'WHICH IS THE BEST BAND I'VE BEEN IN? THE SMALL FACES WERE THE MOST CREATIVE, THE FACES WERE THE MOST FUN,THE WHO WERE THE MOST EXCITING. THESE WERE ELECTRIFYING DAYS IN MUSIC. WE WERE ALL UNTRIED, UNTESTED. WHAT WAS STOPPING US? NOTHING.' As drummer with the Small Faces, Faces and later The Who, Kenney Jones' unique sense of rhythm was the heartbeat that powered three of the most influential rock bands of all time. Beginning in London's post-war East End, Kenney's story takes us through the birth of the Mod revolution, the mind-bending days of the late-1960s and the raucous excesses of the '70s and '80s. In a career spanning six decades, Kenney was at the epicentre of many of the most exciting moments in music history and has experienced everything the industry has to offer. He jointly created some of the world's most-loved records, hung out with the Stones, Beatles, David Bowie, Keith Moon and Rod Stewart, and suffered the loss of close friends to rock 'n' roll excess and success. The legacy created by Kenney and his band mates has influenced acts as diverse as Led Zeppelin, the Sex Pistols and Oasis. Now, for the very first time, Kenney tells the full story of how a young Cockney Herbert played his part in the biggest social transformation in living memory - the people, the parties, the friendships, the fall-outs, the laughter, the sadness, the sex, drugs, and a lot of rock 'n' roll, while also opening up about his own deeply personal battles and passions, too. This is a vivid and breath-taking immersion into the most exciting era of music history and beyond.

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

A blend of This Is Spinal Tap and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the cult classic confessions of a debauched rock 'n' roller and his adventures in excess on the '80s hair-metal nostalgia tour through Middle America--available again, and now revised and updated.

Once upon a time at the start of the new century, the unheard-of Unband got a chance to drink, fight, and play loud music with '80s metal bands like Dio and Def Leppard. To the mix they brought illegal pyrotechnics, a giant red inflatable hand with movable digits, a roadie dubiously named Safety Bear, a high tolerance for liver damage, and an infectious love of rock & roll and everything it represents.

Unband bassist Michael Ruffino takes us on an epic joyride across a surrealistic American landscape where we meet mute Christian groupies, crack-smoking Girl Scouts, beer-drinking chimps, and thousands of head-bangers who cannot accept that hair metal is dead. Here, too, are uncensored portraits of Ronnie James Dio, Anthrax, Sebastian Bach, Lemmy of Motorhead, and others.

Adios, Motherfucker is gonzo rock storytelling at its finest--excessive, incendiary, intelligent, hilarious, and utterly original.

From 1970 to 1973 Underground Press rock critic Rick McGrath interviewed, reviewed and photographed many of the musicians who visited or lived in Vancouver, British Columbia, for the alternate newspapers The Georgia Straight, The Grape and The Terminal City Express. In Straight Man Rick revisits those days of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll with interviews with the likes of Led Zeppelin (1971) Van Morrison (1971) Elton John (1971) Fleetwood Mac (1971) Jeremy Spencer's last interview Captain Beefheart (1971, 1973) Chicago (1970) Pentangle (1970) Mitch Ryder (1970) Kim Simmonds (1970) Gordon Lightfoot (1970) Luke Gibson (1972), Crowbar (1971 2X), Al Neil (1972) and Hall of Fame DJ Red Robinson (1972). Straight Man also includes articles of the Rolling Stones' movies Gimme Shelter and C**ksucker Blues, the complete Prisoner TV series and Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor Plus unpublished photographs of Bob Dylan and The Band, Van Morrison, Larry Coryell, Tim Buckley and The Tubes. Straight Man is a revealing, informative and fun trip back to the early formative years of many of today's Rock superstars."

A tour-de-force history of Jews, blues, and the birth of a new industry. On the south side of Chicago in the late 1940s, two immigrants, one a Jew born in Russia, the other a black blues singer from Mississippi met and changed the course of musical history. Muddy Waters electrified the blues, and Leonard Chess recorded it. Soon Bo Diddly and Chuck Berry added a dose of pulsating rhythm, and Chess Records captured that, too. Rock & roll had arrived, and an industry was born. In a book as vibrantly and exuberantly written as the music and people it portrays, Rich Cohen tells the engrossing story of how Leonard Chess, with the other record men, made this new sound into a multi-billion-dollar business aggressively acquiring artists, hard-selling distributors, riding the crest of a wave that would crash over a whole generation. Full of absorbing lore and animated by a deep love for popular music, Machers and Rockers is a smash hit.

