Hot Lips Page was a seminal figure in the history of jazz trumpet. After making his name as the top trumpeter in Kansas City in the middle 1930s, he moved to New York City and performed in Harlem and on 52nd Street, headlining at the Apollo Theater and in Greenwich Village. He was a star trumpet soloist with Artie Shaw's Orchestra in 1941. He recorded with Billie Holiday and Pearl Bailey and made many early TV appearances in the 1950s. Perhaps most significantly, Page was also one of the greatest blues players of his generation. Dizzy Gillespie may have said it best, When it comes to the blues, don't mess with Lips, nobody not Louis, not Roy, not me.Despite his many successes, Page's personal life was fraught with troubles. His father died when his son was eight, and the boy was forced to leave school and go to work to help support his family. Page's second wife, Myrtle, who by all accounts was the love of his life, died suddenly in New York in 1946 at the age of twenty-eight, leaving Hot Lips as the sole parent of their young son, Oran Jr. Throughout the 1940s, he struggled to maintain his audience as the popular style of music changed from Swing to Bebop to Rhythm and Blues.He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1954, at age forty-six. Through the use of interviews, anecdotes and oral histories, author Todd Bryant Weeks has pieced together Page's personal story. He has contacted dozens of people (many in their eighties and nineties), who knew Page personally, and has spent many hours interviewing several of Page's family members, including his son, Oran Page, Jr., who is now a Municipal Judge in Jackson, Mississippi. Weeks has also been granted access to files, photographs and personal scrapbooks belonging to Page at the Institute of Jazz Studies in Newark, New Jersey. Luck's In My Corner: The Life and Music of Hot Lips Page is the definitive work on this legendary jazz figure.

Luck s in My Corner is a comprehensive biography of one of the most compelling jazz musicians of the Swing Era, Oran "Hot Lips Page. Page was the greatest of the Kansas City trumpeters, whose crackling, growling solos made him the go-to man during Count Basie s earliest days as a bandleader. Page went on to be a featured trumpeter with Artie Shaw, a star of New York s 52nd street, and a pioneer of the R & B scene of the 1950s. This book presents an in-depth chronology of Page s career, with special attention paid to the development of his trumpet style.

Luck s in My Corner examines the life and music of a forgotten figure of the Swing Era and returns him to his rightful place as a leading light in the world of jazz. Todd Bryant Weeks has combined genealogical, musicological, discographical and historical research, resulting in a revealing and entertaining examination of a life that spanned major changes in American popular music. This book includes a new and complete discography by the author and dozens of unpublished photos. "

The 1950s represented the birth of rock 'n' roll music in the UK. This title presents a complete history and social analysis of the era tracing the music's emergence from the primitive experimentation of teenage revolutionaries in the coffee bars of London's Soho to the marketing of the first generation of TV idols.

America's Songs tells the "stories behind" the most beloved popular songs of the last century. We all have songs that have a special meaning in our lives; hearing them evokes a special time or place. Little wonder that these special songs have become enduring classics. Nothing brings the roarin '20s to life like "Tea for Two" or "I'm just Wild About Harry"; the Great Depression is evoked in all of its pain and misery in songs like "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?; "God Bless America" revives the powerful hope that American democracy promised to the world during the dark days of World War II; "Young at Heart" evokes the postwar optimism of the '50s. And then there are the countless songs of love, new romance, and heartbreak: "As Time Goes By," "Always," "Am I Blue"...the list is endless. Along with telling the stories behind these songs, America's Songs suggests, simply and succinctly, what makes a song great. The book illuminates the way each great song melds words and music -- sentiment and melody -- into a seamless whole. America's Songs also traces the fascinating but mysterious process of collaboration, the give-and-take between two craftsmen, a composer and a lyricist, as they combined their talents to create a song. For anyone interested in the history of the songs that America loves, America'sSongs will make for fascinating reading.

