This definitive biography of John Mellencamp is "a true coming-of-age story" (John Sykes, chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation) of an iconic American rock and roll original, featuring exclusive in-depth interviews and never-before-told details. Perfect for fans of Janis and Born to Run.

John Mellencamp is not your typical rock star.

With music inspired by the work of William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and other giants of American literature, he has experienced a colorful career unlike any other. Now, this fascinating biography fully charts the life of one of this country's most important voices in American music.

Mellencamp's story is also the story of the American heartland. His growth as an artist and evolution into legendary status directly reflected the major changes of the last fifty years. From the Summer of Love to the growing divisiveness of American politics and beyond, his music has served as the backdrop to this country for millions of fans.

Featuring exclusive interviews with friends, family, and colleagues, and exploring everything from the founding of Farm Aid to his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this is a fresh, expansive, and "inspirational" (Nora Guthrie, president of The Woody Guthrie Foundation) look at a true original.

This bibulous, drug-indulgent and anarchic rock legend was born on a small farm in Tipperary, won a scholarship to Westminster, was rapidly expelled, became a rent boy, then a central figure of punk and the hugely influential star of The Pogues. MacGowan's music, innovative and powerful, is as distinctive as his chaotic, breakdown-scarred, drug and alcohol-fuelled lifestyle. MacGowan has an enormous fan-base hungry for stories of his wild behaviour, but this is also a book that celebrates this unique and charming musician, and offers insight into his remarkable perspective on this world - and the next!

This is a true life story account of Len Garry's childhood memories of his childhood days spent with John Lennon and Paul McCartney and the forming of the band The Quarrymen. Also the day John Lennon met Paul McCartney for the very first time at St. Peter's Church fete on 6th July 1957, this book is a first hand account of what took place on that day plus more stories.

Hailed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the greatest rock memoirs of all time, Be My Baby is the true story of how Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Ronnie Spector carved out a space for herself against tremendous odds amid the chaos of the 1960s music scene and beyond. With a new introduction by Ronnie Spector. Ronnie Spector's first collaboration with producer Phil Spector, 'Be My Baby', stunned the world and shot girl group The Ronettes to stardom. No one could sing as clearly, as emotively as Ronnie. But her voice was soon drowned out in Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, and lost in Ronnie and Phil's ensuing romance and marriage. Ronnie had to fight tooth and nail to wrest back control of her life, her music and her legacy. And while she regained her footing, Ronnie found herself recording with Stevie Van Zandt, partying with David Bowie and touring with Bruce Springsteen. Smart, humorous and self-possessed, Be My Baby is a whirlwind account of the twists and turns in the life of an artist. More than anything, Be My Baby is a testament to the fact that it is possible to stand up to a powerful abuser and start on a second - or third, or fifth - act.

For pianists who love Bruce Springsteen, this sheet music collection is a dream come true. Rich with piano, Hammond organ, glockenspiel, and more, Springsteen's early albums contain some of the most memorable keyboard tracks in rock 'n' roll history. Now, for the first time, keyboard parts for 25 songs from his legendary 1973--1980 era have been notated with unprecedented accuracy and gathered in this collectible volume. Note-for-note keyboard transcriptions are woven into arrangements that make each song playable on piano from start to finish. Complete vocal melodies and lyrics are included, along with chord grids for guitar. The 25 selections in this volume were chosen for their playability on piano and their popularity among songs Springsteen recorded during his exciting '70s era---a time of boundless creativity and energy that stands out amid the many highlights of his unparalleled career. Titles: Ain't Good Enough for You * Backstreets * Badlands * Because the Night * Born to Run * Darkness on the Edge of Town * Growin' Up * Hungry Heart * It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City * Jungleland * Kitty's Back * Meeting Across the River * New York City Serenade * Out in the Street * Point Blank * The Promise * The Promised Land * Prove It All Night * Racing in the Street * The River * She's the One * Spirit in the Night * Streets of Fire * Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out * Thunder Road.

