first in-depth content analysis of 200 of the rapper's most popular songs from 1990 through 2012. The book is organized into three sections, each focusing on one of the artist's public personas (Slim Shady, Marshall Mathers, Eminem), with each section further divided into chapters that explore various aspects of Eminem's cultural, spiritual, and economic significance. Besides being a book that every fan of Eminem and pop music will want to read, the work will be valuable to researchers in the areas of race and ethnicity, communication, cultural and musical studies, and hip hop studies. Includes never before conducted analysis of 200 of Eminem's most popular lyrics, presented visually with tables and charts Provides an up-to-date, combined discography, videography, and bibliography of the rapper's work

Fanny Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1805-1847), like her younger brother Felix, demonstrated prodigious musical talent as a child. In their youth, Fanny and Felix were inseparable friends; they encouraged each other, collaborated in musical endeavors, and received the same education and training from distinguished tutors. But as an adolescent, Fanny was told by her father that her role as a woman was to concern herself with her home and that music could be only secondary, even though she had become a remarkable pianist and composer. She married Wilhelm Hensel, a respected portrait painter who encouraged her musical talents. Fulfilling her domestic role as wife and as mother of their son, Sebastian, she continued to compose - principally lieder - and to organize concerts in her home that became an integral part of the Berlin musical scene. Her talents were warmly received during a journey to Italy, particularly by Gounod, who heard her play from memory the music of Bach, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn. At forty years of age Fanny finally went against the orders of her father and of Felix and published her compositions. She had just begun to receive critical praise when she died suddenly at the age of forty-two. Her death was a devastating blow to Felix, who survived her by barely six months. This book, originally published in French in 1992, is the first and only authoritative biography of Fanny Mendelssohn and contains a complete list of her published compositions. Set against the backdrop of a privileged life in Berlin in the early nineteenth century, Francoise Tillard's vivid portrait describes an exceptional artist - she left behind four hundred works - who could have held her own among thegreatest if she had not been prohibited from venturing into the professional world.

A pianist, arranger, and composer, William Pursell is a mainstay of the Nashville music scene. He has played jazz in Nashville's Printer's Alley with Chet Atkins and Harold Bradley, recorded with Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline, performed with the Nashville Symphony, and composed and arranged popular and classical music. Pursell's career, winding like a crooked river between classical and popular genres, encompasses a striking diversity of musical experiences. A series of key choices sent him down different paths, whether it was reenrolling with the Air Force for a second tour of duty, leaving the prestigious Eastman School of Music to tour with an R&B band, or refusing to sign with the Beatles' agent Sid Bernstein. The story of his life as a working musician is unlike any other-he is not a country musician nor a popular musician nor a classical musician but, instead, an artist who refused to be limited by traditional categories. Crooked River City is driven by a series of recollections and personal anecdotes Terry Wait Klefstad assembled over a three-year period of interviews with Pursell. His story is one not only of talent, but of dedication and hard work, and of the ins and outs of a working musician in America. This biography fills a crucial gap in Nashville music history for both scholars and music fans.

Just a Little From the Top is an autobiography of a lifetime in music. Roderick Elms' love of music throughout his childhood and secondary school at The City of London School led to the Royal Academy of Music, and a full time career at the highest level of music-making in London. It includes a multitude of anecdotes, many humorous, and reveals some of the workings of the music profession, including occasions when things have gone wrong, as a result of practical or mechanical failures, or due simply to incompetent leadership. In addition to his freelance performances for the BBC from the late seventies until the present, Roderick Elms describes the periods he spent with the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. There is a chapter about his work and travels as pianist with the eminent cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. He has made numerous solo recordings with the London orchestras and these are detailed together with the many film soundtracks to which he has contributed, notably the complete The Lord of the Rings, trilogy. Composing and arranging has also been a big part of his life and there is a chapter about this and the CD recordings made of his music (including 'A Little Fall-ish!'; 'Festive Frolic'; 'Moody Moves'; 'A Windy Christmas'). A little early biographical information takes the reader through the wonderful experiences gained by many from musical opportunities provided by the Redbridge Music Service and its music advisor, Malcolm Bidgood OBE. It also takes a trip through some of the Redbridge-based musical groups which played such a big part in the lives of young musicians living in that area in the late-sixties, seventies and eighties. Not least, the internationally unknown Gnaff Ensemble.

Believe Your Ears is the memoir of composer Kirke Mechem, whose unorthodox path to music provides a fascinating narrative. He wrote songs and played music by ear as a newspaper reporter, a touring tennis player, and a Stanford creative-writing major before studying composition and conducting at Harvard. He describes his residencies in San Francisco, Vienna, London, and Russia, and gives detailed attention to his choral music, operas, and symphonies. He writes that "the twentieth century gave us much brilliant music" but shows how atonality came to dominate the post-war period. His lyric style belongs to no particular "school," avoiding the trends, -isms, experiments, fads, and lunacies of the period. He encourages younger composers who are trying to bring back beauty, passion, and humor-even entertainment-to classical music. He asks music lovers to believe their own ears, not the lectures of "experts." Believe Your Ears is addressed to all who love classical music. Along the way, readers will meet Dimitri Shostakovich, Wallace Stegner, Billie Jean King, the Grateful Dead, Richard Rodgers, Benjamin Britten, Bill Tilden, and Aaron Copland-a who's who in Mechem's storied career.