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Books > Biography > Film, television, music, theatre
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Love Life
(Paperback)
Rob Lowe
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R452
R374
Discovery Miles 3 740
Save R78 (17%)
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Johnny Cash was an American icon, known for his level bass-baritone
voice and sombre demeanour, for huge hits like "Ring of Fire" and
"I Walk the Line." He's one of the best-selling musicians of all
time, and his crossover appeal earned him inductions into the
Country Music, Gospel Music, and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame. But
he was also the most prominent political artist in the United
States, even if he wasn't recognized for it in his own lifetime, or
since his death in 2003. Then and now, people have misread Cash's
politics, usually accepting the idea of him as a "walking
contradiction." Cash didn't fit into easy political
categories-liberal or conservative, Red state or Blue state, hawk
or dove. Like most people, Cash's politics were remarkably
consistent in that they were based not on ideology or scripts-but
on emotion, instinct, and identification. He supported Richard
Nixon in his Vietnam War policies, while also seeming to stand up
both for those asked to fight the war and for those who protested
against it. Instead of choosing sides, Cash channelled an emotional
discontent that bridged America's youth and the "silent majority."
Foley traces the political evolution of the Man in Black as a
prominent public citizen. Drawing on untapped archives and new
research on social movements and grassroots activism, Citizen Cash
offers a major reassessment of a legendary figure.
In Giving Voice to My Music, David Wordsworth's engrossing
interviews take us into the world of twenty-four leading composers
of choral music, composers for whom writing for choirs is central
to their very existence. Here, they give voice to their
inspirations, their passions and the challenges they have faced in
working through the pandemic of 2020/21. They reveal how their life
experiences have influenced their compositions, how they choose and
relate to the texts they set, and how they interact with
commissioners, singers and conductors alike. Enhanced by an
extensive reference section and a revelatory list of the composers'
own favourite pieces, readers will discover music that has enriched
these composers' lives and encouraged their creativity. Giving
Voice to my Music will be relished by singers, composers,
conductors and above all audiences, for the new insights it offers
into works that are already well-known but also for its
introductions to new choral music that deserves to be better known.
First published in English in 1980, this important early memoir of
Gustav Mahler is by Natalie Bauer-Lechner (1858-1921), a viola
player and close and devoted friend of Mahler until his marriage to
Alma Schindler in 1902. She visited him in Hamburg and frequented
his circle in Vienna, also accompanying him and his family on a
number of the summer vacations during which the Second, Third and
Fourth Symphonies came into being, together with many of the
Wunderhorn songs. Compiled from Bauer-Lechner's private journal,
these Recollections are a vital, invaluable record of Mahler's
personal, professional and creative life during the last decade of
the nineteenth century. A large part of the book recounts, at first
hand, conversations with Mahler concerning his works and his ideas
about performance (both in the opera-house and on the concert
platform.)
A fascinating exploration of Grieg's visits to England and what the
country meant to him, showing how it had a far greater impact on
his life and career than has hitherto been recorded. When Edvard
Grieg came to give his first concerts in London, he had the world
at his feet. As the first composer to transmute the sights and
sounds of his own spectacular country into music, he was held to be
both prophet and pioneer, and English writers described him as the
most popular of all living composers, commenting, when he returned
to London the following year, on the 'Grieg fever' that raged in
the capital. Between 1862 and 1906 Grieg spent some six months of
his life in this country, for most of the time engaged in giving
concerts of his own music as conductor, solo pianist and
accompanist. Celebrated by his fellow musicians - among them
Delius, Parry, Henry Wood and Grainger - Grieg was befriended by
royalty, heaped with honours that included doctoral degrees from
Cambridge and Oxford, pleaded in high quarters the cause of
Norwegian independence, and found new friends who effected a
profound change in his religious outlook. This book explores the
impact he had on England as well as examining what the country
meant to him, showing how England had a far greater influence on
Grieg's life and career than hashitherto been recorded. It also
offers an array of fascinating insights into the musical life and
milieu of the time. LIONEL CARLEY is honorary archivist of the
Delius Trust and respected author of many books about Delius.