In SCAR TISSUE Anthony Kiedis, charismatic and highly articulate frontman of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, recounts his remarkable life story, and the history of the band itself. Raised in the Midwest, he moved to LA aged eleven to live with his father Blackie, purveyor of pills, pot, and cocaine to the Hollywood elite. After a brief child-acting career, Kiedis dropped out of U.C.L.A. and plunged headfirst into the demimonde of the L.A. underground music scene. He formed the band with three schoolfriends - and found his life's purpose. Crisscrossing the country, the Chili Peppers were musical innovators and influenced a whole generation of musicians.;But there's a price to pay for both success and excess and in SCAR TISSUE, Kiedis writes candidly of the overdose death of his soul mate and band mate, Hillel Slovak, and his own ongoing struggle with an addiction to drugs.;SCAR TISSUE far transcends the typical rock biography, because Anthony Kiedis is anything but a typical rock star. It is instead a compelling story of dedication and debauchery, of intrigue and integrity, of recklessness and redemption.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon described him as the Beatles' "favorite group," and yet no figure in popular music is as much of a paradox as Harry Nilsson. A major celebrity at a time when stadium rock was in its infancy and huge concerts and festivals were becoming the norm, Nilsson's instrument was the studio, his stage the dubbing booth, his greatest technical triumphs were masterful examples of studio craft, and he studiously avoided live performance. He was a gifted composer of songs for a wide variety of performers, having created vivid flights of imagination for the Ronettes, the Yardbirds and the Monkees, yet Nilsson's own biggest hits were almost all written, ironically, by other composers and lyricists. He won two Grammies, had two top ten singles, and numerous album successes. Once described by his producer Richard Perry as "the finest white male singer on the planet," near the end of his life, his career was marked by voice-damaging substance abuse and the infamous deaths of both Keith Moon and Mama Cass in his London flat. His music remains prevalent today, through the 1995 tribute album For the Love of Harry: Everybody Sings Nilsson (featuring performances of Nilsson's hits by Ringo Starr, Stevie Nicks, Fred Schneider and others) and recent covers, such as Aimee Mann's recording of "One" (popularized as the main track on the Magnolia soundtrack) and Neko Case's arrangement of "Don't Forget Me" on her album, Middle Cyclone. In this first ever full-length biography of Nilsson, author Alyn Shipton traces Nilsson's life from his Brooklyn childhood to his Los Angeles adolescence, and charts his gradual move into the spotlight as a talented songwriter. With interviews from Nilsson's friends, family and associates, and material drawn from an unfinished draft autobiography Nilsson was writing prior to his death, Shipton probes beneath the enigma and the paradox to discover the real Harry Nilsson, and thereby reveals one of the most creative talents in 20th century popular music.

A brilliant new biography of the extraordinary, outrageous performer who helped open the floodgates of Rock'n'Roll

In June, 2007, Little Richard's 1955 Specialty Records single, "Tutti Frutti," topped Mojo "magazine's list of "100 Records That Changed the World." But back in the early 1950s, nobody gave Little Richard a second glance. It was a time in America where the black and white worlds had co-existed separately for nearly two centuries. After "Tutti Frutti," Little Richard began garnering fans from both sides of the civil rights divide. He brought black and white youngsters together on the dance floor and even helped to transform race relations.

Little Richard: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll "begins by grounding the reader in the fertile soil from which Little Richard's music sprang. In Macon, Georgia, David Kirby interviews relatives and local characters, who knew Little Richard way back when, citing church and family as his true inspiration. His antics began as early as grade school, performing for his classmates every time the teacher would leave the room, connecting to an age-old American show biz tradition of charade and flummery. On the road, Little Richard faced competition from his peers, honing his stage show and making it, too, an act that could not be counterfeited.

Kirby sees Little Richard as a foxy warrior, fighting with skill and cunning to take his place among the greats. In the words of Keith Richards (on hearing "Tutti Frutti" for the first time), "it was as though the world changed suddenly from monochrome to Technicolor." Those sentiments have consistently been echoed by the music-listening world, and the time is ripe for a reassessment of Little Richard's genius and legacy.

On the back of his published diary Brian Eno describes himself variously as: a mammal, a father, an artist, a celebrity, a pragmatist, a computer-user, an interviewee, and a 'drifting clarifier'. To this list we might add rock star (on the first two Roxy Music albums); the creator of lastingly influential music (Another Green World; Music for Airports); a trusted producer (for Talking Heads, U2, Coldplay and a host of other artists); the maker of large-scale video and installation artworks; a maker of apps and interactive software; and so on. All in all, he is one of the most feted and most influential musical figures of the past forty years even though he himself has consistently downplayed his musical abilities, describing himself as a non-musician on more than one occasion. This volume examines Eno's work as a musician, as a theoretician, as a collaborator, and as a producer. Brian Eno is one of the most influential figures in popular music; an updated examination of his work on this scale is long overdue.

