Rodney Trudgeon's Concert Notes is a collection of essays on famous classical, orchestral compositions. The pieces in this collection have appeared in concert programmes that have accompanied performances by the Cape Town and Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestras.

Rodney Trudgeon is a well-known radio host and presenter on Fine Music Radio. He is an expert on the range of musical genres that broadly fall under the category "classical music". The text that comprises Rodney Trudgeon's Concert Notes is structured alphabetically according to composer and gives a broad overview of the development of classical music, starting with the Baroque period and ending with modern, atonal music. Each piece is dedicated to a particular musical composition, describing its highlights, its history, and what makes it unique.

Broadly, the pieces are grouped together according to the following three broad categories: ouvertures, concertos, and symphonies, mimicking the structure of concert programmes. Each entry also includes a short biography of its composer. Trudgeon's style is easy to read and accessible to all readers: from those who listen to classical music regularly to those who are unfamiliar with it. Overall, this collection is a useful and informative musical guide, making a case for listening to orchestral music.

Skollie, saint, scholar, hippest of hippies, imperfect musician with a perfect imagination, Syd Kitchen was, like all great artists, born to enrich his art and not himself.

Plagued by drugs, alcohol and depression, too much of an outlaw to be embraced by record companies, he frequently sold his furniture to cover production costs of his albums, seduced fans at concerts and music festivals worldwide with his dazzling ‘Afro-Saxon’ mix of folk, jazz, blues and rock interspersed with marvellously irreverent banter, and finally became the subject of several compelling documentaries, one of which - Fool in a Bubble - premiered in New York in 2010.

With a career spanning over 40 years, Marah Louw is counted among South Africa’s musical and entertainment industry royalty and has a powerful and memorable story to tell. This book is the reader’s front-row ticket to the joys, sadness, triumphs and setbacks that have been part of this legend’s life. Even though she is a celebrity, her story aims to show that stars, no matter how bright, are human too. It also delves into her family secrets and her search for truth.

As one of South Africa’s most iconic entertainers, Marah has had an illustrious career. She performed at the Mandela Concert at London’s Wembley Stadium and she sang at the Newsmaker of the Year Awards, presented to Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk, and in honour of the late Chris Hani. She appeared with Nelson Mandela during his visit to Glasgow in 1993 and sang at George Square and The Royal Concert Hall. In 1994, she sang at the inauguration of President Nelson Mandela and the Freedom Day Celebrations at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.

In 2001, Marah produced the successful musical concert Surf, which featured top South African artists including Hugh Masekela. Marah translated the music of The Lion King into Zulu for the Walt Disney Corporation and performed the theme song Circle of Life in Zulu. She was also an Idols judge from 2003 until 2010.

She had a lead role on the SABC2 television soap opera Muvhango and has acted in numerous musicals, stage plays and feature films. She is currently acting in the Mzansi Magic telenovela The Queen.

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink is the long-awaited memoir from Elvis Costello, one of rock and roll's most iconic stars.

Born Declan Patrick MacManus, Elvis Costello was raised in London and Liverpool, grandson of a trumpet player on the White Star Line and son of a jazz musician who became a successful radio dance band vocalist. Costello went into the family business and had taken the popular music world by storm before he was twenty-four. Costello continues to add to one of the most intriguing and extensive songbooks of the day. His performances have taken him from a cardboard guitar in his front room to fronting a rock and roll band on your television screen and performing in the world's greatest concert halls in a wild variety of company.

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink describes how Costello's career has somehow endured for almost four decades through a combination of dumb luck and animal cunning, even managing the occasional absurd episode of pop stardom. This memoir, written with the same inimitable touch as his lyrics, and including dozens of images from his personal archive, offers his unique view of his unlikely and sometimes comical rise to international success, with diversions through the previously undocumented emotional foundations of some of his best known songs and the hits of tomorrow. The book contains many stories and observations about his renowned co-writers and co-conspirators, though Costello also pauses along the way for considerations on the less appealing side of infamy.

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink is destined to be a classic, idiosyncratic memoir of a singular man.

Love’s got everything to do with it.

Tina Turner is the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll, a musical icon celebrating her 60th year in the industry. In this dramatic autobiography, she tells the story of a truly remarkable life in the spotlight. From her early years picking cotton in Nutbush, Tennessee to her rise to fame alongside Ike Turner, and finally to her phenomenal success in the 1980s and beyond, Tina candidly examines her personal history, from her darkest hours to her happiest moments and everything in between.