"Book of the Year." -- MOJO Magazine"Outstanding Book of the Year." --The Herald (Glasgow) A Best Book of the Year by NPR, Pitchfork, The Telegraph, and UncutA tender and intimate memoir by one of the most remarkable, trailblazing, and tenacious women in music, the two-time Grammy Award-winning "premiere song-stylist and songwriter of her generation" (Hilton Als), Rickie Lee Jones This troubadour life is only for the fiercest hearts, only for those vessels that can be broken to smithereens and still keep beating out the rhythm for a new song. Last Chance Texaco is the first-ever no-holds-barred account of the life of two-time Grammy Award-winner Rickie Lee Jones in her own words. It is a tale of desperate chances and impossible triumphs, an adventure story of a girl who beat the odds and grew up to become one of the most legendary artists of her time, turning adversity and hopelessness into timeless music. With candor and lyricism, the "Duchess of Coolsville" (Time) takes us on a singular journey through her nomadic childhood, to her years as a teenage runaway, through her legendary love affair with Tom Waits and ultimately her longevity as the hardest working woman in rock and roll. Rickie Lee's stories are rich with the infamous characters of her early songs - "Chuck-E's in Love," "Weasel and the White Boys Cool," "Danny's All-Star Joint," and "Easy Money"-- but long before her notoriety in show business, there was a vaudevillian cast of hitchhikers, bank robbers, jail breaks, drug mules, a pimp with a heart of gold and tales of her fabled ancestors. In this tender and intimate memoir by one of the most remarkable, trailblazing, and tenacious women in music are never-before-told stories of the girl in the raspberry beret, a singer-songwriter whose music defied categorization and inspired American pop culture for decades.

Patti Smith was a poet, a punk prophet, a feminist icon, a living work of art and the first woman rock-outsider to come from the New York underground and become a star. From her confused and religious upbringing to her early days as a poet, punk and rock 'n' roller, Patti Smith redefined the role of artist, writer and female performer. This major biography will rightly place Patti Smith as a central figure in late twentieth century popular culture. Cited by musicians young and old as a major influence, Patti Smith is as fascinating an individual as she is a great artist. From a religious childhood in South Jersey she escaped to New York swearing she would become famous. Acting as muse first to Richard Mapplethorpe and then Sam Shepherd, Patti began her career as a performance poet and rock writer. She soon became the first punk rockstar mixing her distinct voice and poetry with rock and roll music. Yet in 1979 she gave it all up to live with her husband in quiet, suburban Detroit until he died an alcoholic in 1994. As well as placing Patti Smith at the centre of the New York underground that included, amongst others, Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Blondie, Jim Carrol and William Burroughs, Victor Bockris's biography investigates the private world behind the celebrity - the confused childhood, the piss factory, torturous relationship with men, the secretive retreat to Detroit and the slow and historic comeback in 1995 as Patti returns to her rightful place as a central character and icon of 20th century popular culture and the queen of the New York Underground.

Dié boek is rock ’n roll in die binnewêreld van die legendariese liedjieboer, Anton Goosen. Hanlie Retief vertel Goosen se buitengewone lewensverhaal – van sy grootwordjare in die Vrystaat, die Musiek-en-Liriek-era, sensuur, hoogtepunte en teleurstellings . . . tot waar die vader van Afrikaanse Rock 'n terugblik gee op sy merkwaardige lewe.

From his early Liverpool days, through the historic decade of The Beatles, to Wings and his long solo career, The Lyrics pairs the definitive texts of 154 songs by Paul McCartney with first-person commentaries on his life and music. Spanning two alphabetically arranged volumes, these commentaries reveal how the songs came to be and the people who inspired them: his devoted parents, Mary and Jim; his songwriting partner, John Lennon; his "Golden Earth Girl", Linda Eastman; his wife, Nancy McCartney; and even Queen Elizabeth II, amongst many others. Here are the origins of "Let It Be", "Lovely Rita", "Yesterday", and "Mull of Kintyre", as well as McCartney's literary influences, including Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll and Alan Durband, his secondary school English teacher. With images from McCartney's personal archives-handwritten texts, paintings and photographs, hundreds previously unseen-The Lyrics, spanning sixty-four years, is the definitive literary and visual record of one of the greatest songwriters of all time.

The 1960s saw the nexus of the revolution in popular music by a post-war generation amid demographic upheavals and seismic shifts in technology. Over the past two decades, musicians associated with this period have produced a large amount of important autobiographical writing. This book situates these works -- in the forms of formal autobiographies and memoirs, auto-fiction, songs, and self-fashioned museum exhibitions -- within the context of the recent expansion of interest in autobiography, disability, and celebrity studies. It argues that these writings express anxiety over musical originality and authenticity, and seeks to dispel their writers' celebrity status and particularly the association with a lack of seriousness. These works often constitute a meditation on the nature of postmodern fame within a celebrity-obsessed culture, and paradoxically they aim to regain the private self in a public forum.

