Many books have been written about Tin Pan Alley--the colloquial name assigned to popular music before the advent of rock 'n' roll--yet little is available about the individual songs defining this enormously significant style of American music. This encyclopedia of over 1,200 songs written from the middle of the 19th century through the 1950s provides information and commentary on the music embraced by the American public.

No other single volume contains as much information on the subject. Author Thomas Hischak provides an exhaustive yet highly readable guide to the songs, their periods, their styles, and their performers. His study explains in layman's language how this music survived over time, and how it came to play such an influential role in American popular culture. Ideal for researchers and browsers alike, this encyclopedia is a long overdue examination of an American musical institution.

These songs were not written for stage or screen, but for saloons, singalongs, dance orchestras, sheet music, piano player rolls, recordings, nightclubs, concerts, and radio broadcasts. They colored the fabric of American popular culture for centuries, from early American folk songs to Civil War melodies, 19th-century sentimental ballads, minstrel songs, ragtime, and jazz.

The definitive account of Jeff Beck's journey from his childhood in 1940s South London to the world-wide success of 2010's album Emotion and Commotion and beyond.Author Martin Power has talked to former Yardbirds members Chris Dreja and Jim McCarty as well as manager Simon Napier-Bell and fellow musicians including Max Middleton, Stanley Clarke, Simon Phillips, Jimmy Hall, Mo Foster, Doug Wimbish and many others. Supported by full album reviews, rare photographs and an up-to-date discography, Hot Wired Guitar is the most complete and comprehensive account of the life and times of Jeff Beck, the man who took the electric guitar and showed the world just what could be done with just six strings and 'one hell of an attitude'.

This volume collects many of the best articles from veteran Rolling Stone writer Ben Fong-Torres. While many will recognize Ben as he was portrayed in Cameron Crowe's hit film Almost Famous, his thoughtful and engaging stories have been providing a backstage view for over 30 years. This book features a slew of entertaining and informative music and pop-culture pieces, as well as personal essays about growing up Asian-American and about Ben's interest in radio broadcasting. Through insightful introductions to every article, Fong-Torres offers an inside view of the writing and editing process, from getting an assignment and developing an idea to an article's completion in printed form.

Play everyone's favorite songs with this collection of the most memorable hits of the 1960s, '70s, and early '80s Classic rock fans will have a blast applying their talent to more than 40 enduring songs made famous by legendary artists like The Beatles, David Bowie, Journey, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Rush, The Who, and more. The arrangements in this collection capture the essence of the original recordings in fun, easy piano renditions that are great for solo performance or sing-alongs. Titles: 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (Paul Simon) * Africa (Toto) * All Along the Watchtower (Jimi Hendrix) * All My Love (Led Zeppelin) * Behind Blue Eyes (The Who) * Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell) * Blinded by the Light (Manfred Mann's Earth Band) * Blowin' in the Wind (Bob Dylan) * Born to Run (Bruce Springsteen) * Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon and Garfunkel) * Closer to the Heart (Rush) * Dancing in the Moonlight (King Harvest) * Do You Feel Like We Do (Peter Frampton) * Don't Stop Believin' (Journey) * Faithfully (Journey) * Fool in the Rain (Led Zeppelin) * From Me to You (The Beatles) * Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker) (Parliament) * Going Up the Country (Canned Heat) * The Great Gig in the Sky (Pink Floyd) * I Love L.A. (Randy Newman) * I Saw Her Standing There (The Beatles) * Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan) * Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney) * Love Reign O'er Me (The Who) * Money (Pink Floyd) * Nights in White Satin (The Moody Blues) * Paranoid (Black Sabbath) * P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up) (Parliament) * Pinball Wizard (The Who) * River (Joni Mitchell) * Saturday in the Park (Chicago) * She Loves You (The Beatles) * She's a Rainbow (The Rolling Stones) * The Sound of Silence (Simon and Garfunkel) * Space Oddity (David Bowie) * St. Stephen (Grateful Dead) * Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin) * Thunder Road (Bruce Springsteen) * Tom Sawyer (Rush) * Uncle John's Band (Grateful Dead) * A Whiter Shade of Pale (Procol Harum) * Wild Hors

Prince's early albums Dirty Mind, 1999, and Purple Rain, established him as a major force in American pop music. His combination of rock and funk was unique, and drew both critical praise and commercial attention. The 1990s found Prince forming a new group, moving back in the direction of R&B, and eventually adopting an unpronounceable symbol as his moniker. By the end of the millennium, he was again exploring an eclectic collection of musical styles and enjoying a resurgence of interest in his well-known song "1999." Prince is one of the few artists of the entire rock era who successfully bridged the gap between traditional R&B and rock audiences with his musical eclecticism. He now stands among the best-selling pop musicians of the rock era. In this revealing study, author James Perone highlights the complexities and ambiguities of Prince's life work, while at the same time clarifying why it is that Prince remains such a widely popular figure in American music. After a brief introductory biographical treatment, Perone goes on to analyze all of Prince's musical output-both as specific pieces, and as part of a larger body of work. Perone doesn't allow any of the elements of Prince's entertainment career (including his early contractual problems, his series of proteges, his name change, and his views on gender and race) to pass without reflection. As a result The Words and Music of Prince operates as a sort of creative biography for both the man and the artist. The work also includes six illustrations, a bibliography, a discography, and an index.

