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This first critical appreciation of T Bone Burnett reveals how the proponent of Americana music and producer of artists ranging from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss to B. B. King and Elvis Costello has profoundly influenced American music and culture. T Bone Burnett is a unique, astonishingly prolific music producer, singer-songwriter, guitarist, and soundtrack visionary. Renowned as a studio maven with a Midas touch, Burnett is known for lifting artists to their greatest heights, as he did with Raising Sand, the multiple Grammy Award-winning album by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, as well as acclaimed albums by Los Lobos, the Wallflowers, B. B. King, and Elvis Costello. Burnett virtually invented "Americana" with his hugely successful roots-based soundtrack for the Coen Brothers film, O Brother, Where Art Thou? Outspoken in his contempt for the entertainment industry, Burnett has nevertheless received many of its highest honors, including Grammy Awards and an Academy Award. T Bone Burnett offers the first critical appreciation of Burnett's wide-ranging contributions to American music, his passionate advocacy for analog sound, and the striking contradictions that define his maverick artistry. Lloyd Sachs highlights all the important aspects of Burnett's musical pursuits, from his early days as a member of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and his collaboration with the playwright Sam Shepard to the music he recently composed for the TV shows Nashville and True Detective and his production of the all-star album Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes. Sachs also underscores Burnett's brilliance as a singer-songwriter in his own right. Going well beyond the labels "legendary" or "visionary" that usually accompany his name, T Bone Burnett reveals how this consummate music maker has exerted a powerful influence on American music and culture across four decades.

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. Many critics have interpreted Bob Dylan's lyrics, especially those composed during the middle to late 1960s, in the contexts of their relation to American folk, blues, and rock'n'roll precedents; their discographical details and concert performances; their social, political and cultural relevance; and/or their status for discussion as "poems." Dylan's Autobiography of a Vocation instead focuses on how all of Dylan's 1965-1967 songs manifest traces of his ongoing, internal "autobiography" in which he continually declares and questions his relation to a self-determined existential summons.

For nearly thirty years Lionel Richie has never looked back as a performer. From fronting his group the Commodores - the premier R&B pop unit of the seventies - he became the most popular singer/songwriter in the world by the eighties. A decade later he was the ultimate star entertainer with a 'nice guy' image. The "Lionel Richie" story is about a five-time Grammy winner who has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide. For nine consecutive years he had no 1 singles in America, a feat matched only by Irving Berlin. It is also the story of two broken marriages, personal insecurities, near-death experiences and an insight into the man behind a success story that broke the rules. "Lionel Richie" is the first book written about Lionel Richie and the Commodores and draws on Sharon Davis' unique access to the Motown archive, her numerous in depth interviews with Richie as well as her time as the Comodores' publicist.

Known for his work as a performer and songwriter with the Birthday Party, the Bad Seeds and Grinderman, Australian artist Nick Cave has also pursued a variety of other projects, including writing and acting. Covering the full range of Cave's creative endeavors, this collection of critical essays provides a comprehensive overview of his multifaceted career. The contributors, who hail from an array of disciplines, consider Cave's work from many different angles, drawing on historical, psychological, pedagogical, and generic perspectives. Illuminating the remarkable scope of Cave's achievements, they explore his career as a composer of film scores, scriptwriter, and performer, most strikingly in "Ghosts of the Civil Dead"; his work in theater; and his literary output, which includes the novels "And the Ass Saw the Angel "and "The Death of Bunny Munro," as well as two collections of prose. Together, the resulting essays provide a lucid overview of Nick Cave's work that will orient students and fans while offering fresh insights sure to deepen even expert perspectives.