Brimming with her trademark blend of strength, energy, heart and soul, My Love Story is a gripping, surprising memoir, as memorable and entertaining as any of her greatest hits.

"People may say that I couldn't sing. But no one can say that I didn't sing."

Despite lacking pitch, rhythm or tone, Florence Foster Jenkins became one of America's best-known sopranos, celebrated for her unique recordings and her sell-out concert at Carnegie Hall. Born in 1868 to wealthy Pennsylvanian parents, Florence was a talented young pianist but her life was thrown into turmoil when she eloped with Frank Jenkins, a man twice her age. The marriage proved a disaster and, in order to survive, Florence was forced to abandon her dreams of a musical career and teach the piano. Then her father died in 1909 and, newly installed in New York, she used a considerable inheritance to fund her passion. She set up a prestigious amateur music club and began staging operas. Aided by her English common-law husband, St Clair Bayfield, she worked tirelessly to support the city's musical life. Many young singers owed their start to Florence, but she too yearned to perform and began giving regular recitals that quickly attracted a cult following. And yet nothing could prepare the world for the astonishing climax of her career when, at the age of seventy-six, she performed at the most hallowed concert hall in America.

In Florence Foster Jenkins, Jasper Rees tells her extraordinary story, which inspired the film starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, and directed by Stephen Frears. This remarkable book also includes Nicholas Martin's funny, moving and inspirational screenplay.

The amazing story of the American musician who was famous in South Africa and Australia, but unknown anywhere else... until the Oscar-winning documentary.

Like many South Africans in the seventies and eighties, Stephen ‘Sugar’ Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom were obsessed with the music of Rodriguez, but the man himself was a mystery. Only his name was known, and the fact that he had killed himself on stage. After years of searching in a pre-internet age, the two men found the singer living in seclusion in Detroit. Remarkably, the blue-collar worker had no idea that he had been famous for over twenty-five years in this remote pariah of the world. In 2006, Swedish filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul set out to find ‘the best story on earth’ and stumbled on this remarkable tale in the Guardian newspaper. He tracked down Segerman and Strydom, and so began his four-year-long quest to make the Oscar-winning documentary, Searching for Sugar Man.

Sugar Man: The Life, Death and Resurrection of Sixto Rodriguez outlines three separate journeys and the obstacles and triumphs that each presented: Rodriguez’s struggle to make a life from music; the odyssey of two fans to find out what had happened to their hero; and Bendjelloul’s pursuit to bring the story to celluloid.

The book is packed with information not included in the film, about Rodriguez’s background, relationships and political activities, his tours to Australia, and the recognition that has finally come to him after the film’s success.

Lady Gaga is a once-in-a-decade artist, and the rare instant celebrity whose appearance can become a cultural event. No other music star of the last decade combines the talents Lady Gaga possesses: she’s a genuine singer, composer, songwriter, designer, and performance artist, who uses technology and social media to shape her art and career. In the space of fifteen months, she has become a demographic-smashing pop icon with global reach and impact.

Not since Madonna’s breakout success in the mid-eighties has the world witnessed the advent of a pop-culture provocateur who mixes high-and-low culture, the avant-garde with the accessible, “downtown” authenticity with the sheen of glamorous artifice. She has quickly formed a symbiotic relationship with her rabid fan base who have taken to dressing as she does, imitating her hair and make-up in tribute. Gaga, too, is a cultural shape-shifter, allowing her fans to project their needs, wants, confusions, and desires onto her.

This is a must-read for Gaga fans, who, devoted as they are, know next to nothing about who she is and how she got that way, as well as for anyone who has heard Lady Gaga on television and the radio and is curious about America’s latest over-the-top cultural success story.

Rihanna invites you into her world with this stunning visual autobiography.

From her Barbados childhood to her worldwide tours, from iconic fashion moments to private time with friends and family, the book showcases intimate photographs of her life as an artist, performer, designer, and entrepreneur. Many of these images have never before been published.

This large-format book is 504 pages with 1,050 color images on 3 paper stocks and 7 single- and double-page gatefolds, 9 bound-in booklets, 1 tip-in sheet, and a double-sided, removable poster.