Bob Dylan's ways with words are a wonder, matched as they are with his music and verified by those voices of his. In response to the whole range of Dylan early and late (his songs of social conscience, of earthly love, of divine love, and of contemplation), this critical appreciation listens to Dylan's attentive genius, alive in the very words and their rewards.

"Fools they made a mock of sin." Dylan's is an art in which sins are laid bare (and resisted), virtues are valued (and manifested), and the graces brought home. The seven deadly sins, the four cardinal virtues (harder to remember?), and the three heavenly graces: these make up everybody's world -- but Dylan's in particular. Or rather, his worlds, since human dealings of every kind are his for the artistic seizing. Pride is anatomized in "Like a Rolling Stone," Envy in "Positively 4th Street," Anger in "Only a Pawn in Their Game" ... But, hearteningly, Justice reclaims "Hattie Carroll," Fortitude "Blowin' in the Wind," Faith "Precious Angel," Hope "Forever Young," and Charity "Watered-Down Love."

In The "New Yorker, Alex Ross wrote that "Ricks's writing on Dylan is the best there is. Unlike most rock critics -- 'forty-year-olds talking to ten-year-olds, ' Dylan has called them -- he writes for adults." In the "Times (London), Bryan Appleyard maintained that "Ricks, one of the most distinguished literary critics of our time, is almost the only writer to have applied serious literary intelligence to Dylan ..."

Dylan's countless listeners (and even the artist himself, who knows?) may agree with W.H. Auden that Ricks "is exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding."

The first scholarly discussion on the band, Pearl Jam and Philosophy examines both the songs (music and lyrics) and the activities (live performances, political commitments) of one of the most celebrated and charismatic rock bands of the last 30 years. The book investigates the philosophical aspects of their music at various levels: existential, spiritual, ethical, political, metaphysical and aesthetic. This philosophical interpretation is also dependent on the application of textual and poetic analysis: the interdisciplinary volume puts philosophical aspects of the band's lyrics in close dialogue with 19th- and 20th-century European and American poetry. Through this widespread philosophical examination, the book further looks into the band's immense popularity and commercial success, their deeply loyal fanbase and genuine sense of community surrounding their music, and the pivotal place the band holds within popular music and contemporary culture.

Rob Deering has been listening to music his whole life, but it was only in his mid-thirties that - much to his surprise - he found himself falling in love with the hugely popular, nearly perfect, sometimes preposterous activity of running In this vividly conjured collection, Rob shares stories of when a run, a place and a tune come together in a life-defining moment. His adventures in running have spanned four continents, fifteen marathons and numberless miles of park and pavement, and the carefully chosen music streaming through his headphones has spurred him forward throughout. What makes the perfect running tune? Where can you find the best routes, even in an unfamiliar town? Why do people put themselves through marathons? In Running Tracks, Rob Deering shares his sometimes surprising answers to these questions, and explains how a hobby became an obsession that changed his life forever.

Once the domain of a privileged few, the art of record production is today within the reach of all. The rise of the ubiquitous DIY project studio and internet streaming have made it so. And while the creative possibilities available to everyday musicians are seemingly endless, so too are the multiskilling and project management challenges to be faced. In order to demystify the contemporary popular-music-making phenomenon, Marshall Heiser reassesses its myriad processes and wider sociocultural context through the lens of creativity studies, play theory and cultural psychology. This innovative new framework is grounded in a diverse array of creative-practice examples spanning the CBGBs music scene to the influence of technology upon modern-day music. First-hand interviews with Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads), Bill Bruford (King Crimson, Yes) and others whose work has influenced the way records are made today are also included. Popular Music, Power and Play is as thought provoking as it will be indispensable for scholars, practitioners and aficionados of popular music and the arts in general.

Following the success of Complete Rock Family Trees, Pete Frame documents the story of The Beatles. The trees unfold alongside photographs and memorabilia to document the Liverpool scene. Other froups featured are Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Searchers, and The Swinging Blue Jeans.