Born dirt-poor (his family had the dirt floor to prove it), Waylon Jennings took all the grit of his hometown of Littlefield, Texas, into his soul and his sound. From childhood, this son of a farm laborer considered nothing else but playing music. Stubborn enough never to lose sight of his goal, dumb enough not to realize how long and hard the road, he started as a country disc jockey in Lubbock, then signed on as a protege of fellow Texan Buddy Holly, missing the plane crash that claimed Holly's life by an accident of fate. Cut in the mode of Hank Williams and Carl Smith, yet determined to infuse conservative country music traditions with the energy of rock and roll, Waylon broke the closed society of Nashville sessions in the sixties. Under the tutelage of legends like Porter Wagoner and Ernest Tubb, he shared living quarters with Johnny Cash, took songwriting tips from Roger Miller and encouragement (often unsolicited) from Willie Nelson, and hung out after hours with Kris Kristofferson and George Jones. In the wake of country's own distinctive counterculture, when southern-fried acid freaks met - and partied with - diehard good ol' boys, Waylon helped give America something genuinely new. His 1976 anthology album, Wanted: The Outlaws, was a stunning platinum success, heralding a sound and a mood that evoked the country's pioneer spirit, a restlessness always pushing at the horizon and looking toward the next ridge. But while the artist and performer devoured life and rewrote the rules of the nation's popular music, the star binged on an endless stream of cocaine and pills and staggered through three failed marriages. Ultimately - and inspiringly - Waylon triumphed over his drughabit, proving he would fight for the right to sing his song. At the same time, he ended his long search for the right woman and married Jessi Colter, a country-singing great in her own right and now Waylon's wife for more than a quarter of a century. Today, two-time Grammy winner and sixteen-time chart-topper Waylon Jennings keeps the country fires raging, joining fellow superstars Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson on their sold-out international tours as the Highwaymen.

This songbook contains every song recorded by The Smiths specially arranged in the original keys. Each song includes chord symbols, guitar chord boxes and complete lyrics.

The first book of its kind in English, Beyond No Future: Cultures of German Punk explores the texts and contexts of German punk cultures. Notwithstanding its "no future" sloganeering, punk has had a rich and complex life in German art and letters, in German urban landscapes, and in German youth culture. Beyond No Future collects innovative, methodologically diverse scholarly contributions on the life and legacy of these cultures. Focusing on punk politics and aesthetics in order to ask broader questions about German nationhood(s) in a period of rapid transition, this text offers a unique view of the decade bookended by the "German Autumn" and German unification. Consulting sources both published and unpublished, aesthetic and archival, Beyond No Future's contributors examine German punk's representational strategies, anti-historical consciousness, and refusal of programmatic intervention into contemporary political debates. Taken together, these essays demonstrate the importance of punk culture to historical, political, economic, and cultural developments taking place both in Germany and on a broader transnational scale.

'It's a hip-hop bible' Ghostface Killah, Wutang Clan In Hip Hop Raised Me. (R) , DJ Semtex examines the crucial role of hip-hop in society today, and reflects on the huge influence it has had on his own life, and the lives of many others, filling in the gaps of education that school left behind, providing inspiration and purpose to generation after generation of disaffected youths. Taking a thematic approach and featuring seminal interviews he has conducted with key hip-hop artists, Semtex traces the characteristics and influence of hip-hop from its origins in the early 1970s with DJ Kool Herc's Block parties in the South Bronx, through its breakthrough to the mainstream and advent of gangsta rap in the late 1980s, with artists such as Run DMC, Public Enemy and Ice T, to the impact of contemporary artists and the global industry that is hip-hop today. Hip-hop artists have gone from hustlers to successful entrepreneurs and businessmen. Hip-hop has come of age.

