Roger Steffens toured with Bob Marley for two weeks of his final tour of California in 1979 and the music icon was the first guest of Steffens' award-winning radio show. In So Much Things To Say, Steffens draws on a lifetime of scholarship to tell the story of Marley's childhood abandonment, his formative years in Trench Town, his seemingly meteoric rise to international fame and his tragic death at 36. Weaving together the voices of Rita Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer-as well as band members, family and friends-Steffens reveals extraordinary new details, dispels myths and highlights the most dramatic elements of Marley's life; his psychic abilities and his overriding commitment to the peace and love message of Rastafari. This landmark work will reshape our understanding of this legendary performer.

(Book). Covering three generations of Hank Williams, Family Tradition is both unique and vast in scope. Beginning in the present day with Hank III who gave the author unprecedented access and time-traveling across the years, this examines just what kind of rebel mojo inspired this crazed family of country music, from Hank Sr. often regarded as one of the most influential of American musicians to Hank Jr., to this year's model, Hank III, who has somehow found a way to reconcile his legacy's deep-rooted twang and high-lonesome sound with particularly searing strains of punk and heavy metal, launching an all-out war with traditional Nashville in the process. (a href="http: //halleonardbooks.com/viewaudio.do?itemId=00332839&fileName=http: //s3.amazonaws.com/halleonard-closerlook/00332839/MasinoPodcast.mp3" target="_blank")Listen to Susan Masino live at Book Expo America on the BEA Podcast.(/a)

Piece together the world of Freddie Mercury in this jigsaw puzzle that tells the story of his life and songs. From his childhood in Zanzibar and England to his meteoric rise to rock stardom with Queen and his tragic death from AIDS, there's a galaxy of stars, friends, lovers and cats to explore. Discover why Freddie Mercury remains the Champion of the World.

Follow their incredible journey from students when the band formed in Cambridge in 1965 and consisted of Syd Barrett, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, Richard Wright with Dave Gilmour joining in 1967. Syd Barrett left in 1968 but remains synonymous with the group. Pink Floyd rose to become the most commercially successful and musically influential group in the history of popular music.

The last major interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, conducted by New York Times bestselling author David Sheff, featuring a new introduction that reflects on the fortieth anniversary of Lennon's death.

Originally published in Playboy in 1981 just after John Lennon's assassination, All We Are Saying is a rich, vivid, complete interview with Lennon and Yoko Ono, covering art, creativity, the music business, childhood beginnings, privacy, how the Beatles broke up, how Lennon and McCartney collaborated (or didn't) on songs, parenthood, money, feminism, religion, and insecurity. Of course, at the heart of the conversation is the deep romantic and spiritual bond between Lennon and Ono.

Sheff's insightful questions set the tone for Lennon's responses and his presence sets the scene, as he goes through the kitchen door of Lennon and Yoko's apartment in the Dakota and observes moments at Lennon's famous white piano and the rock star's work at the stove, making them grilled cheese sandwiches. Sheff's new introduction looks at his forty-year-old interview afresh, and examines how what he learned from Lennon has resonated with him as a man and a parent. This is a knockout interview: unguarded, wide-ranging, alternately frisky and intense.

From Gilbert and Sullivan to Andrew Lloyd Webber, from Julie Andrews to Hugh Jackman, from Half a Sixpence to Matilda, Pick a Pocket Or Two is the story of the British musical: where it began and how it developed. In Pick a Pocket Or Two, acclaimed author Ethan Mordden brings his wit and wisdom to bear in telling the full history of the British musical, from The Beggar's Opera (1728) to the present, with an interest in isolating the unique qualities of the form and its influence on the American model. To place a very broad generalization, the American musical is regarded as largely about ambition fulfilled, whereas the British musical is about social order. Oklahoma!'s Curly wins the heart of the farmer Laurey-or, in other words, the cowboy becomes a landowner, establishing a truce between the freelancers on horseback and the ruling class. Half a Sixpence, on the other hand, finds a working-class boy coming into a fortune and losing it to fancy Dans, whereupon he is reunited with his working-class sweetheart, his modest place in the social order affirmed. Anecdotal and evincing a strong point of view, the book covers not only the shows and their authors but the personalities as well-W. S. Gilbert trying out his stagings on a toy theatre, Ivor Novello going to jail for abusing wartime gas rationing during World War II, fabled producer C. B. Cochran coming to a most shocking demise for a man whose very name meant "classy, carefree entertainment." Unabashedly opinionated and an excellent stylist, author Ethan Mordden provokes as much as he pleases. Mordden is the preeminent historian of the form, and his book will be required reading for readers of all walks, from the most casual of musical theater goers to musical theater buffs to students and scholars of the form.