Diary of a Redneck Vampire is the journal of a 23 year-old female drummer, begun shortly after auditioning for the all-male heavy metal band The Redneck Vampires in 1993. New to the band, Flo finds herself the only girl in a man's world, and she kept this diary to deal with her changing life. She captures the band's plight as they tour North America, living on stranger's couches, fighting among themselves, getting and losing record deals, and performing for just enough cash to make it to the next town. In addition to the pursuit of rock stardom, Flo also seriously studied the pagan religion of Wicca, and her spiritual life grows and changes as the pages turn. You will laugh at the idiocy, experience the raging, energetic crowds from the view of a drummer playing on stage, and recognize the struggle bands go through to meet their definition of success. Full of the drugs, the drama, and the dreams of rock and roll, Diary of a Redneck Vampire pushes limits and exposes the ugly truth of the beginning stages of a band in their struggle to make it in the music industry, shared uniquely from the perspective of a female participant.

One of Lawrence Welk's most beloved entertainers, an Emmy Award winner and a Las Vegas headliner, Roberta Linn captured the hearts of fans nationwide. Her inspiring story unfolds in the pages of "Not Now, Lord, I've Got Too Much to Do."Born in a small Iowa town to a farmer's daughter and a minor league baseball player, Roberta discovered her talent for performing at a young age. She played in film productions and worked with big names stars like Shirley Temple, Cary Grant, and Clark Gable. At the age of thirteen, she fabricated her true age and enlisted in the Women's Army Corps, entertaining the troops of World War II.From 1950 to 1955, Roberta became Lawrence Welk's first television 'Champagne Lady," and she was displayed on magazine covers around the country. But the harshness of celebrity life finally took its toll, and Roberta's ill health led to a medicine-induced coma in 1958. Her amazing recovery reinforced her faith, and she continued to find success in her career. Both moving and uplifting, "Not Now, Lord, I've Got Too Much to Do" showcases the triumph of one of the most popular entertainers of Hollywood's golden age.

John Cage was among the first wave of post-war American artists and intellectuals to be influenced by Zen Buddhism and it was an influence that led him to become profoundly engaged with our current ecological crisis. In John Cage and Buddhist Ecopoetics, Peter Jaeger asks: what did Buddhism mean to Cage? And how did his understanding of Buddhist philosophy impact on his representation of nature? Following Cage's own creative innovations in the poem-essay form and his use of the ancient Chinese text, the I Ching to shape his music and writing, this book outlines a new critical language that reconfigures writing and silence. Interrogating Cage's 'green-Zen' in the light of contemporary psychoanalysis and cultural critique as well as his own later turn towards anarchist politics, John Cage and Buddhist Ecopoetics provides readers with a critically performative site for the Zen-inspired "nothing" which resides at the heart of Cage's poetics, and which so clearly intersects with his ecological writing.

This was the first attempt at a full length biography of Bach and a critical apreciation of his work as composer and performer. Translated by Walter Emery in 1941-1942 with introductory notes and two appendices, but not published in his lifetime. Walter Emery, musicologist, specialised in the works J.S. Bach.

Paul Marie Thodore Vincent d'Indy (1851-1931), was a composer and teacher. He initially read law and then moved to music. He studied under Csar Franck at the Conservatoire de Paris. He co-founded the Schola Cantorum in 1894.

A modern take on a classical icon: this "luminous book" (Susan Orlean, New York Times bestselling author of The Library Book) tells the story of when, where, and how Chopin composed his most famous work, uncovering many surprises along the way and showing how his innovative music still animates and thrives in our culture centuries later. In this widely-praised book, Annik LaFarge presents a very different Frederic Chopin from the melancholy, sickly, Romantic figure that has predominated for so long. The artist she discovered is, instead, a purely independent-and endlessly relevant-spirit: an innovator who created a new musical language; an autodidact who became a spiritually generous, trailblazing teacher; a stalwart patriot during a time of revolution, pandemic, and exile. One of America's foremost pianists, Jeremy Denk, wrote in The New York Times: "It is almost impossible for me to imagine a world in which [Chopin's "Funeral March"] is both fresh and tragic, where its death is real. LaFarge's charming and loving new book attempts to recover this world...This book took me into many unexpected corners...For a book about death, it's bursting with life and lively research." In this "entertaining dual music history and memoir" (Publishers Weekly), a "seamless blend of the musical and literary verve" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) LaFarge "brilliantly traces the footsteps of Chopin's life" (Scott Yoo, host of PBS Now Hear This) during the three years, 1837-1840, when he composed the now-iconic Funeral March, using its composition story to illuminate the key themes of Chopin's life. As part of her research into Chopin's world, then and now, LaFarge visited piano makers, monuments, churches, and archives; she talked to scholars, jazz musicians, video game makers, music teachers, theater directors, and of course dozens of pianists. She has given us, says pianist, author, and New York Times columnist Michael Kimmelman, "a tour-de-force and journey of the soul." It is an engrossing, "impeccably researched" (Library Journal) work of musical discovery and an artful portrayal of a man whose work and life continue to inspire artists and cultural innovators in astonishing ways. An acclaimed companion website, WhyChopin, presents links to each piece of music mentioned in the book, organized by chapter, along with photos, resources, and more.