The Show That Never Ends is the behind-the-scenes story of the extraordinary rise and fall of progressive ("prog") rock, epitomised by such classic, chart-topping bands as Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and Emerson Lake & Palmer, and their successors Rush, Styx and Asia. With inside access to all the key figures, The Washington Post national reporter David Weigel tells the story with the gusto and insight Prog Rock's fans (and its haters) will relish. Along the way, he explains exactly what was "progressive" about Prog Rock, how it arose from psychedelia and heavy metal, why it dominated the pop charts but then became so despised that it was satirised in This Is Spinal Tap and what fuels its resurgent popularity today.

"Winner of the Oregon Book Award for General Nonfiction and Los Angeles Times bestseller
"It makes good music sound better."--Janet Maslin in The New York Times
""A fascinating look into the West Coast recording studio scene of the '60s and the inside story of the music you heard on the radio. If you always assumed the musicians you listened to were the same people you saw onstage, you are in for a big surprise "
--Dusty Street, host of "Classic Vinyl" on Sirius XM Satellite Radio
If you were a fan of popular music in the 1960s and early '70s, you were a fan of the Wrecking Crew--whether you knew it or not.
On hit record after hit record by everyone from the Byrds, the Beach Boys, and the Monkees to the Grass Roots, the 5th Dimension, Sonny & Cher, and Simon & Garfunkel, this collection of West Coast studio musicians from diverse backgrounds established themselves in Los Angeles, California as the driving sound of pop music--sometimes over the objection of actual band members forced to make way for Wrecking Crew members. Industry insider Kent Hartman tells the dramatic, definitive story of the musicians who forged a reputation throughout the business as the secret weapons behind the top recording stars.
Mining invaluable interviews, the author follows the careers of such session masters as drummer Hal Blaine and keyboardist Larry Knechtel, as well as trailblazing bassist Carol Kaye--the only female in the bunch--who went on to play in thousands of recording sessions in this rock history. Readers will discover the Wrecking Crew members who would forge careers in their own right, including Glen Campbell and Leon Russell, and learn of the relationship between the Crew and such legends as Phil Spector and Jimmy Webb. Hartman also takes us inside the studio for the legendary sessions that gave us "Pet Sounds, ""Bridge Over Troubled Water, " and the rock classic "Layla," which Wrecking Crew drummer Jim Gordon cowrote with Eric Clapton for Derek and the Dominos. And the author recounts priceless scenes such as Mike Nesmith of the Monkees facing off with studio head Don Kirshner, Grass Roots lead guitarist (and future star of "The Office") Creed Bratton getting fired from the group, and Michel Rubini unseating Frank Sinatra's pianist for the session in which the iconic singer improvised the hit-making ending to "Strangers in the Night."
"The Wrecking Crew" tells the collective, behind-the-scenes stories of the artists who dominated Top 40 radio during the most exciting time in American popular culture.

In her intimate memoir, More Myself, Alicia Keys shares her quest for truth: about herself, her past, and her shift from sacrificing her spirit to celebrating her worth. One of the most celebrated musicians of our time, Alicia Keys has enraptured the nation with her heartfelt lyrics, extraordinary vocal range, and soul-stirring piano compositions. Yet away from the spotlight, Alicia has grappled with private heartache over the challenging and complex relationship with her father, the people-pleasing nature that characterized her early career, the loss of privacy surrounding her romantic relationships, and the oppressive expectations of female perfection. Since her rise to fame, Alicia's public persona has belied a deep personal truth: she has spent years not fully recognizing or honoring her own worth. After withholding parts of herself for so long, she is at last exploring the questions that live at the heart of her story: Who am I, really? And once I discover that truth, how can I become brave enough to embrace it? More Myself is part autobiography, part narrative documentary. Alicia's journey is revealed not only through her own candid recounting, but also through vivid recollections from those who have walked alongside her. The result is a 360-degree perspective on Alicia's path: from her girlhood in Hell's Kitchen and Harlem, to the process of self-discovery she's still navigating. With the raw honesty that epitomizes Alicia's artistry, More Myself is at once a riveting account and a clarion call to readers: to define themselves in a world that rarely encourages a true and unique identity.