The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music Volume 6 is one of five volumes within the 'Locations' strand of the series. This volume discusses the popular music of African and the Middle East in a historical, geographical, demographical, political, economic, and cultural context. It also examines the genres associated with the region, significant venues such as theatres, dance halls, clubs and bars, and notable performers and other practitioners such as producers, engineers, and technological innovators. The volume consists of over 100 entries written by more than 60 leading popular music scholars and practitioners, including John Collins on Ghana, Moya Aliya Malamusi on Malawi, and, Motti Regev on Israel. This and all other volumes of the Encyclopedia are now available through an online version of the Encyclopedia: https://www.bloomsburypopularmusic.com/encyclopedia-work?docid=BPM_reference_EPMOW. A general search function for the whole Encyclopedia is also available on this site. A subscription is required to access individual entries. Please see: https://www.bloomsburypopularmusic.com/for-librarians.

This reference work details Frank Sinatra's extensive creative accomplishments and includes biographical information as it relates to his art. A valuable tool for researchers and fans, this book provides access to extensive data, collected from disparate sources, including the first published listing of Internet resources. The information is divided into three parts, each arranged alphabetically, and covers his music, film, radio, and television appearances, and his concerts and humanitarian contributions. A thorough bibliography provides important information on locating additional resources. The only American performer to span seven decades of recording (1930s-1990s), Sinatra is regarded as an American icon. The wealth of information in this reference attests to Sinatra's well-earned reputation as an American musical legend. This reference aptly includes information not only about his creative endeavors but about his humanitarian efforts as well. Because Sinatra is recognized and admired for his musical talent, a large portion of this reference is devoted to his songs and recordings. The alphabetical arrangements of song entries includes information on the songs, record labels, arrangers, and recording dates. Three appendices at the end of the volume provide additional information about the recordings. The encyclopedia concludes with the many awards and honors bestowed upon Sinatra.

The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music Volume 7 is one of five volumes within the 'Locations' strand of the series. This volume discusses the popular music of Europe in a historical, geographical, demographical, political, economic, and cultural context. It also examines the genres associated with the region, significant venues such as theatres, dance halls, clubs and bars, and notable performers and other practitioners such as producers, engineers, and technological innovators. The volume consists of over 100 entries written by more than 60 leading popular music scholars and practitioners, including Paolo Prato on Italy and Alf Bjoernberg on Sweden. This and all other volumes of the Encyclopedia are now available through an online version of the Encyclopedia: https://www.bloomsburypopularmusic.com/encyclopedia-work?docid=BPM_reference_EPMOW. A general search function for the whole Encyclopedia is also available on this site. A subscription is required to access individual entries. Please see: https://www.bloomsburypopularmusic.com/for-librarians.

Few styles of popular music have generated as much controversy as progressive rock, a musical genre best remembered today for its gargantuan stage shows, its fascination with epic subject matter drawn from science fiction, mythology, and fantasy literature, and above all for its attempts to combine classical music's sense of space and monumental scope with rock's raw power and energy. Its dazzling virtuosity and spectacular live concerts made it hugely popular with fans during the 1970s, who saw bands such as King Crimson, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, and Jethro Tull bring a new level of depth and sophistication to rock. On the other hand, critics branded the elaborate concerts of these bands as self- indulgent and materialistic. They viewed progressive rock's classical/rock fusion attempts as elitist, a betrayal of rock's populist origins.
In Rocking the Classics, the first comprehensive study of progressive rock history, Edward Macan draws together cultural theory, musicology, and music criticism, illuminating how progressive rock served as a vital expression of the counterculture of the late 1960s and 1970s. Beginning with a description of the cultural conditions which gave birth to the progressive rock style, he examines how the hippies' fondness for hallucinogens, their contempt for Establishment-approved pop music, and their fascination with the music, art, and literature of high culture contributed to this exciting new genre. Covering a decade of music, Macan traces progressive rock's development from the mid- to late-sixties, when psychedelic bands such as the Moody Blues, Procol Harum, the Nice, and Pink Floyd laid the foundation of the progressive rock style, and proceeds to the emergence of the mature progressive rock style marked by the 1969 release of King Crimson's album In the Court of the Crimson King. This "golden age" reached its artistic and commercial zenith between 1970 and 1975 in the music of bands such as Jethro Tull, Yes, Genesis, ELP, Gentle Giant, Van der Graaf Generator, and Curved Air.
In turn, Macan explores the conventions that govern progressive rock, including the visual dimensions of album cover art and concerts, lyrics and conceptual themes, and the importance of combining music, visual motif, and verbal expression to convey a coherent artistic vision. He examines the cultural history of progressive rock, considering its roots in a bohemian English subculture and its meteoric rise in popularity among a legion of fans in North America and continental Europe. Finally, he addresses issues of critical reception, arguing that the critics' largely negative reaction to progressive rock says far more about their own ambivalence to the legacy of the counterculture than it does about the music itself.
An exciting tour through an era of extravagant, mind-bending, and culturally explosive music, Rocking the Classics sheds new light on the largely misunderstood genre of progressive rock.