'Ingenious, elegant, and pleasing - a treat for the most refined
listeners and critical judges of musical composition'. Thus wrote
Charles Burney in the 18th century about the music of Luigi
Boccherini. Here, three centuries later, the renowned cellist
Steven Isserlis, in his Foreword to Luigi Boccherini - Musica
Amorosa, invites you to enter anew that world of 'sweet, joyous
clarity' and 'fathomless beauty' that endow Boccherini's rococo
style. 'This', says Isserlis, 'is the music of angels'. Born in
1743 in Italy, in Lucca, famed for its long and distinguished
musical tradition, Boccherini spent two thirds of his life in
Spain, a vibrant influence that perfuses many of his works. A
composer of symphonies, chamber music and vocal works, he excelled
as well in creating many sonatas and concertos for the cello. A
pioneer in his day of modern cello playing, Boccherini introduced
techniques that greatly heightened the cello's range and depth of
expression. Incorporating recent international research, this
comprehensive new biography sets the composer in his historical
context during the turbulent social changes that accompanied the
end of the ancien regime and the dawn of the republican era.
A fully annotated edition of more than 1600 letters from and to
Gerald Finzi, spanning the composer's life from ca. the early 1920s
up until his untimely death in 1956. Gerald Finzi's (1901-1956)
masterpiece is the radiant and touching cantata Dies Natalis. He is
also highly regarded for his Thomas Hardy song-settings, for his
Intimations of Immortality, and for his fine cello and clarinet
concertos. As a scholar, he championed the then neglected composers
Hubert Parry and Ivor Gurney, and the eighteenth-century John
Stanley, William Boyce and Richard Mudge, composers he revived with
the amateur orchestra he founded. Diana McVeagh, Finzi's
biographer, brings together more than 1600 letters from and to
Gerald Finzi, spanning the composer's life from the early 1920s
until his untimely death in 1956. His more than 160 correspondents
include Ralph Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells, Edmund Rubbra,
Arthur Bliss and Howard Ferguson, Michael Tippett, Benjamin Britten
and Sir John Barbirolli, the poet Edmund Blunden, and the artist
John Aldridge, making this a portrait not only of Gerald Finzi but
also of his group of composer, musician and artist friends in the
first half of the twentieth century. In these mostly unpublished
letters Finzi emerges as a multi-faceted and complex character,
developing from a solitary, introverted youth into a man with
strong views and wide interests: education, pacifism,
vegetarianism, the Arts and Crafts movement and the English
pastoral tradition, among others. From amusing trivia to the deeply
serious ideas and principles Finzi set out at the onset of war and
in the 1950s, these letters allow for first-hand insights into his
personality and background. This definitive edition is fully
annotated, offering context with substantial commentaries on the
correspondence, illustrations by Joy Finzi, a chronology,
bibliography and a catalogue of works.
'EYEWITNESS GOLD' SUNDAY TIMES WHO - OR WHAT - WAS THE REAL LOVE OF
FREDDIE MERCURY'S LIFE? THE SENSATIONAL NEW BIOGRPHAY OF QUEEN'S
FRONTMAN Millions of Queen and screen fans who watched the
Oscar-winning film Bohemian Rhapsody believe that Mary Austin, the
woman he could never quite let go of, was the love of Freddie
Mercury's life. But the truth is infinitely more complicated.
Best-selling biographer and music writer Lesley-Ann Jones explores
the charismatic frontman's romantic encounters, from his boarding
school years in Panchgani, India to his tragic, final, bed-ridden
days in his magnificent London mansion. She reveals why none of his
love interests ever perfected the art of being Freddie's life
partner. In Love of My Life, the author follows him through his
obsessions with former shop girl Mary, German actress Barbara
Valentin and Irish-born barber boyfriend Jim Hutton. She explores
his adoration of globally feted Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballe.
She delves into his intimate friendship with Elton John, and probes
his imperishable bonds with his fellow band members. She
deconstructs his complicated relationship with the 'food of love' -
his music - and examines closely his voracious appetite for - what
some would call his fatal addiction to - sex. Which of these was
the real love of Freddie Mercury's life? Was any of them? Drawing
on personal interviews and first-hand encounters, this moving book
brings to the fore a host of Freddie's lesser-known loves, weaving
them in and out of the passions that consumed him. The result, a
mesmerising portrait of a legendary rock star, is unputdownable.