Beethoven's piano sonatas form one of the most important collections of works in the whole history of music. Spanning several decades of his life as a composer, the sonatas soon came to be seen as the first body of substantial serious works for piano suited to performance in large concert halls seating hundreds of people. In this comprehensive and authoritative guide, Charles Rosen places the works in context and provides an understanding of the formal principles involved in interpreting and performing this unique repertoire, covering such aspects as sonata form, phrasing, and tempo, as well as the use of pedal and trills. In the second part of his book, he looks at the sonatas individually, from the earliest works of the 1790s through the sonatas of Beethoven's youthful popularity of the early 1800s, the subsequent years of mastery, the years of stress (1812-1817), and the last three sonatas of the 1820s. Composed as much for private music-making as public recital, Beethoven's sonatas have long formed a bridge between the worlds of the salon and the concert hall. For today's audience, Rosen has written a guide that brings out the gravity, passion, and humor of these works and will enrich the appreciation of a wide range of readers, whether listeners, amateur musicians, or professional pianists. The book includes a link to recordings of Rosen performing extracts from several of the sonatas, illustrating points made in the text.

Schubert's Workshop offers a fresh study of the composer's compositional technique and its development, rooted in the author's experience of realising performing versions of Franz Schubert's unfinished works. Through close examination of Schubert's use of technical and structural devices, Brian Newbould demonstrates that Schubert was much more technically innovative than has been supposed, and argues that the composer's technical discoveries constitute a rich legacy of specific influences on later composers. Providing rich new insights into the creative practice of one of the major figures of classical music, this two-volume study reframes our understanding of Schubert as an innovator who constantly pushed at the frontiers of style and expression.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Steve Reich was considered a fringe experimentalist. His work consisted largely of repeating, slowly changing patterns unlike either the serialism or the aleatory that predominated at that time. Today, however, Reich is one of the most prominent and celebrated contemporary composers, one about whom the scholarly and popular literature offers an assortment of critical, historical, and analytical perspectives. Author D.J. Hoek's bio-bibliography serves as an essential guide to this literature, comprehensively surveying Reich's life and work.

Included are details of all of Reich's compositions: dates, instrumentation, premiere performances, and publishers; a discography listing all commercial recordings of the composer's oeuvre; and an annotated bibliography of publications in English, French, German, and Italian. The Reich scholar or aficionado could not find a more thorough encapsulation of his brilliant career.

The music of Antonin Dvorak defies fashion. He is one of the very few composers whose works entered the international mainstream during his own lifetime, and some of them have remained there ever since. The pieces that historically define his international reputation, however, represent only a small fraction of what he actually composed. They comprise just one facet of his complex and remarkably rich artistic personality. This book/2-CD pack invites readers to celebrate his extraordinary achievement and experience the pleasure of getting to know more than 90 of his most important works. The two full-length CDs from Suprahon Records include 22 works.