Elvis Presley chose one of his songs, "Blue Moon of Kentucky," for his first single. A young Jerry Garcia traveled cross-country to audition for his band. Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, and even Frank Sinatra were fans. Considering the range of stars and styles that claim him as an influence, no single artist has had as broad an impact on American popular music as Bill Monroe.

Born in 1911 in rural Kentucky, Monroe melded the fiddle tunes, ballads, and blues of his youth into the "high lonesome" sound known today as bluegrass, making him perhaps the only performer to create an entire musical genre. His distinctive bluegrass style profoundly influenced country, early rock 'n' roll, and the folk revival of the 1960s. A Grand Ole Opry star for more than sixty years, Monroe was a searing mandolinist who redefined the instrument, a haunting high-range vocalist, and a god-like figure to generations of admirers who became famous in their own right.

When Monroe died in 1996, he was universally acclaimed as "the Father of Bluegrass," but the personal life of this taciturn figure remained largely unknown. His childhood feelings of isolation and abandonment - "lonesomeness" he called it - fueled his reckless womanizing in adulthood and inspired his most powerful compositions. From his professional breakthrough in the Monroe Brothers duet act to his bitter rivalry with former sidemen Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs to his final days as a revered elder statesman of bluegrass, Monroe's career was filled with trials and triumphs. Now, veteran bluegrass journalist Richard D. Smith has interviewed a multitude of Monroe's surviving friends, lovers, colleagues, and contemporaries to create a three-dimensional portrait of this brilliant, complex, and contradictory man. Compellingly narrated and thoroughly researched, Can't You Hear Me Callin' is the definitive biography of a true giant of American music.

Jazz, Rags & Blues, Books 1 through 5 contain original solos for late elementary to early advanced-level pianists that reflect the various styles of the jazz idiom. An excellent way to introduce your students to this distinctive American contribution to 20th century music. Available separately (item #18115), the CD includes dynamic recordings of each song in Books 1-3 of this series.

This volume explores the nature, philosophies and genres of indigenous African popular music, focusing on how indigenous African popular music artistes are seen as prophets and philosophers, and how indigenous African popular music depicts the world. Indigenous African popular music has long been under-appreciated in communication scholarship. However, understanding the nature and philosophies of indigenous African popular music reveals an untapped diversity which only be unraveled by knowledge of the myriad cultural backgrounds from which its genres originate. Indigenous African popular musicians have become repositories of indigenous cultural traditions and cosmologies.With a particular focus on scholarship from Nigeria, Zimbabwe and South Africa, this volume explores the work of these pioneering artists and their proteges who are resiliently sustaining, recreating and popularising indigenous popular music in their respective African communities, and at the same time propagating the communal views about African philosophies and the temporal and spiritual worlds in which they exist.

A monumental oral biography filled with raucous joy, aching loss and terrible poignancy, Elvis & the Memphis Mafia is the first book to capture the King - the man and the phenomenon - in his full complexity. Through revealing interviews with three of Elvis' s closest friends, who were also his protectors and rescuers, Nash achieves the first true mapping of Elvis' s psyche. Billy Smith - Elvis' s first cousin and the person he reputedly loved most after his own mother - Marty Lacker - best man at his wedding and foreman of the ' Memphis Mafia' , the King' s handpicked group of gatekeepers and confidants - and Lamar Fike - the touring crew member who accompanied him into the Army - were with Elvis from his teens to his final days and provide unique access to the greatest of all rock and roll legends. The revelations cut through every aspect of Elvis' s life, from the childhood seeds of his drug dependency, through his fear for his mother' s life and his plan to change his identity, to his bizarre self-mutilation. No one who reads this symphonic blending of three proud, ribald, sad and ultimately wistful voices can fail to be profoundly moved.