My Bloody Roots is the brutally honest story of life in two of the world s best-known heavy metal bands, Sepultura and Soulfly, by one of the global metal scene s most respected musicians. Max Cavalera s has a unique and extraordinary story to tell, and My Bloody Roots is an autobiography like no other. Much more than just another tale of rock n roll debauchery, it s a story of heartbreak and loss and, ultimately, triumph. In it, Cavalera offers an unflinching account of life growing up in hardship in Brazil a country not previously known for heavy metal and the multi-million-selling success, against all odds, of the band he founded with his brother, Iggor: Sepultura. Then, for the first time, he reveals the full story behind his split with the band after which he did not speak to his brother for years and the formation of his Soulfly, one of the most critically and commercially successful metal bands of recent decades. He also goes into unflinching detail on the devastating impact of the deaths of his father, stepson, and grandson; his struggles with drugs and alcohol; his eventual reunion with Iggor in Cavalera Conspiracy; and more. This revised and updated edition continues to trace Max s career to the present day, covering the formation of his new band Go Ahead And Die as well as the supergroup Killer Be Killed, making it truly essential reading for all fans of metal.

Jim Godbolt first emerged on the British jazz scene as unofficial manager of George Webb's Dixielanders in the late 1940s. Throughout the trad boom he was an agent and club manager, and his story also encompasses the pop revolution of the early sixties when, uncharacteristically, he enjoyed a brief taste of success as agent of the Swinging Blue Jeans. In 1971, Godbolt retired from the music business in order to become a writer. His memoirs are packed with hilarious anecdotes and accurate portraits of British jazz stars such as George Melly, Sandy Brown, Humphrey Lyttelton and Ronnie Scott. With his renowned humour and insight, he recalls his years as an electricity meter reader, exiled from the jazz world and struggling for recognition as a writer. The final chapters chart his return to eminence in British jazz, becoming by dint of stubborn application a published author and editor of "Jazz" at Ronnie Scott's.

Christians and Christianity have been central to Hip Hop since its inception. This book explores the intersection of Christians and Hip Hop and the multiple outcomes of this intersection. It lays out the ways in which Christians and Hip Hop overlap and diverge. The intersection of Christians and Hip Hop brings together African diasporic cultures, lives, memories and worldviews. Moving beyond the focus on rappers and so-called "Christian Hip Hop," each chapter explores three major themes of the book: identifying Hip Hop, irreconcilable Christianity, and boundaries.There is a self-identified Christian Hip Hop (CHH) community that has received some scholarly attention. At the same time, scholars have analyzed Christianity and Hip Hop without focusing on the self-identified community. This book brings these various conversations together and show, through these three themes, the complexities of the intersection of Christians and Hip Hop. Hip Hop is more than rap music, it is an African diasporic phenomenon. These three themes elucidate the many characteristics of the intersection between Christians and Hip Hop and our reasoning for going beyond "Christian Hip Hop." This collection is a multi-faceted view of how religious belief plays a role in Hip Hoppas' lives and community. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of Religion and Hip Hop, Hip Hop, African Diasporas, Religion and the Arts, Religion and Race and Black Theology as well as Religious Studies more generally.

Jazz: The Basics gives a brief introduction to a century of jazz, ideal for students and interested listeners who want to learn more about this important musical style. The heart of the book traces jazz's growth from its folk origins through early recordings and New Orleans stars; the big-band and swing era; bebop; cool jazz and third stream; avant-garde; jazz-rock; and the neo-conservative movement of the 1980s and 1990s.

Key figures from each era including: Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Wynton Marsalis are highlighted along with classic works. The book concludes with a list of the 100 essential recordings to own, along with a timeline and glossary. Jazz: The Basics serves as an excellent introduction to the players, the music, and the styles that make jazz 'America's classical music.'