This illustrated biography celebrates Taylor Swift's many hits and achievements Taylor Swift's discography spans multiple genres, and her narrative songwriting, which is often inspired by her personal life, has received widespread media coverage and critical praise. She has scored eight Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs, and won 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards. She featured on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time (2015) and Billboard's Greatest of All Time Artists list (2019). Having sold over 200 million records around the world she is one of the best selling music artists of all time. Named the Woman of the 2010s Decade by Billboard and the Artist of the 2010s Decade by the American Music Awards, Swift has been recognized for her influential career as well as advocacy of artists' rights and women's empowerment in the music industry. This is her story.

The composer Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 - November 1585) lived and worked through much of the turbulent Tudor period in England. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not just react to radical change: he thrived on it. He helped invent new musical styles to meet the demands of the English Reformation. He revived and reimagined older musical forms for a new era. Fewer than a hundred of his works have survived, but they are incredibly diverse, from miniature settings of psalms and hymns to a monumental forty-voice motet. In this new biography, author Kerry McCarthy traces Tallis's long career from his youthful appointment at Dover Priory to his years as a senior member of the Chapel Royal, revisiting the most important documents of his life and a wide variety of his musical works. The book also takes readers on a guided journey along the River Thames to the palaces, castles, and houses where Tallis made music for the four monarchs he served. It ends with reflections on Tallis's will, his epitaph (whose complete text McCarthy has recently rediscovered), and other postmortem remembrances that give us a glimpse of his significant place in the sixteenth-century musical world. Tallis will be treasured by performers, scholars, Tudor enthusiasts, and anyone interested in English Renaissance music.

The paperback edition of the bestselling biography. The Kinks are the quintessential British sixties band, revered for an incredible series of classic songs ('You Really Got Me', 'Waterloo Sunset' and 'Lola' to name but a few) and critically acclaimed albums (The Village Green Preservation Society). Featuring original interviews with key band members Ray Davies, his brother Dave and Mick Avory, as well as Chrissie Hynde and many others close to the group, every stage of their career is covered in fascinating detail: the hits, the American successes of the 1970s and the legendary band in-fighting. Nearly 50 years after they formed, The Kinks influence is still being felt today as strongly as ever.

Imagine being alongside one of the greatest bands in the history of rock, touring the world and being there as they perform at some of the best and biggest music venues in the world. Peter Hince didn't have to imagine: for more than a decade, he lived a life that other people can only dream of as he worked with Queen as head of their road crew. In 1973, Queen was the support act for Mott the Hoople, for whom Peter was a roadie. Back then, Queen had to content themselves with being second on the bill and the world had not yet woken up to the flamboyant talent of Freddie Mercury. Peter started working full time for Queen just as they were making A Night at the Opera, the album which catapulted them to international stardom. In this intimate and affectionate book, Peter recalls the highlights of his years with the band. He was with Freddie when he composed 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love'; he was responsible for making sure that Freddie's stage performances went without a hitch - and was often there to witness his famed tantrums! He was also party to the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll which are invariably part of life on the road with a rock band.

A Guide to the Musical Works of Johannes Brahms

The 1997 centennial of Brahms's death has intensified interest among concertgoers and music lovers in the composer's prodigious body of work. For all those eager to delve more deeply into Brahms's music, The Compleat Brahms is an indispensable companion. In a single volume that covers every work written by Brahms, leading scholars from across the country provide details of each work's composition and discuss its important stylistic features. Interspersed are fascinating essays — such as "Brahms, Joachim, and the Schumanns" — that bring the composer and his contemporaries to life. Much more than a collection of program notes, The Compleat Brahms vividly portrays the work and world of one of the giants of Western music history.

Soviet and Russian music of the first third of the 20th century--with the exception of the music of a few high-profile composers who were officially sponsored by the State--is still largely unexplored territory, known only to a few specialists. Nevertheless, the music has considerable intrinsic value well beyond its curiosity appeal, and includes many pieces unaccountably forgotten and certainly worth reviving, to the ultimate enhancement of our concert repertoire. The study of this music also explains much about the foundations of Soviet culture and its subsequent suppression and decline under the Stalinist yoke. The purpose of this volume is to stimulate interest in this little-known area of Soviet/Russian music. The works charted here constitute a great flowering of avant-garde music which was then savagely dealt with for Stalin's political purposes.