Bob Dylan transcends music. He has established himself as one of the most important figures in entertainment history. This biography examines the life and work of the iconic artist, including his groundbreaking achievements of the last two decades. In this thematically organized biography, cultural historian and prolific biographer Bob Batchelor examines one of the most important yet elusive figures in modern history. Rather than taking an exhaustive and cumbersome chronological approach to Bob Dylan's 50-plus year career, the author focuses on the most significant aspects of his life and accomplishments. This work examines the musician's life and career by placing him in the context of contemporary American history and culture. Dylan's music and lyrics are at the center of the analysis, while attention is also paid to how his image transformed as he moved from being the "voice of a generation" during the 1960s to becoming a bonafide rock and roll icon. Readers will appreciate the book for its in-depth, scholarly coverage that remains readable and engaging, and gain a full appreciation for Dylan's place in American history and cultural evolution. Provides extensive cultural and historical context that demonstrates Dylan's lasting impact on American history Supplies a comprehensive analysis of Dylan's iconic standing and influence on popular culture that readers will find fascinating, as well as underscores his status as more than just a singer, songwriter, or musician Brings together disparate elements of biographical information, song and album analysis, and historical and cultural context not found in other works

Listen to Punk Rock! Exploring a Musical Genre discusses the evolution of punk from its inception in 1975 to the present, delving into the lasting impact of the genre throughout society today. Listen to Punk Rock! provides readers with a fuller picture of punk rock as an inclusive genre with continuing relevance. Organized in a roughly chronological manner, it starts with an introduction that explains the musical and cultural forces that shaped the punk genre. Next, 50 entries cover important punk bands and subgenres, noting female punk bands as well as bands of color. The final part of the book discusses how punk has influenced other musical genres and popular culture. The book will give those new to the genre an overview of important bands and products related to the movement in music, including publications, fashion, and films about punk rock. Notably, it pays special attention to diversity within the genre, discussing bands often overlooked or mentioned only in passing in most histories of the movement, which focus mainly on The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and The Ramones as the pioneers of punk. Provides a thorough overview of the evolution of punk music from 1975 to the present Covers bands composed of women and people of color that are frequently overlooked in other books Introduces readers to the breadth of the genre by including as many bands, musicians, and notable songs and albums as possible as entries Contextualizes punk music in the introduction in order to prime readers to explore entries in any order they choose

Carpet Burns is Tom Hingley's account of his life as lead singer of Inspiral Carpets, one of the big three bands of the Manchester movement who, along with The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, changed music for a generation. Tom's own words provide an account of what it felt like to be in the eye of a pop hurricane and what happens when the hits end and the arguments kick in.

'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.

More than 400 books have been published on the American musical icon, Elvis Presley. This critical, annotated guide contains reviews of the varied literature on Elvis, from his career and its social and political aspects to biographies and discographies. The annotated literature not only includes works by family, friends, and musical peers but also references and guides to Elvis collectibles. Each entry details, in addition to pertinent publishing and author information, the specific perspectives and information unique to the literature. The author provides assessments made by Elvis' peers and an introductory essay discusses the surrounding contradictions and the enduring fascination with Elvis.

By covering the vast and different Elvis literature available, this guide will appeal to scholars and fans alike. Organized by type of literature, the guide is easy to reference. Informative addenda include a guide to collecting Elvis books and a chronological listing of Elvis books. In addition to a general index, the guide is indexed by author, by songs, films, and album titles, and by books, magazines, and publications. This compilation offers valuable assistance and critical information to anyone researching some aspect of Elvis and his career.

