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Books > Biography > Film, television, music, theatre
The summer of 1938 was a pivotal year for baseball and American
history. In that same year, John Jordon "Buck" O'Neil, was a rookie
first baseman playing his first season in the Negro American
League. Born in Carrabelle, Florida, raised in Sarasota and
nicknamed Buck, it had taken five years and five different teams
before the Kansas City, Monarchs finally signed O'Neil to a
contract. Before he could get the starting assignment, though,
O'Neil had to dethrone one of the Negro Leagues' hardest hitting
first basemen, Eldridge Mayweather. In 1938, a time when
African-American hall of fame ballplayers worth millions could be
purchased for pennies on the dollar, times were hard and the
baseball was tough. Kansas City's Monarchs were a blend of youth
and maturity, and one of the best teams in the Negro American
League. Oddly, Kansas City, in spite of winning records against
every team in the Negro American League, failed to win the
first-half or second-half pennant. For the first time ever John
"Buck" O'Neil, Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe and James "Gabby" Kemp
and many others are united together to speak on this celebrated
season. With interviews from Monarchs' players Willard "Sonny"
Brown, Newt Allen and Byron "Mex" Johnson and many others readers
are taken on a road trip around America. Along the way readers,
just as the team did in 1938, come in contact with segregation and
racism as the book helps everyone to relive the glory days of the
Negro Baseball Leagues. Illustrated with over forty historic
photographs, John "Buck" O'Neil, the rookie, the man, the lagacy
1938 is a welcome addition to every baseball fans reading list.
When author Steve Burton heard the plan for transforming a
relatively untouched bird sanctuary in the Middle Eastern emirate
of Abu Dhabi into a complex, global entertainment and premier
yachting destination within thirty months, he thought the idea was
impossible. The Rulers believed otherwise. It will be done. Burton
was tasked with performing at the highest level and not sweating
the small stuff like money. No was removed from his vocabulary.
Those were the rules. Deadlines were another one. It was no small
endeavor. Recognized as one of today s premier marina development
specialists, Burton was hired by Abu Dhabi s flagship real estate
development company in 2007. In Staying Afloat he narrates an
account of cross-cultural encounters, stratospheric expectations,
unimaginable obstacles, and hilarious day-to-day experiences faced
as an American expatriate living for three years in one of the
wealthiest and most culturally diverse countries on the planet in
the midst of the world s most politically volatile regions. Staying
Afloat conveys a unique blend of cultural insight, candor, and wit
while communicating that an open mind, a keen sense of humor, and a
supreme level of patience and determination are indispensable for
living and working in a foreign country.
This is a story covering 37 years in television broadcasting
including 29 years at the ABC Television Network. It's a story
about the broadcast of major events ranging from The Super Bowl and
The Olympics to the accident at Three Mile Island. It's about the
efforts to get the broadcast back on the air at The 1989 World
Series after The San Francisco Earthquake hit disrupting the
coverage. It tells what was involved in getting those unforgettable
images of Captain John Testrake being interviewed on the tarmac of
Beirut Airport while a terrorist waved his pistol behind the
Captain's head during the hijacking of TWA Flight 847. Learn what
went on behind the scenes to bring those events to your home. Learn
about the obstacles that had to be overcome; the hard work, the
zany antics and the triumphs of the people who worked behind the
cameras and microphones to get those broadcasts on the air and
bring those images to America and the world.
Enrique Granados (1867-1916) is one of the most compelling figures
of the late-Romantic period in music. During his return voyage to
Spain after the premiere of his opera Goyescas at New York's
Metropolitan Opera in 1916, a German submarine torpedoed the ship
on which he and his wife were sailing, and they perished in the
waters of the English Channel. His death was mourned on both sides
of the Atlantic as a stunning loss to the music world, for he had
died at the pinnacle of his career, and his late works held the
promise of greater things to come.
Granados was among the leading pianists of his time, and his
eloquence at the keyboard inspired critics to dub him the "poet of
the piano." In Enrique Granados: Poet of the Piano, Walter Aaron
Clark offers the first substantive study in English of this
virtuoso pianist, composer, and music pedagogue. While providing
detailed analyses of his major works for voice, piano, and the
stage, Clark argues that Granados's art represented a unifying
presence on the cultural landscape of Spain during a period of
imperial decline, political unrest, and economic transformation.
