Author Al Patterson started collecting vinyl in elementary school. He's since amassed a serious collection and deep knowledge of instrumental-only hip hop records. Some are 'performance' records that were pressed in very small numbers for use exclusively by the MC or group's DJ during live shows, while others were commercially released. These instrumental records, whether from the obscure depths of the underground or well-known hip hop acts, are cataloged alphabetically by artists and accompanied by a photograph of the record's label. Each entry specifies the artist, title, format, producer, label, year, and catalog number as well as notes and anecdotes about the disc.

Seattle-born guitarist, songwriter and singer Jimi Hendrix soared to the very top rank of all guitarists quickly after arriving in London at the height of the British Blues boom. Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page stood back in amazement while Eric Clapton, a god of the guitar at the time was destroyed by the brilliance of this quixotic presence and never recovered. Later, Hendrix, riding his success back to the US saw his energy and experimentation bring accolades from industry and audiences alike. At Woodstock his rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner was a defiant burst of electric glamour that reached back to the field holler of the blues, and forward to the roots of modern rock. His drug-related death in September 1970 was a shock, but the influence of Jimi Hendrix burns ever brighter, his reputation growing with each new generation. This new illustrated book is a timely introduction for the 50th anniversary of his death in September 1970. It covers his early years as a jobbing musician, recordings, live performances and offers a gallery of striking images.

'I see my story as a suite of songs that have a magical connection. I never understood that connection until I sat down to write. It was then that the magic started to flow.' Let Love Rule is a work of deep reflection. Lenny Kravitz looks back at his life with candor, self-scrutiny, and humour. 'My life is all about opposites,' he writes. 'Black and white. Jewish and Christian. The Jackson 5 and Led Zeppelin. I accepted my Gemini soul. I owned it. I adored it. Yins and yangs mingled in various parts of my heart and mind, giving me balance and fueling my curiosity and comfort.' Let Love Rule covers a vast canvas stretching from Manhattan's Upper East Side, Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant, Los Angeles's Baldwin Hills, Beverly Hills, and finally to France, England and Germany. It's the story of a wildly creative kid who, despite tough struggles at school and extreme tension at home, finds salvation in music. We see him grow as a musician and ultimately a master songwriter, producer, and performer. We also see Lenny's spiritual growth-and the powerful way in which spirit informs his music. The cast of characters surrounding Lenny is extraordinary: his father, Sy, a high-powered news executive; his mother, Roxie Roker, a television star; and Lisa Bonet, the young actress who becomes his muse. The central character, of course, is Lenny, who, despite his great aspirational energy, turns down record deal after record deal until he finds his true voice.The creation of that voice, the same voice that is able to declare 'Let Love Rule' to an international audience, is the very heart of this story. 'Whether recording, performing, or writing a book,' says Lenny, 'my art is about listening to the inspiration inside and then sharing it with people. Art must bring the world closer together.'

Bob Marley is the unchallenged king of reggae and one of music's great iconic figures. Rita Marley was not just his wife and the mother of four of his children but his backing singer and friend, life-long companion and soul mate. They met in Trenchtown when he was 19 and she was 18, and she was very much part of his musical career, selling his early recordings from their house in the days before Island Records signed up the Wailers. She shared the hard times and the dangers - when Bob was wounded in a gunfight before the Peace Concert, Rita was shot in the head and left for dead. Their marriage was not always easy but Rita was the woman Bob returned to no matter where music and other women might take him, the woman who held him when he died at the age of 35. Today she sees herself as the guardian of his legacy. Full of new insights, No Woman No Cry is a unique biography of Marley by someone who understands what it meant to grow up in poverty in Jamaica, to battle racism and prejudice. It is also a moving and inspiring story of a marriage that survived both poverty and then the strains of global celebrity.

A nostalgic collection of portraiture and interviews featuring not only your favorite artists from the 1980s, but also artists you should know. The influence of '80s culture is undeniable, perhaps most popularly in music. So what are the musicians who built the sonic landscape of the '80s up to? Photographer Mike Hipple seeks to answer this and other burning questions with 40+ influential performers of the '80s, including Lol Tolhurst from the Cure, Cindy Wilson from the B-52s, Robyn Hitchcock, punk pioneer Alice Bag, and Kristin Hersh from Throwing Muses. Join Hipple on this fan's journey to three countries and all four corners of the US to get an intimate look at these hit makers' stories. Some are still releasing critically acclaimed records and touring, some could be the rock star that lives next door, and at least one is living a bohemian lifestyle in a 100-year-old farmhouse. Complete with a deft foreword by television personality and Esquire's L.A.-based editor-at-large Dave Holmes, this is the perfect book for fans of the eighties.

Focusing on key elements surrounding a group that stands alongside legends such as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin, this book reveals the phenomenon that is AC/DC. Covering past and present members, songs, gigs, events, albums, bootlegs, producers, and numerous other subjects, this exhaustive overview spans an extraordinary 35-year musical career--from the very earliest incarnations of the band prior to Bon Scott's arrival, through the era in which he fronted the band and his untimely death, to the wildly successful landmark record "Back in Black," all the way to their 2003 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and beyond. Detailing a group that has sold an estimated 150 million albums worldwide, this is the definitive reference of one of music history's most notable pioneers of hard rock.