Made in Poland: Studies in Popular Music serves as a comprehensive introduction to the history, sociology, and musicology of contemporary Polish popular music. Each essay, written by a leading scholar of Polish music, covers the major figures, styles, and social contexts of pop music in Poland and provides adequate context so readers understand why the figure or genre under discussion is of lasting significance. The book first presents a general description of the history and background of popular music in Poland, followed by essays organized into thematic sections: Popular Music in the People's Republic of Poland; Documenting Change and Continuity in Music Scenes and Institutions; and Music, Identity, and Critique.

Inside British Jazz explores specific historical moments in British jazz history and places special emphasis upon issues of race, nation and class. Topics covered include the reception of jazz in Britain in the 1910s and 1920s, the British New Orleans jazz revival of the 1950s, the free jazz innovations of the Joe Harriott Quintet in the early 1960s, and the formation of the all-black jazz band, the Jazz Warriors, in 1985. Using both historical and ethnographical approaches, Hilary Moore examines the ways in which jazz, an African-American music form, has been absorbed and translated within Britain's social, political and musical landscapes. Moore considers particularly the ways in which music has created a space of expression for British musicians, allowing them to re-imagine their place within Britain's social fabric, to participate in transcontinental communities, and to negotiate a position of belonging within jazz narratives of race, nation and class. The book also champions the importance of studying jazz beyond the borders of the United States and contributes to a growing body of literature that will enrich mainstream jazz scholarship.

This book explores how, and why, the blues became a central component of English popular music in the 1960s. It is commonly known that many 'British invasion' rock bands were heavily influenced by Chicago and Delta blues styles. But how, exactly, did Britain get the blues? Blues records by African American artists were released in the United States in substantial numbers between 1920 and the late 1930s, but were sold primarily to black consumers in large urban centres and the rural south. How, then, in an era before globalization, when multinational record releases were rare, did English teenagers in the early 1960s encounter the music of Robert Johnson, Blind Boy Fuller, Memphis Minnie, and Barbecue Bob? Roberta Schwartz analyses the transmission of blues records to England, from the first recordings to hit English shores to the end of the sixties. How did the blues, largely banned from the BBC until the mid 1960s, become popular enough to create a demand for re-released material by American artists? When did the British blues subculture begin, and how did it develop? Most significantly, how did the music become a part of the popular consciousness, and how did it change music and expectations? The way that the blues, and various blues styles, were received by critics is a central concern of the book, as their writings greatly affected which artists and recordings were distributed and reified, particularly in the early years of the revival. 'Hot' cultural issues such as authenticity, assimilation, appropriation, and cultural transgression were also part of the revival; these topics and more were interrogated in music periodicals by critics and fans alike, even as English musicians began incorporating elements of the blues into their common musical language. The vinyl record itself, under-represented in previous studies, plays a major part in the story of the blues in Britain. Not only did recordings shape perceptions and listening habits, but which artists were available at any given time also had an enormous impact on the British blues. Schwartz maps the influences on British blues and blues-rock performers and thereby illuminates the stylistic evolution of many genres of British popular music.

Ray Davies: Not Like Everybody Else is a critical biography of Ray Davies, with a focus on his music and his times. The book studies Davies' work from the Kinks' first singles through his 2006 solo album, from his rock musicals in the early 1970s to his one-man stage show in the 1990s, and from his films to his autobiography. Based on interviews with his closest associates, as well as studies of the recordings themselves, this book creates the most thorough picture of Davies' work to date. Kitts situates Davies' work in the context of the British Invasion and the growth of rock in the '60s and '70s, and in the larger context of English cultural history. For fans of rock music and the music of the Kinks, this book is a must have. It will finally place this legendary innovator in the pantheon of the great rock artists of the past half-century. Thomas M. Kitts, Professor of English and Chair of the Division of English/Speech at St. John's University, NY, is the co-editor of Living on a Thin Line: Crossing Aesthetic Borders with The Kinks, the author of The Theatrical Life of George Henry Boker, articles on American literature and popular culture, reviews of books, CDs, and performances, and a play Gypsies. He is the book review editor of Popular Music and Society and the editor of The Mid-Atlantic Almanack.

