In Performing Racial Uplift: E. Azalia Hackley and African American Activism in the Postbellum to Pre-Harlem Era, Juanita Karpf rediscovers the career of Black activist E. Azalia Hackley (1867-1922), a concert artist, nationally famous music teacher, and charismatic lecturer. Growing up in Black Detroit, she began touring as a pianist and soprano soloist while only in her teens. By the late 1910s, she had toured coast-to-coast, earning glowing reviews. Her concert repertoire consisted of an innovative blend of spirituals, popular ballads, virtuosic showstoppers, and classical pieces. She also taught music while on tour and visited several hundred Black schools, churches, and communities during her career. She traveled overseas and, in London and Paris, studied singing with William Shakespeare and Jean de Reszke-two of the classical music world's most renowned teachers. Her acceptance into these famous studios confirmed her extraordinary musicianship, a "first" for an African American singer. She founded the Normal Vocal Institute in Chicago, the first music school founded by a Black performer to offer teacher training to aspiring African American musicians. Hackley's activist philosophy was unique. Unlike most activists of her era, she did not align herself unequivocally with either Booker T. Washington or W. E. B. Du Bois. Instead, she created her own mediatory philosophical approach. To carry out her agenda, she harnessed such strategies as giving music lessons to large audiences and delivering lectures on the ecumenical religious movement known as New Thought. In this book, Karpf reclaims Hackley's legacy and details the talent, energy, determination, and unprecedented worldview she brought to the cause of racial uplift.

Midge Ure is one of the most successful musicians of his generation, selling more than 20 million albums over the last five decades. During the 1970s he played in various rock and pop bands around Scotland before moving to London to join ex-Sex Pistol Glen Matlock's Rich Kids, later playing guitar for Thin Lizzy, forming Visage and joining Ultravox. In the 1980s he had phenomenal worldwide success with Ultravox and as a solo artist. He also co-wrote one of the best-selling singles of all time, Band Aid's 'Do They Know It's Christmas'. He co-founded the Band Aid charity and is still involved with it today. This book is a stunning collection of photographs taken by Midge on his travels between 1980 and 1985. Travelling with a Canon A-1 camera, he documented his work in the recording studio, on tour with Ultravox, behind the scenes whilst directing promotional videos (for Ultravox and other artists such as Phil Lynott, Fun Boy Three, Bananarama) and holidays in far-flung places and road trips. This is a fascinating travelogue of a working musician. All photographs have been carefully scanned and retouched from the original negative to show the images in their glorious best, and every element of this book has been produced to the highest specification. Midge is still active today writing and recording music, touring around the world as well as presenting TV and Radio programs.

During a time when toughskin blue jeans, button-down shirts, and flat-top haircuts were all the rage, Gene Odom and Ronnie Van Zant became best friends. Growing up on the same block, Ronnie and Gene fished, played football, anddreamed together. Years later, one of the boys would become famous-and the other would stand by his side through thick and thin. This is the story of two young men from the same neighborhood, school, and world who together, discovered the meaning of true friendship.

As Ronnie's dreams of becoming a professional musician finally became a reality, Lynyrd Skynyrdbegan selling out arenas and became famous for not only their music, but also their substance abuse. After Ronnie offered Gene a job as a security officer for the band, he embarked on an unforgettable journey into a world like no other. But everything would change in October 1977 when the plane carrying the band plummeted from the sky.

"Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ronnie Van Zant, and Me ... Gene Odom" provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse of what it was like to be friends with one of the biggest rock stars of the 1970s and how a friendship between two childhood buddies stood the test of time.

The only book Michael Jackson ever wrote about his life It chronicles his humble beginnings in the Midwest, his early days with the Jackson 5, and his unprecedented solo success. Giving unrivalled insight into the King of Pop's life, it details his songwriting process for hits like Beat It, Rock With You, Billie Jean, and We Are the World; describes how he developed his signature dance style, including the Moon Walk; and opens the door to his very private personal relationships with his family, including sister Janet, and stars like Diana Ross, Berry Gordy, Marlon Brando, Quincy Jones, Paul McCartney, and Brooke Shields. At the time of its original publication in 1988, MOONWALK broke the fiercely guarded barrier of silence that surrounded Michael Jackson. Candidly and courageously, Jackson talks openly about his wholly exceptional career and the crushing isolation of his fame, as well as the unfair rumours that have surrounded it. MOONWALK is illustrated with rare photographs from Jackson family albums and Michael's personal photographic archives, as well as a drawing done by Michael exclusively for the book. It reveals and celebrates, as no other book can, the life of this exceptional and beloved musician.