Drawing on newly discovered documents, Clark explores the cultural
spheres in which Granados moved, particularly of Castile and
Catalonia. Granados's best-known music was inspired by the art of
Francisco Goya, especially the Goyescas suite for solo piano that
became the basis for the opera. These pieces evoked the colorful
and dramatic world that Goya inhabited and depicted in his art.
Granados's fascination with Goya's Madrid set him apart from fellow
nationalists Albeniz and Falla, who drew their principal
inspiration from Andalusia. Though he was resolutely apolitical,
Granados's attraction to Castile antagonized some Catalan
nationalists, who resented Castilian domination. Yet Granados also
made important contributions to Catalan musical theater and was a
prominent figure in the modernist movement in Barcelona.
Clark also explores the personal pressures that shaped Granados's
music. His passionate affair with a wealthy socialite created
domestic tensions, but it was also a source of inspiration for
Goyescas. Persistent financial difficulties forced him to devote
time to teaching at the expense of composition, though as a result
Granados made considerable contributions to piano pedagogy and
music education in Barcelona through the music academy he founded
there.
While Granados's tragic and early demise casts a pall over his
life story, Clark ultimately reveals an artist of remarkable
versatility and individuality and sheds new light on his enduring
significance.
Born in Wisconsin in 1919, Wladziu Valentino Liberace began his
career as a performer at roadhouses, bars, stag parties, afternoon
teas, and dances in the Milwaukee area. Television brought him to
stardom in 1952, when The Liberace Show was watched by more than 35
million people each week. His television exposure led to one of the
most lucrative concert, nightclub, and recording careers in
history. His death from AIDS in 1987 continued the perpetual
speculation about his personal life. This book charts the always
controversial life and career of Liberace, from his birth in
America's heartland to his death as one of the most flamboyant
entertainers of his generation. A short biography and chronology
present his life in capsule form and give full attention to the
scandals that plagued his career. The chapters that follow detail
his work in film, television, radio, recordings, and concerts. Each
entry provides fascinating information about his performances, and
an annotated bibliography describes sources for additional
information.
In The Image Business, Steve Powell's autobiography lifts the lid
on the development of sports photography and photojournalism. With
a no holds barred account of his life as a working photographer and
business innovator, he tells of covering world-beating sporting
successes and occasional failures, and of how he built the Allsport
Photographic agency into an industry leader that made him a
millionaire. "The authors' experiences are so vast and often
outrageous that it's easy to forget that this is a true story." L
Lemay. He has worked with everyone from world beating powerboat
racers to Olympic greats such as Seb Coe and Daley Thompson.
Muhammad Ali, Bjorn Borg, Seve Ballesteros and Diego Maradona have
all been his subjects during a lifetime of capturing iconic images.
"In a book market full of often told stories, this is a unique and
compelling read." MarcoVB. Unique insights into the athletes and
administrators who shaped sport over thirty years could only come
from a true insider. He gives a fascinating and fast-paced
narrative of a career that began on the gritty streets of London
and took him to every global arena where sport is played, working
with every major publication and sponsor as he developed ways to
help them deliver their messages. - "This book is right up there
with Phil Knight's "Shoe Dog"." Anonymous Powell reveals the
struggles of an emerging independent agency as it fought to gain
recognition, how it helped break the union stranglehold on Fleet
Street and established Allsport and its photographers as the go-to
source for all that was best in the emerging sports photography
industry. - "This is a thoroughly entertaining book and, I believe,
an important one." R Bundy. Follow his riveting personal narrative
as he describes how he overcame personality clashes that almost
brought the agency to its knees and how riding the tide of
advancing technologies helped create a unique business model.
Always just one step ahead of the opposition, his career mirrors
how he harnessed fast moving changes in the industry to create his
own unique place in sports media history. "(The author) has you
feeling as if you are right there living it alongside him."
Anonymous. This is the story of the man who built the world's
biggest and most famous sports photography business and under whose
guidance, became the first official photographer to the
International Olympic Committee and worked with every major
sporting organisation, governing body and athlete in Europe, and
North America. "A truly inspiring read, by a truly inspiring guy.