Providing a fresh reevaluation of a specific era in popular music, this book contextualizes the era in terms of both radio history and cultural analysis. "Early '70s Radio" focuses on the emergence of commercial music radio "formats", which refer to distinct musical genres aimed toward specific audiences. This formatting revolution took place in a period rife with heated politics, identity anxiety, large-scale disappointments and seemingly insoluble social problems. As industry professionals worked overtime to understand audiences and to generate formats, they also laid the groundwork for market segmentation. Audiences, meanwhile, approached these formats as safe havens wherein they could reimagine and redefine key issues of identity. A fresh and accessible exercise in audience interpretation, "Early '70s Radio" is organized according to the era's five prominent formats and analyzes each of these in relation to their targeted demographics, including Top 40, "Soft rock", Album-oriented rock, Soul and Country. The book closes by making a case for the significance of early '70s formatting in light of commercial radio today.

The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music Volume 4 is one of five volumes within the 'Locations' strand of the series. This volume discusses the popular music of North America in a historical, geographical, demographical, political, economic, and cultural context. It also examines the genres associated with the region, significant venues such as theatres, dance halls, clubs and bars, and notable performers and other practitioners such as producers, engineers, and technological innovators. The volume consists of over 90 entries written by more than 60 leading popular music scholars and practitioners, including Richard Peterson on Nashville, Amy Ku'uleialoha Stillman on Hawai'I, and David Laing on Los Angeles. This and all other volumes of the Encyclopedia are now available through an online version of the Encyclopedia: https://www.bloomsburypopularmusic.com/encyclopedia-work?docid=BPM_reference_EPMOW. A general search function for the whole Encyclopedia is also available on this site. A subscription is required to access individual entries. Please see: https://www.bloomsburypopularmusic.com/for-librarians.

From an acclaimed cultural critic, a narrative and social history of the Great American Songwriting era.
Everybody knows and loves the American Songbook. But it's a bit less widely understood that in about 1950, this stream of great songs more or less dried up. All of a sudden, what came over the radio wasn't Gershwin, Porter, and Berlin, but "Come on-a My House" and "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?" Elvis and rock and roll arrived a few years later, and at that point the game was truly up. What happened, and why? In "The B Side," acclaimed cultural historian Ben Yagoda answers those questions in a fascinating piece of detective work. Drawing on previously untapped archival sources and on scores of interviews--the voices include Randy Newman, Jimmy Webb, Linda Ronstadt, and Herb Alpert--the book illuminates broad musical trends through a series of intertwined stories. Among them are the battle between ASCAP and Broadcast Music, Inc.; the revolution in jazz after World War II; the impact of radio and then television; and the bitter, decades-long feud between Mitch Miller and Frank Sinatra.
"The B Side" is about taste, and the particular economics and culture of songwriting, and the potential of popular art for greatness and beauty. It's destined to become a classic of American musical history.

The first in-depth study of David Bowie’s music videos across a sustained period takes on interweaving storyworlds of an iconic career. Remarkable for their capacity to conjure elaborate imagery, Bowie’s videos provide fascinating exemplars of the artistry and remediation of music video. When their construction is examined across several years, they appear as time-travelling vessels, transporting kooky characters and strange story-world components across time and space. By charting Bowie’s creative and collaborative process across five distinct phases, David Bowie and the Art of Music Video shows how he played a vital role in establishing music video as an artform. Filling a gap in the existing literature, this book shines a light on the significant contributions of directors such as Mick Rock, Stanley Dorfman and David Mallet, each of whom taught Bowie much about how to use the form. By examining Bowie's collaborative process, his use of surrealist strategies and his integration of avant-garde art with popular music and media, the book provides a history of music video in relation to the broader fields of audiovisual media, visual music and art.

The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music Volume 3 is one of five volumes within the 'Locations' strand of the series. This volume discusses popular music of the Caribbean and Latin America in a historical, geographical, demographical, political, economic, and cultural context. It also examines the genres associated with the region, significant venues such as theatres, dance halls, clubs and bars, and notable performers and other practitioners such as producers, engineers, and technological innovators. The volume consists of over 90 entries written by more than 60 leading popular music scholars and practitioners, including Jose de Menezes Bastos on Brazil and Peter Manuel on India and the Caribbean Islands. This and all other volumes of the Encyclopedia are now available through an online version of the Encyclopedia: https://www.bloomsburypopularmusic.com/encyclopedia-work?docid=BPM_reference_EPMOW. A general search function for the whole Encyclopedia is also available on this site. A subscription is required to access individual entries. Please see: https://www.bloomsburypopularmusic.com/for-librarians.