Love of My Life, published during the year of the 30th anniversary
of his death and that would have seen his 75th birthday, is
Lesley-Ann's personal and compassionate tribute to an artist she
has revered for as long as she has written about music and
musicians.
This title was first published in 2000: In their stunning
simplicity, George Romney's portraits of eighteenth-century gentry
and their children are among the most widely recognised creations
of his age. A rival to Reynolds and Gainsborough, Romney was born
in 1734 on the edge of the Lake District, the landscape of which
never ceased to influence his eye for composition and colour. He
moved in 1762 to London where there was an insatiable market for
portraits of the landed gentry to fill the elegant picture
galleries of their country houses. Romney's sitters included
William Beckford and Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton. An influential
figure, one of the founding fathers of neo-classicism and a
harbinger of romanticism, Romney yearned to develop his talents as
a history painter. Countless drawings bear witness to ambitious
projects on elemental themes which were rarely executed on canvas.
Richly illustrated, this is the first biography of Romney to
explore the full diversity of his oeuvre. David A. Cross portays a
complex personality, prone to melancholy, who held himself aloof
from London's Establishment and from the Royal Academy, of which
Sir Joshua Reynolds was President, and chose instead to find his
friends among that city's radical intelligentsia.
Ever since Pearl Jam first blasted onto the Seattle grunge scene
three decades ago with their debut album, Ten, they have sold 85M+
albums, performed for hundreds of thousands of fans around the
world, and have even been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame. In Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack Of A Generation,
music critic and journalist Steven Hyden celebrates the life,
career, and music of this legendary group, widely considered to be
one of the greatest American rock bands of all time. Long Road is
structured like a mix tape, using 18 different Pearl Jam classics
as starting points for telling a mix of personal and universal
stories. Each chapter tells the tale of this great band - how they
got to where they are, what drove them to greatness, and why it
matters now. Much like the generation it emerged from, Pearl Jam is
a mass of contradictions. They were an enormously successful
mainstream rock band who felt deeply uncomfortable with the pursuit
of capitalistic spoils. They were progressive activists who spoke
in favor of abortion rights and against the Ticketmaster monopoly,
and yet they epitomized the sound of traditional, male-dominated
rock 'n' roll. They were looked at as spokesmen for their
generation, even though they ultimately projected profound
confusion and alienation. They triumphed, and failed, in equal
doses - the quintessential Gen-X tale. Impressive as their stats,
accolades, and longevity may be, Hyden also argues that Pearl Jam's
most definitive accomplishment lies in the impact their music had
on Generation X as a whole. Pearl Jam's music helped an entire
generation of listeners connect with the glory of bygone rock
mythology, and made it relevant during a period in which tremendous
American economic prosperity belied a darkness at the heart of
American youth. More than just a chronicle of the band's career,
this book is also a story about Gen- X itself, who like Pearl Jam
came from angsty, outspoken roots and then evolved into an
establishment institution, without ever fully shaking off their
uncertain, outsider past. For so many Gen-Xers growing up at the
time, Pearl Jam's music was a beacon that offered both solace and
guidance. They taught an entire generation how to grow up without
losing the purest and most essential parts of themselves. Written
with his celebrated blend of personal memoir, criticism, and
journalism, Hyden explores Pearl Jam's path from Ten to now. It's a
chance for new fans and old fans alike to geek out over Pearl Jam
minutia-the B-sides, the beloved deep cuts, the concert
bootlegs-and explore the multitude of reasons why Pearl Jam's music
resonated with so many people. As Hyden explains, "Most songs pass
through our lives and are swiftly forgotten. But Pearl Jam is
forever."
Do you ever find yourself: Tumblin' out of bed and stumblin' to the
kitchen? Searchin' for a cup of ambition? Sighin' and groanin' at
the mundanity of life? We could all do with a bit more Dolly in our
lives! With empowering advice on love, business, style and looking
out for number one, these pages will help Dolly Parton lovers
everywhere create the life they truly want.