His life, his travels keep you reading until the end. What a life,
great read." J Tilley. Finally, the book traces with engaging
candour his learning curve in preparing the company for sale,
turning the business of capturing images into capitalising images
as a business. The buyer was Mark Getty and guided by Powell,
Allsport became a bedrock in the rapidly emerging Getty Images and
made Powell more successful than he could have imagined.
With his topical jokes and his all-American, brash-but-cowardly
screen character, Bob Hope was the only entertainer to achieve
top-rated success in every major mass-entertainment medium of the
century, from vaudeville in the 1920s all the way to television in
the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. He virtually invented modern stand-up
comedy. Above all, he helped redefine the very notion of what it
means to be a star: a savvy businessman, an enterprising builder of
his own brand, and a public-spirited entertainer whose Christmas
military tours and unflagging work for charity set the standard for
public service in Hollywood. As Richard Zoglin shows in this
"entertaining and important book" (The Wall Street Journal), there
is still much to be learned about this most public of figures, from
his secret first marriage and his stint in reform school, to his
indiscriminate womanizing and his ambivalent relationships with
Bing Crosby and Johnny Carson. Hope could be cold, self-centered,
tight with a buck, and perhaps the least introspective man in
Hollywood. But he was also a tireless worker, devoted to his fans,
and generous with friends. "Scrupulously researched, likely
definitive, and as entertaining and as important (to an
understanding of twentieth- and twenty-first-century pop culture)
as its subject once genuinely was" (Vanity Fair), Hope is both a
celebration of the entertainer and a complex portrait of a gifted
but flawed man. "A wonderful biography," says Woody Allen. "For me,
it's a feast."
In here is an offering. An offering designed to enlighten and
inspire anyone who is on the less traveled road laid out by the 12
steps of recovery. I say less traveled because the numbers of true
recoverees is relatively small in comparison to the numbers of
people caught in addictions. This collection has been many, many
years in the making. I hope that it may bring some light and maybe
a little humor to a relatively dark subject.I have tried not to
offend sensitive eyes and pallets but there is some language used
in the cramped world of users that works when other language
doesn't, and some of it is in this collection. I have refrained
from vulgarity however and if you can tolerate some compromise I am
sure you will be pleasantly rewarded. If you are new to recovery
you may be surprised at some of the things here that you thought no
one else had ever thought.It is important to remember that the
common thread in addiction is the lie that you are the only one who
has ever done the things you are doing. There is only so much
dysfunction in the world, and when you have been on the road of
recovery for a while it becomes amazingly redundant. Everybody is
stunned to find out they are not alone in their weirdness. Stunned
and then relieved to find out that there is a way out.The bottom
line is that we give up a life of using for a life of service. When
you find this and come to terms with serving people who usually
don't care, and you serve them anyway, then and only then will you
start receiving the rewards that await you.
A memoir by the woman who knew Bob Marley best--his wife, Rita.
Rita Marley grew up in the slums of Trench Town, Jamaica. Abandoned
by her mother at a very young age, she was raised by her aunt.
Music ran in Rita's family, and even as a child her talent for
singing was pronounced. By the age of 18, Rita was an unwed mother,
and it was then that she met Bob Marley at a recording studio in
Trench Town. Bob and Rita became close friends, fell in love, and
soon, she and her girlfriends were singing backup for the Wailers.
At the ages of 21 and 19, Bob and Rita were married.
The rest is history: Bob Marley and the Wailers set Jamaica and the
world on fire. But while Rita displayed blazing courage, joy, and
an indisputable devotion to her husband, life with Bob was not
easy. There were his liaisons with other women--some of which
produced children and were conducted under Rita's roof. The press
repeatedly reported that Bob was unmarried to preserve his "image."
But Rita kept her self-respect, and when Bob succumbed to cancer in
1981, she was at his side. In the years that followed, she became a
force in her own right--as the Bob Marley Foundation's spokesperson
and a performer in her reggae group, the I-Three.