David Amram-composer, jazz artist, conductor, and world music pioneer-has been described by the Boston Globe as "the Renaissance man of American music." From early collaborations with Kerouac and Sinatra, chosen by Leonard Bernstein as the New York Philharmonic's first composer in residence, Amram's artistry has taken him from concerts with Willie Nelson to jamming with the Massai tribe of Kenya. In Upbeat: Nine Lives of a Musical Cat, Amram recounts his extraordinary adventures in the many worlds of music he calls home, all told in a rollicking anecdotal style that makes you feel that you are at home around the world. He writes, "Everywhere I have been in the world, music transcends politics. As musicians, we were able to go beyond all that and just be fellow human beings." Threading through Amram's tale of music, hard work, respect, and friendship are unforgettable stories of fellow great artists-Dizzie Gillespie, Hunter S. Thompson, Janet Gaynor, George Plimpton, Lyle Lovett, Zoe Caldwell, Willie Nelson, and many more.

Expression in Pop-Rock Music is a collection of critical and analytical essays written by todaya (TM)s top scholars on pop and rock music. Applying a wide variety of analytical techniques and critical approaches in the study of songs by artists such as Tori Amos, David Bowie, James Brown, the Cure, Genesis, Radiohead, and Frank Zappa, these essays tackle the musical text itself in coming to terms with political, social, cultural, and stylistic issues expressed in the most popular music of the past half-century. It has been expanded in its second edition to include three new essays and other additions accounting for the changes to the popular music landscape since its first edition, with particular attention paid to the rise of hip-hop and country music.

Expression in Pop-Rock Music is a collection of critical and analytical essays written by todaya (TM)s top scholars on pop and rock music. Applying a wide variety of analytical techniques and critical approaches in the study of songs by artists such as Tori Amos, David Bowie, James Brown, the Cure, Genesis, Radiohead, and Frank Zappa, these essays tackle the musical text itself in coming to terms with political, social, cultural, and stylistic issues expressed in the most popular music of the past half-century. It has been expanded in its second edition to include three new essays and other additions accounting for the changes to the popular music landscape since its first edition, with particular attention paid to the rise of hip-hop and country music.

Underground rap is largely a subversive, grassroots, and revolutionary movement in underground hip-hop, tending to privilege creative freedom as well as progressive and liberating thoughts and actions. This book contends that many practitioners of underground rap have absorbed religious traditions and ideas, and implement, critique, or abandon them in their writings. This in turn creates processural mutations of God that coincide with and speak to the particular context from which they originate. Utilising the work of scholars like Monica Miller and Alfred North Whitehead, Gill uses a secular religious methodology to put forward an aesthetic philosophy of religion for the rap portion of underground hip-hop. Drawing from Whiteheadian process thought, a theopoetic argument is made. Namely, that it is not simply the case that is God the "poet of the world", but rather rap can, in fact, be the poet (creator) of its own form of quasi-religion. This is a unique look at the religious workings and implications of underground rap and hip hop. As such, it will be of keen interest to scholars of Religious Studies, Hip-Hop Studies and Process Philosophy and Theology.

This volume brings together the work of social scientists and music scholars examining the role of migrant and migrant descended communities in the production and consumption of popular music in Europe and North America. The contributions to the collection include studies of language and local identity in hip hop in Liege and Montreal; the politics of Mexican folk music in Los Angeles; the remaking of ethnic boundaries in Naples; the changing meanings of Tango in the Argentine diaspora and of Alevi music among Turks in Germany; the history of Soca in Brooklyn; and the recreation of 'American' culture by the children of immigrants on the Broadway stage. Taken together, these works demonstrate how music affords us a window onto local culture, social relations and community politics in the diverse cities of immigrant receiving societies. Music is often one of the first arenas in which populations encounter newcomers, a place where ideas about identity can be reformulated and reimagined, and a field in which innovation and hybridity are often highly valued. This book highlights why it is a subject worthy of more attention from students of racial and ethnic relations in diverse societies. It was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