The Dead C’s Clyma est mort (1993) is the record of a live gig for one person. Tom Lax was running the Siltbreeze label in Philadelphia and had come to New Zealand to meet the artists he was releasing. He heard The Dead C at their noisy, improvised best, turning rock music on its head with a free-form style of blaring, loosely organised sound. Leading a second wave of music from Dunedin, New Zealand, The Dead C were an assault against the kind of jangly pop that had made the Dunedin Sound famous during the 1980s. This book uses The Dead C and in particular their album Clyma est mort (1993) to offer insights into the way the best of rock music plays vertigo with our senses, illustrating a sonic picture of freedom and energy. It places the album into the history of independent music in New Zealand, and into an international context of independent labels posting, faxing and phoning each other.

In the 1980s, the charts overflowed with what felt to many like the most boring pop music ever made--and the underground exploded. The postpunk scene was a diverse collection of bands brought together by independent releases and aided by reportage in fanzines and airplay by John Peel. This is the first time this era of music has been analyzed in such depth, exploring the loose confederation of noisenik outfits including Three Johns, the Membranes, the Ex, Wedding Present, A Witness, Bogshed, and Big Flame.

Mike Love is a founding member, lyricist and vocalist of The Beach Boys, considered to be the most popular American band in history, with 13 Gold Albums, 55 top-100 singles, and four number 1 hits. Love has been the lead singer of the group one of its principal lyricists since its inception in 1961.

In Good Vibrations, Mike Love tells the unique story of his legendary, chaotic, and ultimately triumphant five-decade tenure as the front man of The Beach Boys, from their Californian roots to international fame.

To serve the British nation in World War II, the BBC charged itself with mobilizing popular music in support of Britain's war effort. Radio music, British broadcasters and administrators argued, could maintain civilian and military morale, increase industrial production, and even promote a sense of Anglo-American cooperation. Because of their widespread popularity, dance music and popular song were seen as ideal for these tasks; along with jazz, with its American associations and small but youthful audience, these genres suddenly gained new legitimacy at the traditionally more conservative BBC.
In Victory through Harmony, author Christina Baade both tells the fascinating story of the BBC's musical participation in wartime events and explores how popular music and jazz broadcasting helped redefine notions of war, gender, race, class, and nationality in wartime Britain. Baade looks in particular at the BBC's pioneering Listener Research Department, which tracked the tastes of select demographic groups including servicemen stationed overseas and young female factory workers in order to further the goal of entertaining, cheering, and even calming the public during wartime. The book also tells how the wartime BBC programmed popular music to an unprecedented degree with the goal of building national unity and morale, promoting new roles for women, virile representations of masculinity, Anglo-American friendship, and pride in a common British culture. In the process, though, the BBC came into uneasy contact with threats of Americanization, sentimentality, and the creativity of non-white "others," which prompted it to regulate and even censor popular music and performers.
Rather than provide the soundtrack for a unified "People's War," Baade argues, the BBC's broadcasting efforts exposed the divergent ideologies, tastes, and perspectives of the nation. This illuminating book will interest all readers in popular music, jazz, and radio, as well as British cultural history and gender studies.

Liverpool in the 1980s. With prospects for the city's youth bleak, a scheme for unemployed musicians commenced, inadvertently shaping the future for members of Cast, Space, the Lightning Seeds and giving fresh impetus to the idea of song as a saviour for the city. Foremost of the bands to emerge from this ill-fated scheme was The La's. Inspired by a chance meeting with Captain Beefheart, Mike Badger formed the band with the enigmatic Lee Mavers. First they conquered the city, and then on the brink of hitting the big time, and eventually inspiring what would become Britpop, Badger quit to form Americana pioneers The Onset, find international recognition as a sculptor, produce album art and videos for some of the country's biggest bands, before finally co-founding Liverpool's Viper record label (which has recently released its 100th album). Featuring everyone from Arthur Lee to Frank Sidebottom, Jonathan Richman to Half Man Half Biscuit, and above all with new insights into the early years of the great lost Liverpool band The La's, The Rhythm and the Tide is both the personal story of a restlessly creative individual, and a reflection on the ebb and flow of the music scene in the city that he loves.

The Ozzy Osbourne story--as told by Bob Daisley, Lee Kerslake, Tommy Aldridge, Bernie Torme, Brad Gillis, Steve Vai, Phil Soussan, Carmine Appice, and many, many more Until 1978 the original and definitive heavy metal band Black Sabbath was fronted by the irrepressible Ozzy Osbourne. With Osbourne at the helm, Black Sabbath sold tens of millions of albums. When he finally broke away to fly solo Ozzy would achieve the unthinkable. Not only would he deliver one of the seminal Rock records ever crafted to mark his resurrection but he also used it as a career making catalyst that would see him trounce his former band mates and evolve into a cult icon. Along the way Ozzy displayed an enviable knack of choosing a series of groundbreaking guitarists such as Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee, and Zakk Wylde. There would also be the unsung heroes such as songwriter extraordinaire Bob Daisley and a series of world renowned bassists, drummers and keyboard players. This then is the story of the Ozzy Osbourne band--in their own words and detailed exclusively here for the first time. Chronicled with first-hand interviews, this is the real story of the first prototype Blizzard of Ozz band, how Ozzy met Randy Rhoads, the painful saga of Rhoads' replacement Bernie Torme and the torturous audition processes for successive guitarists and drummers told by both successful and unsuccessful candidates.