Although Pablo Picasso spotted Dora Maar at a cafe in January 1936
it is highly likely that she had come to his attention prior. As
Brassai, a Hungarian-French photographer, recalled, It was at Les
Deux-Magots that, one day in autumn 1935, [he] met Dora On an
earlier day, he had already noticed the grave, drawn face of the
young woman at a nearby table, the attentive look in her
light-colored eyes, sometimes disturbing in its fixity. When
Picasso saw her in the same cafe in the company of the surrealist
poet Paul Eluard, who knew her, the poet introduced her to Picasso
(Brassai, a.k.a. Gyula Halasz, Conversations with Picasso
[University of Chicago Press, 1999]). Tinged with a seductive mix
of violence and dark eroticism, this first meeting has attained
mythical status in the story of the artists life. It reads like an
unreal fantasy. A mysterious and feline beauty, which Man Ray had
captured in the pictures he took of her, a companion of Georges
Bataille, Dora was an accomplished photographer, close to the
Surrealists revolutionary aesthetics. Picasso addressed her in
French, which he assumed to be her language; she replied in
Spanish, which she knew to be his. For the next decade, the painter
would translate not just his fascination with the woman who had
seduced him on the spot, but also his desire to escape the grip of
someone who, for the first time, could intellectually aspire to be
his equal. Dora would appear in his works as a female Minotaur, a
Sphinx, a lunar goddess and a muse. Because of her intense artistic
sensibility, her poetic gifts and her ability to participate in
suffering, she was especially qualified to resonate Picassos own
inner torments during these troubled years.
* THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER * THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *
'Adam has drawn for us an imperative how-to for creativity... I am
aware of no human outside of fiction more qualified to pen this
rousing paean to making. I adore this book,' Nick Offerman, star of
Parks and Recreation MythBusters' Adam Savage - Discovery Channel
star and one of the most beloved figures in science and tech -
shares his golden rules of creativity, from finding inspiration to
following through and successfully turning your idea into reality.
Adam Savage is a maker. From Chewbacca's bandolier to a
thousand-shot Nerf gun, he has built thousands of spectacular
projects as a special effects artist and the co-host of
MythBusters. Adam is also an educator, passionate about instilling
the principles of making in the next generation of inventors and
inspiring them to turn their curiosity into creation. In this
practical and passionate guide, Adam weaves together vivid personal
stories, original sketches and photographs from some of his most
memorable projects, and interviews with many of his iconic and
visionary friends in the arts and sciences - including Pixar
director Andrew Stanton, Nick Offerman, Oscar-winner Guillermo Del
Toro and artist Tom Sachs - to demonstrate the many lessons he has
picked up from a lifetime of making. Things like: don't wait until
everything is perfect - in your workshop or in your life - to
begin. Plan with pencil and paper. Sweep up every day. Learn from
doing. Share your toys. There is an exact tool for every task (Adam
probably has four of them in his wondrous shop), but if you need to
pound in a nail and all you have handy is a skill saw - hammer
away. The most important thing, always, is just that you make
something. Every Tool's a Hammer is sure to guide and inspire you
to build, make, invent, explore and, most of all, enjoy the thrills
of being a creator.
The illustrated story of Eric and Ernie's early years as variety
entertainers, and the first ever biography to reveal how they
became Britain's best loved comedy double act. Eric Morecambe &
Ernie Wise were Britain's greatest ever double act, but there's
never been a book which really revealed the era that made them such
a special part of our national culture. Until now. Although they
ended up on TV, they started out in variety, and their
record-breaking Christmas shows were a secret homage to that
forgotten world. For a quarter of a century, from the early Forties
until the late Sixties, they were a live act first and foremost,
playing pantomime and summer season, variety theatres and seaside
piers. 'You're making us look like a cheap music hall act,' Ernie
used to complain, in mock protest. 'Well, we are a cheap music hall
act,' Eric would reply. Morecambe and Wise Untold is a book about
Eric and Ernie's live years. What was it really like, that lost
world which they came from? How did it shape them? What were the
other acts like? And the theatres? And the shows? Why did they
survive, while so many other variety acts vanished? This is the
story of the spit and sawdust places where they served their
showbiz apprenticeship, told through the reminiscences of the
people they met along the way. Morecambe and Wise Untold contains
brand new interviews with Ken Dodd and Bruce Forsyth (who worked
with Eric and Ernie in Variety) plus Michael Grade, Ernest Maxin
and John Ammonds, who got to know them as a live act, and went on
to mastermind their phenomenally successful TV shows. There are
interviews with Gail and Gary Morecambe (Eric's children), Joan
Morecambe (Eric's widow) and a rare and revealing interview with
Doreen Wise - the first time that Ernie's widow has ever been
interviewed for a book about Morecambe & Wise. The text is
accompanied by a wealth of rare and previously unseen photos by
Gary Morecambe from his father's family archive and from the
collections of friends, fellow performers and fans who captured the
emerging story of a legendary showbiz partnership in the making.