Born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, George Michael was raised in a family of Greek Cypriot immigrants in North London, and dreamed of stardom when he was a little boy. At just twelve years old he met Andrew Ridgeley and the two of them went on to achieve stunning success in the early 1980s with Wham!, creating music that remains popular to this day. Yet despite the enormous success of Wham!, George wanted more, and so set about recreating himself as a serious solo artist, reaching heights of even greater success. Ironically, however, even from the early days he was plagued with insecurity about his sexuality, which, combined with the calamity of losing his first lover to AIDS and his mother to cancer, plunged him into a lifelong struggle with drug addiction. He died, at the tragically early age of just fifty-three, on Christmas Day 2016. George Michael's life and career brought him international fame, and his sudden and unexpected death shocked the world. His unrivalled popularity as an artist, however, and the music he made, have turned him into one of the immortal greats of pop music. As Emily Herbert shows in this new biography, his legacy is not just his music, but his many extraordinary, and often anonymous, acts of charity.

In the 1960s, Welsh-language popular music emerged as a vehicle for mobilizing a geographically dispersed community into political action. As the decades progressed, Welsh popular music developed beyond its acoustic folk roots, adopting the various styles of contemporary popular music, and ultimately gaining the cultural self-confidence to compete in the Anglo-American mainstream market. The resulting tensions, between Welsh and English, amateur and professional, rural and urban, the local and the international, necessitate the understanding of Welsh pop as part of a much larger cultural process. Not merely a 'Celtic' issue, the cultural struggles faced by Welsh speakers in a predominantly Anglophone environment are similar to those faced by innumerable other minority communities enduring political, social or linguistic domination. The aim of 'Blerwytirhwng?' The Place of Welsh Pop Music is to explore the popular music which accompanied those struggles, to connect Wales to the larger Anglo-American popular culture, and to consider the shift in power from the dominant to the minority, the centre to the periphery. By surveying the development of Welsh-language popular music from 1945-2000, 'Blerwytirhwng?' The Place of Welsh Pop examines those moments of crisis in Welsh cultural life which signalled a burgeoning sense of national identity, which challenged paradigms of linguistic belonging, and out of which emerged new expressions of Welshness.

Holly Knight's singular music career included crafting a good part of the soundtrack to the MTV eighties with mega-hits for Tina Turner ("The Best"), Pat Benatar ("Love Is A Battlefield"), and Patty Smyth ("The Warrior")-songs that celebrated female empowerment and shaped pop and rock for years to come. "Holly Knight wrote some of the best and toughest songs for female artists. Her songs helped pave the way for women in rock. Not to mention a few dudes." -Patty Smyth As a writer and musician, Holly Knight worked hard and played hard with the likes of KISS, Rod Stewart, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, and Heart. She showed the boys how it was done when many women were still struggling to get a foot in the door. Starting in the late 1970s in post-punk New York, Knight, a gifted keyboardist, joined the band Spider-which quickly ascended to buzzworthy status before things began to disintegrate. Fortunately, her song "Better Be Good to Me" found its way to Tina Turner and became the second single on her landmark solo album, Private Dancer, launching Holly into rarified air. Soon she was being sought out to write for other artists in search of the big hit or their lead single. Coinciding with the birth of MTV, Knight's powerful lyrics, hooks, and melodies became a staple on the channel as it exploded into a cultural force. "People who grew up in the eighties tell me that MTV was the soundtrack to their lives. Holly Knight deserves much of the credit. Few songwriters have written such a diverse collection of songs for such a broad range of superstars." -Alan Hunter But it was an often lonely journey to success. Not only was Holly a woman in a male-dominated industry that didn't welcome women warmly into the inner sanctum, she carried with her the baggage of a difficult childhood and a fraught relationship with her mother, the substance of which informed the themes that made her songs so anthemic. I Am the Warrior is a story of survival, perseverance, and triumph laced with ample amounts of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. Backstage, onstage, in the studio, and on the road, this book is a revealing, bang-bang tale that welcomes you along for a look back at one of the most adventurous and colorful periods in music history. "I Am the Warrior takes readers on a wild ride through the eighties world of rock 'n' roll from a strong female's perspective. Songwriters Hall of Fame-inductee Holly Knight delivers the goods and stands out as a creative, gutsy woman who made her way through a field dominated by men, ultimately coming out on top. If you love music like I do, this is a must-read!" -Cassandra Peterson (AKA Elvira, Mistress of the Dark)