If any band deserves to have homage paid to them with a lavish, limited edition photographic book, look no further than Thin Lizzy. With their origins going back to the late sixties, by 1971 with the first album release, Lizzy's journey really began. Incredibly no one has published a visual biography before, but now that has been rectified. Drawing on several thousand images and items of memorabilia this large format 240-page book is a treasure trove for Thin Lizzy devotees - crammed full of live and off-stage shots that portray the band's journey through the decades. It also includes loads of super cool memorabilia including backstage passes, gig posters, media adverts and much more, all reproduced on high quality art paper. This is one future collector's item that every self-respecting Lizzy fan will want to own. Rounding it off, Thin Lizzy: A Visual Biography is topped and tailed with 20,000 words by Lizzy biographer and world-renowned rock author Martin Popoff. This lavish book will prove to be a valuable addition to any fan's collection.

In his first and only official autobiography, music icon Elton John reveals the truth about his extraordinary life, which is also the subject of the film Rocketman. The result is Me - the joyously funny, honest and moving story of the most enduringly successful singer/songwriter of all time.

Christened Reginald Dwight, he was a shy boy with Buddy Holly glasses who grew up in the London suburb of Pinner and dreamed of becoming a pop star. By the age of twenty-three, he was on his first tour of America, facing an astonished audience in his tight silver hotpants, bare legs and a T-shirt with ROCK AND ROLL emblazoned across it in sequins. Elton John had arrived and the music world would never be the same again.

His life has been full of drama, from the early rejection of his work with song-writing partner Bernie Taupin to spinning out of control as a chart-topping superstar; from half-heartedly trying to drown himself in his LA swimming pool to disco-dancing with the Queen; from friendships with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and George Michael to setting up his AIDS Foundation. All the while, Elton was hiding a drug addiction that would grip him for over a decade.

In Me, Elton also writes powerfully about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father. In a voice that is warm, humble and open, this is Elton on his music and his relationships, his passions and his mistakes. This is a story that will stay with you, by a living legend.

The Little Book of Elvis Presley is a superb collection of quotations by and about the man regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the twentieth century. A perfect companion for Elvis fans everywhere, this book of bite-sized quips helps capture exactly what made the The King of Rock 'n' Roll so special. From insightful quotes by fellow artists, collaborators and friends, to words of wit and wisdom from Elvis himself, you'll find more than 170 amusing and inspiring soundbites inside. 'I figure all any kid needs is hope and the feeling he or she belongs. If I could do or say anything that would give some kid that feeling, I would believe I had contributed something to the world.' Elvis Presley.

The international Number One bestseller.

Over a million copies sold in the English language.

Published in 23 foreign languages.

‘A heartfelt memoir . . . there is a fearlessness to his prose, a willingness to engage with his past, that chimes with his songwriter’s desire to give voice to the people around him’ Sunday Times “Writing about yourself is a funny business…But in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind. In these pages, I’ve tried to do this.” —Bruce Springsteen, from the pages of Born to Run

In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl’s halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That’s how this extraordinary autobiography began.

Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bringing to these pages the same honesty, humor, and originality found in his songs.

He describes growing up Catholic in Freehold, New Jersey, amid the poetry, danger, and darkness that fueled his imagination, leading up to the moment he refers to as “The Big Bang”: seeing Elvis Presley’s debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. He vividly recounts his relentless drive to become a musician, his early days as a bar band king in Asbury Park, and the rise of the E Street Band. With disarming candor, he also tells for the first time the story of the personal struggles that inspired his best work, and shows us why the song “Born to Run” reveals more than we previously realized.

Born to Run will be revelatory for anyone who has ever enjoyed Bruce Springsteen, but this book is much more than a legendary rock star’s memoir. This is a book for workers and dreamers, parents and children, lovers and loners, artists, freaks, or anyone who has ever wanted to be baptized in the holy river of rock and roll.

Rarely has a performer told his own story with such force and sweep. Like many of his songs (“Thunder Road,” “Badlands,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “The River,” “Born in the U.S.A.,” “The Rising,” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” to name just a few), Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography is written with the lyricism of a singular songwriter and the wisdom of a man who has thought deeply about his experiences.

Staggering talent Kae Tempest's first work of non-fiction: a meditation on the power of creative connection 'Powerful and merciful.' Ali Smith 'Tempest . . . doesn't just leap off the page, but leaps into your throat and demands to be shouted all the way out.' Marlon James '[Kae's] language hits like lightning. It illuminates and it burns.' Guardian Beneath the surface we are all connected . . . This is a meditation on the power of creative connection. Drawing on twenty years' experience as a writer and performer, Kae Tempest explores how and why creativity - however we choose to practise it - can cultivate greater self-awareness and help us establish a deeper relationship to ourselves and the world. Honest, tender and written with piercing clarity, On Connection is a call to arms that speaks to a universal yet intimate truth.