What is experimental music today? This book offers an up to date survey of this field for anyone with an interest, from seasoned practitioners to curious readers. This book takes the stance that experimental music is not a limited historical event, but is a proliferation of approaches to sound that reveals much about present-day experience. An experimental work is not identifiable by its sound alone, but by the nature of the questions it poses and its openness to the sounding event. Experimentation is a way of working. It pushes past that which is known to discover what lies beyond it, finding new knowledge, forms, and relationships, or accepting a state of uncertainty. For each of these composers and sound artists, craft is developed and transformed in response to the questions they bring to their work. Scientific, perceptual, or social phenomena become catalysts in the operation of the work. These practices are not presented according to a chronology, a set of techniques, or social groupings. Instead, they are organized according to the content areas that are their subjects, including resonance, harmony, objects, shapes, perception, language, interaction, sites, and histories. Musical materials may be subject, among other treatments, to systemization, observation, examination, magnification, fragmentation, translation, or destabilization. These restless and exploratory modes of engagement have continued to develop over recent decades, expanding the scope of both musical practice and listening.

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.

Rock and Romanticism: Post-Punk, Goth, and Metal as Dark Romanticisms explores the relationships among the musical genres of post-punk, goth, and metal and American and European Romanticisms traditionally understood. It argues that these contemporary forms of music are not only influenced by but are an expression of Romanticism continuous with their eighteenth- and nineteenth-century influences. Figures such as Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Friedrich, Schlegel, and Hoffman are brought alongside the music and visual aesthetics of the Rolling Stones, the New Romantics, the Pretenders, Joy Division, Nick Cave, Tom Verlaine, emo, Eminem, My Dying Bride, and Norwegian black metal to explore the ways that Romanticism continues into the present in all of its varying forms and expressions.

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.

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."

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.

Liverpool has gained a national and international reputation for popular music, most recently recognised in its designation as a UNESCO City of Music. This book examines Liverpool's popular music through the history of the places where it has been performed and examines their role and significance. It explores the richness of Liverpool's live performance scene and tells a story of changing music sites, sounds and experiences. In doing so it highlights music's contribution to the city's history and identity, and in turn shows how the city's architectural and urban form has shaped its musical life and character. The book shows how music is bound up with changes in the social, cultural and economic life of cities more generally, particularly provincial, `post-industrial' cities in the UK, Europe and US. It also highlights the significance of places that enable people to come together and collectively participate in music events. The book touches on groups and artists involved with many diverse musical style and brings new and fascinating information on well-known historic venues such as the Cavern Club and the Blue Angel, as well as new ones such as the Echo Arena. With a glossary of artists and venues, previously unpublished photographs, illustrations and music maps. Liverpool's musical landscapes are investigated in unprecedented detail and depth.

When Freddie Mercury died in 1991, aged just 45, the world was rocked by the vibrant and flamboyant star's tragic secret that he had been battling AIDS. The announcement of his diagnosis reached them less than 24-hours before his death, shocking his millions of fans, and fully opening the eyes of the world to the destructive and fatal disease. In Somebody to Love, biographers Mark Langthorne and Matt Richards skilfully weave Freddie's pursuit of musical greatness with Queen, his upbringing and endless search for love, with the origins and aftermath of a terrible disease that swept across the world in the 1980s. With brand new perspectives from Freddie's closest friends and fellow musicians, this unique and deeply moving tribute casts a very different light on his death. An intimate read, like Freddie and his art, it will stay with you for a long time to come.

This is the incredible illustrated story of the Bee Gees, the band that Barry, Maurice and Robin, the brothers Gibb, formed in 1958. The trio were especially successful as a popular music act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and later as prominent performers of the disco music era in the mid-to-late1970s with the soundtrack album Saturday Night Fever. The group sang recognizable three-part tight harmonies; Robin's clear vibrato lead vocals was the hallmark of their earlier hits, while Barry's R&B falsetto became their signature sound during the mid-to-late 1970s and 1980s. The Bee Gees have sold over 120 million records worldwide making them one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. The boys also wrote all of their own hits, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. The Bee Gees' Hall of Fame citation says, "Only Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks and Paul McCartney have out sold the Bee Gees." Following Maurice's death in January 2003 at the age of 53, Barry and Robin retired the group's name after 45 years of activity.

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 definitive biography of Chuck Berry, legendary performer and inventor of rock and roll.

Best known as the groundbreaking artist behind classics like "Johnny B. Goode," "Maybellene," "You Never Can Tell" and "Roll Over Beethoven," Chuck Berry was a man of wild contradictions, whose motives and motivations were often shrouded in mystery. After all, how did a teenage delinquent come to write so many songs that transformed American culture? And, once he achieved fame and recognition, why did he put his career in danger with a lifetime's worth of reckless personal behaviour? Throughout his life, Berry refused to shed light on either the mastery or the missteps, leaving the complexity that encapsulated his life and underscored his music largely unexplored--until now.

In Chuck Berry, biographer RJ Smith crafts a comprehensive portrait of one of the great American entertainers, guitarists, and lyricists of the 20th century, bringing Chuck Berry to life in vivid detail. Based on interviews, archival research, legal documents, and a deep understanding of Berry's St. Louis (his birthplace, and the place where he died in March 2017), Smith sheds new light on a man few have ever really understood. By placing his life within the context of the American culture he made and eventually withdrew from, we understand how Berry became such a groundbreaking figure in music, erasing racial boundaries, crafting subtle political commentary, and paying a great price for his success. While celebrating his accomplishments, the book also does not shy away from troubling aspects of his public and private life, asking profound questions about how and why we separate the art from the artist.

Berry declined to call himself an artist, shrugging that he was good at what he did. But the man's achievement was the rarest kind, the kind that had social and political resonance, the kind that made America want to get up and dance. At long last, Chuck Berry brings the man and the music together.

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.