Both Dylan and Cohen have been a presence on the music and poetry landscape spanning six decades. This book begins with a discussion of their contemporary importance, and how they have sustained their enduring appeal as performers and recording artists. The authors argue that both Dylan and Cohen shared early aspirations that mirrored the Beat Generation. They sought to achieve the fame of Dylan Thomas, who proved a bohemian poet could thrive outside the academy, and to live his life of unconditional social irresponsibility. While Dylan’s and Cohen’s fame fluctuated over the decades, it was sustained by self-consciously adopted personas used to distance themselves from their public selves. This separation of self requires an exploration of the artists’ relation to religion as an avenue to find and preserve inner identity. The relationship between their lyrics and poetry is explored in the context of Federico García Lorca’s concept of the poetry of inspiration and the emotional depths of ‘duende.’ Such ideas draw upon the dislocation of the mind and the liberation of the senses that so struck Dylan and Cohen when they first read the poetry and letters of Arthur Rimbaud and Lorca. The authors show that performance and the poetry are integral, and the ‘duende,’ or passion, of the delivery, is inseparable from the lyric or poetry, and common to Dylan, Cohen and the Beat Generation.

Robert Chesterman's interviews with conductors as celebrated as Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado and Herbert von Karajan present fresh insights into their individual characters, their personal ideologies and their practical approaches - and in many cases, their private lives, their frank opinions of their fellow conductors - as well as into classical music in general.

Compositional Choices and Meaning in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach collects seventeen essays by leading Bach scholars. The authors each address in some way such questions of meaning in J. S. Bach's vocal compositions-including his Passions, Masses, Magnificat, and cantatas-with particular attention to how such meaning arises out of the intentionality of Bach's own compositional choices or (in Part IV in particular) how meaning is discovered, and created, through the reception of Bach's vocal works. And the authors do not consider such compositional choices in a vacuum, but rather discuss Bach's artistic intentions within the framework of broader cultural trends-social, historical, theological, musical, etc. Such questions of compositional choice and meaning frame the four primary approaches to Bach's vocal music taken by the authors in this volume, as seen across the book's four parts: Part I: How might the study of historical theology inform our understanding of Bach's compositional choices in his music for the church (cantatas, Passions, masses)? Part II: How can we apply traditional analytical tools to understand better how Bach's compositions were created and how they might have been heard by his contemporaries? Part III: What we can understand anew through the study of Bach's self-borrowing (i.e., parody), which always changed the earlier meaning of a composition through changes in textual content, compositional characteristics, the work's context within a larger composition, and often the performance context (from court to church, for example)? Part IV: What can the study of reception teach us about a work's meaning(s) in Bach's time, during the time of his immediate successors, and at various points since then (including our present)? The chapters in this volume thus reflect the breadth of current Bach research in its attention not only to source study and analysis, but also to meanings and contexts for understanding Bach's compositions.

Sergei Rachmaninoff was a renowned composer, pianist, and conductor. Because he was a member of the Russian aristocracy, he fled the country after the tsar's abdication, and eventually relocated in the United States. Many of his compositions are for piano, yet he also composed orchestral and symphony works, three operas, choral and liturgical works, some chamber works, and numerous songs. This guide catalogues his numerous works and performances, provides a detailed bibliography, and includes a discography of recordings released within the last half-century.

Cross-referenced throughout, this volume should appeal to music and Rachmaninoff scholars who are looking for a comprehensive guide to further research.

Here is the real story of the cult figure known as one of modern music's true innovators. Following Don Van Vliet's death, Mike Barnes reassesses his legacy through new interview material and with reference to reports and eulogies that appeared in the media. The author also puts Van Vliet's reclusiveness over the last two decades in context, now that it has been officially revealed that he was suffering from MS (his friends and representatives had always denied that he had a long term illness). A unique in-depth look at a unique artist.