Tom Waits in his own words: a collection of three decades' worth of interviews with Tom Waits 'I've never met anyone who made it with a chick because they owned a Tom Waits album. I've got all three, and it's never helped me,' Tom Waits. Born, seemingly, in the back of a taxi cab outside a hospital in California, in December 1949, the young Tom Waits graduated through the jobs of janitor, dishwasher and cook to the position of doorman at a small L.A. club. Existing on a diet of whiskey, cigarettes and beat writing, he now added folk and jazz to his formative influences. In 1969, Captain Beefheart manager Herb Cohen discovered him - and five years later he released his first album, Closing Time, a record soaked in equal parts bourbon and melancholy. His drunken bohemian persona kicked in after this ('The Piano Has Been Drinking, Not Me'), and his familiar hoary rasp ('a voice that could guide ships through dense fog'), tales of losers, outsiders, hobos, dingy bar-room joints and seedy diners became the stuff of cult legend, covered by the likes of the Eagles, championed by Elton John, and instantly recognisable from a thirty-year career that has seeped through music (over 20 albums), theatre and film. Waits has never written an autobiography, has notoriously played fast and loose with the truth, but this collection of interviews is practically Tom Waits in his own words. Witty, enigmatic and currently fired up about the state of America (his latest album 'Real Gone' has been his most successful yet), Innocent When You Dream is a must-have for any Waits fan.

In Britain during the late 1970s and early 1980s, a new phenomenon emerged, with female guitarists, bass-players, keyboard-players and drummers playing in bands. Before this time, women's presence in rock bands, with a few notable exceptions, had always been as vocalists. This sudden influx of female musicians into the male domain of rock music was brought about partly by the enabling ethic of punk rock ('anybody can do it!') and partly by the impact of the Equal Opportunities Act. But just as suddenly as the phenomenon arrived, the interest in these musicians evaporated and other priorities became important to music audiences. Helen Reddington investigates the social and commercial reasons for how these women became lost from the rock music record, and rewrites this period in history in the context of other periods when female musicians have been visible in previously male environments. Reddington draws on her own experience as bass-player in a punk band, thereby contributing a fresh perspective on the socio-political context of the punk scene and its relationship with the media. The book also features a wealth of original interview material with key protagonists, including the late John Peel, Geoff Travis, The Raincoats and the Poison Girls.

Giulio Cesare Brancaccio was a Neapolitan nobleman with long practical experience of military life, first in the service of Charles V and later as both soldier and courtier in France and then at the court of Alfonso II d'Este at Ferrara. He was also a virtuoso bass singer whose performances were praised by both Tasso and Guarini - he was even for a while the only male member of the famous Ferrarese court Concerto delle dame, who established a legendary reputation during the 1580s. Richard Wistreich examines Brancaccio's life in detail and from this it becomes possible to consider the mental and social world of a warrior and courtier with musical skills in a broader context. A wide-ranging study of bass singing in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Italy provides a contextual basis from which to consider Brancaccio's reputation as a performer. Wistreich illustrates the use of music in the process of 'self-fashioning' and the role of performance of all kinds in the construction of male noble identity within court culture, including the nature and currency of honour, chivalric virtA(1) and sixteenth-century notions of gender and virility in relation to musical performance. This fascinating examination of Brancaccio's social world significantly expands our understanding of noble culture in both France and Italy during the sixteenth century, and the place of music-making within it.