Yes: A Visual Biography I: 1968 - 1981 documents the progressive
rock pioneer's first twelve years from the release of their
eponymous debut album through to 1980's Drama: A suitable name for
a band whose career has been full of drama as documented in
Popoff's narrative that charts Yes's ups and downs as the band
glided out of the sixties with a full-on assault on the seventies
music scene that saw them become one of the biggest global
acts-selling out venues around the world from New York's Madison
Square Garden to London's Wembley Arena. Popoff takes you on a
journey from the early days of the band with original members Chris
Squire, Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Peter Banks and Tony Kaye; to
the hugely successful seventies when the likes of Steve Howe,
Patrick Moraz, Rick Wakeman and Alan White all added their
individual stamps on the band's identity. Then the surprise union
with The Buggles that saw Yes enter the eighties a world apart from
the way they had entered the seventies but continuing to delight
their legion of fans.
Daily Mail Showbiz Memoir of the Year 'A beautiful book' Chris
Evans 'Terrifically entertaining' Mail on Sunday 'An arresting
photographic voyage through the life and loves of this enigmatic
English star' S magazine 'Though not a conventional autobiography,
we learn what makes the national treasure tick' Daily Express In
the early days of my career, I didn't think I stood a hope in hell.
Look at me: I'm short, stocky, slightly overweight, deep of voice,
passionate, dark haired, olive skinned, hardly your typical
Englishman. What chance did I have, going into the world of British
theatre? David Suchet has been a stalwart of British stage and
screen for fifty years. From Shakespeare to Oscar Wilde, Freud to
Poirot, Edward Teller to Doctor Who, Harold Pinter to Terence
Rattigan, Questions of Faith to Decline and Fall, right up to
2019's The Price, David has done it all. Throughout this
spectacular career, David has never been without a camera, enabling
him to vividly document his life in photographs. Seamlessly
combining photo and memoir, Behind the Lens is the story of David's
remarkable life, showcasing his wonderfully evocative photographs
and accompanied by his insightful and engaging commentary. In
Behind the Lens, David discusses his London upbringing and love of
the city, his Jewish roots and how they have influenced his career,
the importance of his faith, how he really feels about fame, his
love of photography and music, and his processes as an actor. He
looks back on his fifty-year career, including reflections on how
the industry has changed, his personal highs and lows, and how he
wants to be remembered. And, of course, life after Poirot and why
he's still grieving for the eccentric Belgian detective. An
autobiography with a difference, this is David Suchet as you've
never seen him before - from behind the lens. 'The book offers more
insight into the mind and philosophy of this remarkable man than a
more conventional biographical approach could have achieved'
Country Life
No other art movement in history has contained two artists as
different as Magritte and Miro. This is because Surrealism was not
in origin an art movement, but a philosophical strategy. It was a
way of life - a rebellion against the establishment that had given
the world the hideous slaughter of the First World War. Instead of
trying to analyse the work of the Surrealists, bestselling author
and Surrealist artist Desmond Morris concentrates on them as people
- as remarkable individuals. What were their personalities, their
predilections, their character strengths and flaws? Did they enjoy
a social life or were they loners? Were they bold eccentrics or
timid recluses? Drawing on the author's personal knowledge of the
Surrealists, this book captures their life histories,
idiosyncrasies and often-complex love lives, vividly illustrated
with images of the artists and their works. The arts of Surrealism
were both spectacular and international, shaped by the darkest,
most irrational workings of the unconscious. Shocking, witty and
always entertaining, Morris's tales illuminate the striking
variation in approaches to the Surrealist philosophy, both in the
artists' work and in their lives. With 72 illustrations
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