'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.

The definitive biography of Chuck Berry, legendary performer and inventor of rock and roll.

Best known as the groundbreaking artist behind classics like "Johnny B. Goode," "Maybellene," "You Never Can Tell" and "Roll Over Beethoven," Chuck Berry was a man of wild contradictions, whose motives and motivations were often shrouded in mystery. After all, how did a teenage delinquent come to write so many songs that transformed American culture? And, once he achieved fame and recognition, why did he put his career in danger with a lifetime's worth of reckless personal behaviour? Throughout his life, Berry refused to shed light on either the mastery or the missteps, leaving the complexity that encapsulated his life and underscored his music largely unexplored--until now.

In Chuck Berry, biographer RJ Smith crafts a comprehensive portrait of one of the great American entertainers, guitarists, and lyricists of the 20th century, bringing Chuck Berry to life in vivid detail. Based on interviews, archival research, legal documents, and a deep understanding of Berry's St. Louis (his birthplace, and the place where he died in March 2017), Smith sheds new light on a man few have ever really understood. By placing his life within the context of the American culture he made and eventually withdrew from, we understand how Berry became such a groundbreaking figure in music, erasing racial boundaries, crafting subtle political commentary, and paying a great price for his success. While celebrating his accomplishments, the book also does not shy away from troubling aspects of his public and private life, asking profound questions about how and why we separate the art from the artist.

Berry declined to call himself an artist, shrugging that he was good at what he did. But the man's achievement was the rarest kind, the kind that had social and political resonance, the kind that made America want to get up and dance. At long last, Chuck Berry brings the man and the music together.

I am Tommy Lee, born Thomas Lee Bass in Athens, Greece, on October 3, 1962, and raised in a suburb of California by an American father and a Greek mother. At seventeen, I joined Motley Crue and we became one of the baddest-ass rock bands in history. We sold over 40 million albums, we wreaked havoc, we scared parents, and we titillated too many fathers' daughters. I've been married three times: once for just a few days to a Penthouse Pet, for seven years to Heather Locklear, and then for five years to Pamela Anderson, with whom I have two beautiful sons. I've gotten into a lot of fights and I've been to jail a few times.

But this book isn't your typical journey in a straight line from day one to day now. I'm more interested in revealing what's most important about my life, like how I cook my steaks; what I think of the tabloids, the truth, my ex-wives, my ex-band, my music; and what an innocent observer might find hanging around my house any given Sunday. You'll get plenty of facts and I'll tell you a story, but my real mission here is to paint you a picture of my life. I want to show you how my memories smell.

I'd like to get into it now, so please take your seats. I advise you to keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times. If you have a pacemaker, a heart condition, or if you are pregnant or too damn short to reach the safety bar, I ask that you turn back immediately. Those with weak stomachs, strict morals, or chronic indigestion should put the book down now. For the rest of you, there's one truth that's real across the board: What you send out is what you get back. Send out the good, people, and it will come back to you. There's another thing I've learned over the years, in court, in fights, and in arguments with people I love: There isn't one truth, there are many. This book is my truth.