In September 1998, a completely unknown band from London performed in the corner of a cafe in Manchester to an audience of fewer than ten people. One of these people was Debs Wild, a record company talent scout who immediately knew she'd seen the future. To celebrate the band's twentieth anniversary, Debs Wild - the discoverer of Coldplay - and Malcolm Croft look back on the band's phenomenal rise to glory. Life In Technicolor: A Celebration of Coldplay charts the band's extraordinary history from the very first rehearsal right through to the conclusion of their record-breaking A Head Full of Dreams Tour. With a unique insider's perspective and never-before-seen photos, this book will delight Coldplay's legions of fans across the globe.

Dié boek is rock ’n roll in die binnewêreld van die legendariese liedjieboer, Anton Goosen. Hanlie Retief vertel Goosen se buitengewone lewensverhaal – van sy grootwordjare in die Vrystaat, die Musiek-en-Liriek-era, sensuur, hoogtepunte en teleurstellings . . . tot waar die vader van Afrikaanse Rock 'n terugblik gee op sy merkwaardige lewe.

From humble beginnings in Teignmouth, Devon on England's South West Coast, since the band's inception around twenty-five years ago Muse has grown into one of the biggest bands in the world. Since the release of debut album Showbiz in 1999, Muse has gone on to mega status, selling out stadiums around the globe. From a band that was helped in the nineties with a GBP150 grant from the Prince's Trust, they have escalated into leading torch bearers for twenty-first century rock music. Never shy to acknowledge influences from the past, Muse has also created its own unique style from blending numerous music genres into their own defining image. Matt Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard have remained together through thick and thin; time and time again producing huge selling albums and sold out concert tours. This Visual Biography is a wonderful keep-sake souvenir portraying the band's rise to superstardom, right up to 2019's Simulation Theory tour. The largely, previously unpublished photos are complimented with a 15,000 word band history by music author Laura Shenton.

This informative work tells the story of John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr from the band's formative days in Hamburg to the split in 1970. General Editor Brian Southall, a former Press Officer at EMI, has gathered a team of experts - including former Apple Records CEO Tony Bramwell, singer Steve Harley, Sir Tim Rice and producer Chris Thomas - to write about each of the band's record releases, from the simple, bouncy Please Please Me to the heavyweight double album Let It Be. Contributors include: * Tony Bramwell: Childhood friend of the Beatles who became CEO of Apple Records. * Ray Connolly: A British writer who was very close to the Beatles. * Tristan Fry: A drummer and percussionist, Fry played on Abbey Road. * Per Gessle: Singer/songwriter, lead singer of Swedish band Gyllene Tider and half of Roxette. * Graham Gouldman: English singer, songwriter and musician. * Steve Harley: English singer/songwriter who was frontman of Cockney Rebel. * Gered Mankowitz: High profile photographer of many famous musicians. * Diederik Nomden and Bart Van Poppel: Founders and performers in the band The Analogues. * Sir Tim Rice: English author and lyricist. * Paul Sexton: Journalist and broadcaster. * Tom Robinson: English singer/songwriter and presenter. * Chris Thomas: Co-producer of The White Album and Abbey Road. * Ken Townsend MBE: Sound engineer who worked at Abbey Road Studios. * Johnnie Walker MBE: A hugely popular and influential radio DJ. * Kenneth Womack: Professor of English and Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Monmouth University, N.J.

Bluegrass Ambassadors is the first book-length study of the McLain Family Band, which has spread the gospel of bluegrass for more than fifty years. Rooted in bluegrass but also collaborating with classical composers and performing folk, jazz, gospel, and even marches, the band traveled to sixty-two foreign countries in the 1970s under the auspices of the State Department. The band's verve and joyful approach to its art perfectly suited its ambassadorial role. After retiring as full-time performers, most members of the group became educators, with patriarch Raymond K. McLain's work at Berea College playing a particularly important role in bringing bluegrass to the higher education curriculum. Interpreting the band's diverse repertoire as both a source of its popularity and a reason for its exclusion from the bluegrass pantheon, Paul Jenkins advances subtle arguments about genre, criticism, and audience. Bluegrass Ambassadors analyzes the McLains' compositions, recordings, and performances, and features a complete discography.