The success of the Hip-Hop album The Calling (2003) by the Hilltop Hoods was a major event on the timeline of Hip-Hop in Australia. It launched a formerly ‘underground’ scene into the spotlight, radically transforming the group members’ lives and creating new opportunities for other Hip-Hop artists. This book analyses the impact of the album by drawing on original interviews with fifteen Hip-Hop practitioners from across Australia, including artists who contributed to the album. These primary interviews are interwoven with material from media sources and close readings of song lyrics and album imagery. An exploration of the early histories of Hip-Hop in Australia with a focus on the formation of Obese Records and the Hilltop Hoods’ biography gives way to analysis of specific tracks from the album and the Hoods’ prowess as live performers. The book uses The Calling as a lens to examine the beliefs and practices of Hip-Hop enthusiasts in Australia, including changes since the album was released. Published in 2023 to coincide with the album’s twenty-year anniversary, the book is an engaging evaluation of a musical release that was so significant that people now use it explain two distinct periods in Australian Hip-Hop (pre or post The Calling).

Far from its sites of origin in the Global North, metal music thrives in the hands of musicians, fans, and scholars throughout other geographies of the world. Metal in the Global South, the latter defined as a geographical and symbolic space marked by the colonial dynamics of modernity, shines through in Defiant Sounds: Heavy Metal Music in the Global South. The volume brings together authors working from and/or with the Global South to reflect on the roles of metal music throughout their respective regions. With contributions spanning Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Oceania, and Indigenous Nations, the essays position metal music at the epicenter of region-specific experiences of oppression marked by colonialism, ethnic extermination, political persecution, and war. More importantly, the authors stress how metal music is used throughout the Global South to face these oppressive experiences, foster hope, and promote an agenda that seeks to build a better world. It may be that metal's greatest contribution to human emancipation will be in the years to come, in places its originators never imagined. This volume offers evidence of that contribution already taking place in the geographical and symbolic space that we respectfully and emphatically call the Distorted South.

Widespread distribution of recorded music via digital networks affects more than just business models and marketing strategies; it also alters the way we understand recordings, scenes and histories of popular music culture. This Is Not a Remix uncovers the analog roots of digital practices and brings the long history of copies and piracy into contact with contemporary controversies about the reproduction, use and circulation of recordings on the internet. Borschke examines the innovations that have sprung from the use of recording formats in grassroots music scenes, from the vinyl, tape and acetate that early disco DJs used to create remixes to the mp3 blogs and vinyl revivalists of the 21st century. This is Not A Remix challenges claims that 'remix culture' is a substantially new set of innovations and highlights the continuities and contradictions of the Internet era. Through an historical focus on copy as a property and practice, This Is Not a Remix focuses on questions about the materiality of media, its use and the aesthetic dimensions of reproduction and circulation in digital networks. Through a close look at sometimes illicit forms of composition-including remixes, edits, mashup, bootlegs and playlists-Borschke ponders how and why ideals of authenticity persist in networked cultures where copies and copying are ubiquitous and seemingly at odds with romantic constructions of authorship. By teasing out unspoken assumptions about media and culture, this book offers fresh perspectives on the cultural politics of intellectual property in the digital era and poses questions about the promises, possibilities and challenges of network visibility and mobility.

Embracing the entire history of jazz poetry, the work defines this inspired literary genre as poetry necessarily informed by jazz music. It discusses the major figures and various movements from the racist poems of the 1920s to contemporary times when the tone of jazz poetry experienced a dramatic change from elegy to celebration. The jazz music of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane transliterated into poetry by the likes of Langston Hughes and Sterling Brown is but a part of this vital work. This unusual volume will be of interest to scholars and students of literature, music, American and African Studies, and popular culture as well as anyone who enjoys jazz and poetry.

Emphasis is given to a call and response between white and African American writers. The earliest jazz poems by white writers from the 1920s, for example, reflected the general anxieties evoked by jazz, particularly regarding race and sexuality, and jazz did not fully become embraced in American verse until Langston Hughes and Sterling Brown published their first books in 1926 and 1932, respectively. By the 1950s, jazz poetry had become a fad, featuring jazz and poetry in performance, and this book spends considerable time addressing the energetic but often wildly unsuccessful work by dominantly white, West coast writers who turned to Charlie Parker as their hero. African American poets from the 1960s, however, focused more on John Coltrane and interpreted his music as a representation of the Black Civil Rights movement. Jazz poetry from the 1970s to the present has had less to do with this call and response between races, and the final two chapters discuss contemporary jazz poetry in terms of its dramatic change in tone from elegy to joy.

*THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER* As seen on Apple TV - 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything The Sixties ended a year late - on New Year's Eve 1970, when Paul McCartney initiated proceedings to wind up The Beatles. Music would never be the same again. The next day would see the dawning of a new era. 1971 saw the release of more monumental albums than any year before or since and the establishment of a pantheon of stars to dominate the next forty years - Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Marvin Gaye, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Rod Stewart, the solo Beatles and more. January that year fired the gun on an unrepeatable surge of creativity, technological innovation, blissful ignorance, naked ambition and outrageous good fortune. By December rock had exploded into the mainstream. How did it happen? This book tells you how. It's the story of 1971, rock's golden year.

Perfect for fans of Jessica Redland and Helen Rolfe. Welcome to the sunshine island - where the beaches are golden, the lifestyle is perfect and anything is possible. Popstar Matteo Stanford is eager to escape to the sunshine island to catch up with his old friend Alex and secretly film his latest music video. But within moments of landing, the location for the shoot is leaked to the press, and his island escape and video might be over before they start. Not to be defeated, Alex's girlfriend Piper recruits her two best friends Casey and Tara, who run the Smoke and Mirrors stall at the The Cabbage Patch market. It doesn't take Casey more than a moment to realise the perfect setting for Matteo's video is Gorey castle, but securing the venue means Casey is soon planning a secret wedding, finding an actress and becoming a set designer! It's chaos and crazed fans, peppered with the sweetest moments she's ever experienced. But could a popstar really fall for island girl Casey Norman?

Dwight Yoakam has long been known to country music fans as a musiciam who is as much artist as he is superstar. Over the course of his fifteen-year career, he has received fourteen Grammy nominations. One reviewer described his work this way: "Yoakam's lyrics--Leonard Cohen meets Ernest Tubb--work so well because they're literary without being high-minded. The artfulness of the words . . . doesn't always hit you until you read them on the lyric sheet."Newsweek called Yoakam's most recent record--titled, like his book, A Long Way Home--"a daring departure. It's lush and languid, more introspective than hit-driven. He's looking for subtle emotions, melodic evocations of the distances between people, and he draws on sources as varied as Bobby Darin, Chet Baker, and Buck Owens to get there."A Long Way Home is the first collection of Yoakam's lyrics in book form. It spans his career, from such early albums as Hillbilly Deluxe and Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room to the recently released, critically acclaimed A Long Way Home. Yoakam's songwriting is really storytelling--he poetically writes of subjects ranging from God to drinking to love--and proves him to be as fine a writer as he is a musician.

Selected and arranged by the author, and featuring a foreword by revered record producer Glyn Johns, The Weakness In Me presents the lyrics of Joan Armatrading for the first time in one unique volume. Since the release of her debut album Whatever's For Us in 1972, Joan Armatrading has, across a fifty-year career, traversed styles and genres to create a monumental body of work. Acknowledged as the first British female singer-songwriter to gain international success, her writing is alive with intelligence and empathy and paints the human experience with insight and emotion. Selected and arranged by the author, and featuring a foreword by revered record producer Glyn Johns, The Weakness In Me presents the lyrics of Armatrading for the first time in one unique volume. It also contains an introduction by Armatrading alongside annotations to a number of songs, giving a rare, personal glimpse into the creative process of a true pioneer. 'A genuinely groundbreaking artist.' Guardian 'Up there with the best of her generation.' Financial Times 'One of the finest singer-songwriters of her generation: a woman of fierce intelligence and self-effacing wit who never stopped reading your mind or keeping you guessing.' Pitchfork 'What distinguishes her work is the unique authenticity of each of her songs.' New York Times 'Joan Armatrading has always been a pioneer.' Rolling Stone