'Oh friends, not these sounds, let us instead strike up ones more pleasing and more joyful'. Written during the corona of 2020 and stretching into 2021, the sounds and words of music are here given a deeper and wider meaning. The words quoted above were Beethoven's own in the lockdown of his own deafness and just before letting the chorus loose to proclaim that 'all people become brothers'. The sounds he refers to are those of despair, exuberance, and utopian peace that his symphony has just portrayed. For him, and for us, the Ode is less the vision of an alternative world than an expression of a constant need to seek a joy which, beyond happiness and once-in-a-while cheerfulness, is a sense of doing something worthwhile with and, where possible, for others.

A first-ever book on the subject, New York City Blues: Postwar Portraits from Harlem to the Village and Beyond offers a deep dive into the blues venues and performers in the city from the 1940s through the 1990s. Interviews in this volume bring the reader behind the scenes of the daily and performing lives of working musicians, songwriters, and producers. The interviewers capture their voices - many sadly deceased - and reveal the changes in styles, the connections between performers, and the evolution of New York blues. New York City Blues is an oral history conveyed through the words of the performers themselves and through the photographs of Robert Schaffer, supplemented by the input of Val Wilmer, Paul Harris, and Richard Tapp. The book also features the work of award-winning author and blues scholar John Broven. Along with writing a history of New York blues for the introduction, Broven contributes interviews with Rose Marie McCoy, ""Doc"" Pomus, Billy Butler, and Billy Bland. Some of the artists interviewed by Larry Simon include Paul Oscher, John Hammond Jr., Rosco Gordon, Larry Dale, Bob Gaddy, ""Wild"" Jimmy Spruill, and Bobby Robinson. Also featured are over 160 photographs, including those by respected photographers Anton Mikofsky, Wilmer, and Harris, that provide a vivid visual history of the music and the times from Harlem to Greenwich Village and neighboring areas. New York City Blues delivers a strong sense of the major personalities and places such as Harlem's Apollo Theatre, the history, and an in-depth introduction to the rich variety, sounds, and styles that made up the often-overlooked New York City blues scene.

If given another chance to write for the series, which albums would 33 1/3 authors focus on the second time around? This anthology features compact essays from past 33 1/3 authors on albums that consume them, but about which they did not write. It explores often overlooked and underrated albums that may not have inspired their 33 1/3 books, but have played a large part in their own musical cultivation. Questions central to the essays include: How has this album influenced your worldview? How does this album intersect with your other creative and critical pursuits? How does this album index a particular moment in cultural history? In your own personal history? Why is the album perhaps under-the-radar, or a buried treasure? Why can't you stop listening to it? Bringing together 33 1/3's rich array of writers, critics, and scholars, this collection probes our taste in albums, our longing for certain tunes, and our desire to hit repeat--all while creating an expansive "must-listen" list for readers in search of unexplored musical territories.

Most die-hard Brazilian music fans would argue that Getz/Gilberto, the iconic 1964 album featuring "The Girl from Ipanema," is not the best bossa nova record. Yet we've all heard "The Girl from Ipanema" as background music in a thousand anodyne settings, from cocktail parties to telephone hold music. So how did Getz/Gilberto become the Brazilian album known around the world, crossing generational and demographic divides? Bryan McCann traces the history and making of Getz/Gilberto as a musical collaboration between leading figure of bossa nova Joao Gilberto and Philadelphia-born and New York-raised cool jazz artist Stan Getz. McCann also reveals the contributions of the less-understood participants (Astrud Gilberto's unrehearsed, English-language vocals; Creed Taylor's immaculate production; Olga Albizu's arresting, abstract-expressionist cover art) to show how a perfect balance of talents led to not just a great album, but a global pop sensation. And he explains how Getz/Gilberto emerged from the context of Bossa Nova Rio de Janeiro, the brief period when the subtle harmonies and aching melodies of bossa nova seemed to distill the spirit of a modernizing, sensuous city. 33 1/3 Global, a series related to but independent from 33 1/3, takes the format of the original series of short, music-based books and brings the focus to music throughout the world. With initial volumes focusing on Japanese and Brazilian music, the series will also include volumes on the popular music of Australia/Oceania, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and more.

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

Rock Atlas has hundreds of stories which deliver a fresh, new insight into the lives of the UK and Ireland's rock and pop stars. This fact-packed look at rock and pop, from an entirely different perspective, throws up many new revelations about our favourite musicians. When you ve finished reading the stories, you can visit the places. Every one of the book's 800 entries is followed by directions for how to find the iconic venues, record shops, statues, album cover shoots, childhood homes and festival sites.