Written with author Hettie Jones, No Woman No Cry is a
no-holds-barred account of life with one of the most famous
musicians of all time. In No Woman No Cry, readers will learn about
the never-before-told details of Bob Marley's life, including:
How Rita practiced subsistence farming when first married to Bob to
have food for her family. How Rita rode her bicycle into town with
copies of Bob's latest songs to sell. How Rita worked as a
housekeeper in Delaware to help support her family when her
children were young. Why Rita chose to befriend some of the women
with whom Bob had affairs and to give them advice on rearing the
children they had with Bob. The story of the attack on Bob which
almost killed the two of them. Bob's last wishes, dreams, and
hopes, as well as the details of his death, such as who came to the
funeral (and who didn't).
This book examines the conductor's methods in terms of the
realization of expressive potential in a selected body of works.
This examination encompasses analytical, technical, and expressive
gestural aspects of the art and craft of conducting. The author
also discusses the idea of meaning in music and ways, both musical
and extramusical, in which meaning arises in performance. In this
unique study, the author also considers how the use of physical
gestures may have an impact upon the realization of expressive
potential in a given work and, in particular, upon those works
selected for discussion. Central to this process is the notion that
there is something "behind the notes." Text-based modes of analysis
do not afford access to music as it is created by the actions of
performers and conductors. The author argues that this music often
has strong extroversive associations. Inquiry limited to the text
neither helps the interpreter to realise fully the expressive or
communicative potential of that work, nor does it fully consider
the impact of expressive issues on performance. Thus, the conductor
acts as a mediator in this process, taking the work and all
relevant information surrounding it into account as it is prepared
for performance. It is within this context that the author examines
John Corigliano's Overture from Gazebo Dances, Karel Husa's
Introduction and Fanfare from Music for Prague 1968, Edward
Gregson's Celebration, and Morning Music by Richard Rodney Bennett,
with regard to their expressive potential and adopts topical
analysis in a general way as a point of departure in an attempt to
relate this potential to physical gestures, facial expressions, and
body language in the artand craft of conducting. In addition, the
author considers the applicability of the analytical tools
developed in the study to the actual practice of performance with
regard to the works discussed, and attempts to show the
relationship between the analysis of a given work, the physical
manifestation of what that analysis uncovers, and the realisation
of expressive potential in performance. This book will help readers
better understand the relationship between the conductor's physical
gestures, body language and facial expressions, and the expressive
potential of selected works for the wind orchestra. As a book that
clearly reflects the author's passion, it will be a welcome
addition for collections in music.
Film and theatre director Tony Richardson's death in 1991, the
publication of his memoirs in 1993, and the posthumous release of
his final movie, Blue Sky in 1994 have resulted in the beginning of
a critical reevaluation of Richardson's career. The first major
reference on Richardson's life and work in British and American
theatre and film, this book is a necessary first step in that
reevaluation. Richardson's life and work are summarized in a brief
opening biography. A chronology then outlines the major events in
his career. The chapters that follow provide extensively annotated
listings for all of his professional film, theatre, and television
work. Entries provide plot summaries, cast and credit listings,
review excerpts, and commentary. Also included is a list of awards
and nominations given to Richardson and his productions. Of great
significance is the annotated bibliography of books and articles
by, about, or with significant references to Richardson.
George Henry Newton had a dream. His dream was to get out of Zion,
Nevis. The village was poverty stricken. He ventured abroad and
entered the United States. He became a soldier and fought in
W.W.II. Fortunately, he escaped the ravages of the battle field.
During the post war years, he acquired a career, raised his family,
made his mark but became victim of a dependency. He died at age
fifty four, but his eldest son did not let his legacy die with him.
When Anthony Bourdain died in 2018, fans around the globe came together to celebrate the life of an inimitable man.
Laurie Woolever, Bourdain's longtime assistant and confidante, has interviewed nearly a hundred of the people who shared Tony's orbit in order to piece together a remarkably full, vivid, and nuanced vision of Tony's life and work.
From his childhood and teenage days, to his early years in New York, through the genesis of his game-changing memoir Kitchen Confidential to his emergence into fame and notoriety, and in the words of friends and colleagues including Eric Ripert, José Andrés and Nigella Lawson, as well as his family, we see the many sides of Tony - his motivations, his ambivalence, his vulnerability, his blind spots, and his brilliance.
Deeply intimate, featuring a treasure trove of photos, Bourdain: In Stories is a testament to the life of a remarkable man in the words of the people who shared his world.
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