How three words became an instruction manual for life... As a youngster seeking guidance and perspective, musician Charlie Worsham received three words of advice from the legendary Marty Stuart that changed his life: "Follow your heart." This sage philosophy became Worsham's instruction manual for living. Committed to permanent ink on the inside of his left forearm, he reads it whenever he's playing guitar-which, as it turns out, is pretty much all the time. In Follow Your Heart, Worsham shares his unforgettable journey around the world, playing music and living adventures that his 10-year-old Mississippi-kid self would never believe possible. He's held a koala bear in Australia, played for soldiers in Iraq, and shared arena stages with Faith Hill, Miranda Lambert, and Taylor Swift in between. He's played crappy bars, national television shows, the Grand Ole Opry, and country music's Mother Church, the Ryman Auditorium. He's met heroes who have become friends and collaborators. He's cursed his luck and shouted hallelujahs. Through it all, Charlie Worsham has followed his heart. Paying homage to a philosophy kindly shared and the pursuit of a life fully lived, Follow Your Heart is the story of a man with a guitar, a tattoo, and a passion for his journey no matter where it takes him.

Two acclaimed albums and an upcoming US tour - Joy Division had the world at their feet. Then, on the eve of that tour and the beginning of what would surely have been an international success story, the band's troubled lead singer, Ian Curtis, killed himself. 'We didn't really think about it afterwards. It just sort of happened. One day we were Joy Division, then our lead singer killed himself and the next time we got together, we were a new band...'Peter Hook That band was New Order.Their distinctive sound - a fusion of post-punk and ground-breaking electronica - paved the way for the dance music explosion of the '80s and earned them the reputation as one of the most influential bands of their generation. Despite their success, the band has always been a collision the visionary and the volatile, and relationships have often been fraught with tensions. Peter Hook has written a no-holds-barred, comprehensive account of the band's entire history, packed with outrageous anecdotes and including every set list and tour itinerary and interspersed with 'geek facts' of every piece of electronic equipment used to forge the sound that changed the direction of popular music.

A GUARDIAN AND INDEPENDENT BEST MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR 'At last an expert classicist gets to grips with Bob Dylan' Mary Beard 'Thomas's elegant, charming book offers something for everyone - not just the super-fans' Independent When the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Bob Dylan, the literary world was up in arms. How could the world's most prestigious book prize be awarded to a famously cantankerous singer-songwriter in his Seventies, who wouldn't even deign to make an acceptance speech? In Why Dylan Matters, Harvard Professor Richard F. Thomas answers that question with magisterial erudition. A world expert on Classical poetry, Thomas was initially ridiculed by his colleagues for teaching a course on Bob Dylan alongside his traditional seminars on Homer, Virgil and Ovid. Dylan's Nobel prize win brought him vindication. This witty, personal volume is a distillation of Thomas's famous course, and makes a compelling case for moving Dylan out of the rock n' roll Hall of Fame and into the pantheon of Classical poets. You'll never think about Bob Dylan in the same way again.

The Times Book of the Year 'There's no tougher a mind, no more tender a voice than Paul Simon, and there's no better man than Robert Hilburn to decipher the hardwiring of this hyperintellect...great songs can never be fully explained, but the great man on his way to find those songs surely can.' - Bono Through such hits as "The Sound of Silence," "Bridge Over Troubled Water," "Still Crazy After All These Years," and "Graceland," Paul Simon has spoken to us in songs for a half-century about alienation, doubt, survival, and faith in ways that have established him as one of the most honoured and beloved songwriters in American pop music history. Yet Simon has refused to talk to potential biographers and urged those close to him to also remain silent. But Simon not only agreed to talk to biographer Robert Hilburn for what has amounted to more than sixty hours, he also encouraged his family and friends to sit down for in-depth interviews. Paul Simon is a revealing account of the challenges and sacrifices of artistry at the highest level. He has also lived a roller-coaster life of extreme ups and downs. We not only learn Paul's unrelenting drive to achieve artistry, but also the subsequent struggles to protect that artistry against distractions - fame, wealth, marriage, divorce, drugs, complacency, public rejection, self-doubt - that have frequently derailed pop stars and each of which he encountered. From dominating the charts with Art Garfunkel and a successful reinvention as a solo artist, to his multiple marriages and highly publicized second divorce from Carrie Fisher, this book covers all aspects of this American icon. 'When it comes to writing songs, no one does it better than Paul Simon. Robert Hilburn's is a wise and winning account of our most nimble, nuanced, and numinous poet-musician.' -Paul Muldoon 'A tantalizing look into the mind and writing process of the man who is arguably the finest craftsman of the American popular song since the Gershwin brothers, this book will delight any Paul Simon fan or student of popular culture.' -Linda Ronstadt