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Books > Music > Contemporary popular music > Rock & pop
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Fuller's Shock Corridor Plus unpublished photographs of Bob Dylan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.
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.
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.
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.
Death metal is one of popular music's most extreme variants, and is
typically viewed as almost monolithically nihilistic, misogynistic,
and reactionary. Michelle Phillipov's Death Metal and Music
Criticism: Analysis at the Limits offers an account of listening
pleasure on its own terms. Through an analysis of death metal's
sonic and lyrical extremity, Phillipov shows how violence and
aggression can be configured as sites for pleasure and play in
death metal music, with little relation to the "real" lives of
listeners. In some cases, gruesome lyrical themes and fractured
song forms invite listeners to imagine new experiences of the body
and of the self. In others, the speed and complexity of the music
foster a "technical" or distanced appreciation akin to the viewing
experiences of graphic horror film fans. These aspects of death
metal listening are often neglected by scholarly accounts concerned
with evaluating music as either 'progressive' or "reactionary." By
contextualizing the discussion of death metal via substantial
overviews of popular music studies as a field, Phillipov's Death
Metal and Music Criticism highlights how the premium placed on
political engagement in popular music studies not only
circumscribes our understanding of the complexity and specificity
of death metal, but of other musical styles as well. Exploring
death metal at the limits of conventional music criticism helps not
only to develop a more nuanced account of death metal listening-it
also offers some important starting points for rethinking popular
music scholarship as a whole.
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.
This book explores for the first time the punk phenomenon in
contemporary China. As China has urbanised within the context of
explosive economic growth and a closed political system, urban
subcultures and phenomena of alienation and anomie have emerged,
and yet, the political and economic differences between China and
western societies has ensured that these subcultures operate and
are motivated by profoundly different structures. This book will be
of interest to cultural historians, media studies and urban studies
researchers, and (ex-) punk rockers.
The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities investigates
music's role in everyday practice and social history across the
diversity of Christian religions and practices around the globe.
The volume explores Christian communities in the Americas, Europe,
Africa, Asia, and Australia as sites of transmission,
transformation, and creation of deeply diverse musical traditions.
The book's contributors, while mostly rooted in ethnomusicology,
examine Christianities and their musics in methodologically diverse
ways, engaging with musical sound and structure, musical and social
history, and ethnography of music and musical performance. These
broad materials explore five themes: music and missions, music and
religious utopias (and other oppositional religious communities),
music and conflict, music and transnational flows, and music and
everyday life. The volume as a whole, then, approaches Christian
groups and their musics as diverse and powerful windows into the
way in which music, religious ideas, capital, and power circulate
(and change) between places, now and historically. It also tries to
take account of the religious self-understandings of these groups,
presenting Christian musical practice and exchange as encompassing
and negotiating deeply felt and deeply rooted moral and cultural
values. Given that the centerpiece of the volume is Christian
religious musical practice, the volume reveals the active role
music plays in maintaining and changing religious, moral, and
cultural values in a long history of intercultural and
transnational encounters.
This songbook contains every song recorded by The Smiths specially
arranged in the original keys. Each song includes chord symbols,
guitar chord boxes and complete lyrics.
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.
Trance events have an uncanny ability to capture an era, and
captivate an audience of travellers occupying the eternal theatre
of the dance floor. As this book shows, the tendency within
psytrance is to thwart the passage of time, to prolong the night,
for those who adopt a liminal lifestyle. Amid the hustle and hubris
of the psytrance carnival there is a peaceful repose that you
sometimes catch when you've drifted into a sea of outstretched
limbs, bodies swaying like a field of sunflowers in a light breeze.
And you feel intense joy in this fleeting moment. You are the
moment. You are inside the flow. You are all. Embodying the poetry
of dance, you are living evidence that nothing lasts. And this is a
deep revelation of the mystical function of trance. It is difficult
to emerge from this little death, because one does not want the
party to end. But it must end, even so that it can recommence - so
that one can return to repeat the cycle. The result of fifteen
years of research in over a dozen countries, this book applies a
sharp lens on a little understood global dance culture that has
mushroomed all over the world since its beginnings in the diverse
psychedelic music scenes flourishing in Goa in the 1970s and 1980s.
The paramount expression of this movement has been the festival,
from small parties to major international events such as Portugal's
Boom Festival, which promotes itself as a world-summit of visionary
arts and trance, a "united tribe of the world". Via first-hand
accounts of the scenes, events and music of psychedelic trance in
Australia, Israel, Germany, Italy, the UK, the US, Turkey and other
places, the book thoroughly documents this transnational movement
with its diverse aesthetic roots, multiple national translations
and internal controversies. As a multi-sited ethnography and an
examination of the digital, chemical, cyber and media assemblage
constituting psytrance, the book explores the integrated role that
technology and spirituality have played in the formation of this
visionary arts movement and shows how these event-cultures
accommodate rites of risk and consciousness, a complex circumstance
demanding revision of existing approaches to ritual, music and
culture.
The Times Book of the Year 'There's no tougher a mind, no more
tender a voice than Paul Simon, and there's no better man than
Robert Hilburn to decipher the hardwiring of this
hyperintellect...great songs can never be fully explained, but the
great man on his way to find those songs surely can.' - Bono
Through such hits as "The Sound of Silence," "Bridge Over Troubled
Water," "Still Crazy After All These Years," and "Graceland," Paul
Simon has spoken to us in songs for a half-century about
alienation, doubt, survival, and faith in ways that have
established him as one of the most honoured and beloved songwriters
in American pop music history. Yet Simon has refused to talk to
potential biographers and urged those close to him to also remain
silent. But Simon not only agreed to talk to biographer Robert
Hilburn for what has amounted to more than sixty hours, he also
encouraged his family and friends to sit down for in-depth
interviews. Paul Simon is a revealing account of the challenges and
sacrifices of artistry at the highest level. He has also lived a
roller-coaster life of extreme ups and downs. We not only learn
Paul's unrelenting drive to achieve artistry, but also the
subsequent struggles to protect that artistry against distractions
- fame, wealth, marriage, divorce, drugs, complacency, public
rejection, self-doubt - that have frequently derailed pop stars and
each of which he encountered. From dominating the charts with Art
Garfunkel and a successful reinvention as a solo artist, to his
multiple marriages and highly publicized second divorce from Carrie
Fisher, this book covers all aspects of this American icon. 'When
it comes to writing songs, no one does it better than Paul Simon.
Robert Hilburn's is a wise and winning account of our most nimble,
nuanced, and numinous poet-musician.' -Paul Muldoon 'A tantalizing
look into the mind and writing process of the man who is arguably
the finest craftsman of the American popular song since the
Gershwin brothers, this book will delight any Paul Simon fan or
student of popular culture.' -Linda Ronstadt
This 50th anniversary collectible hardcover edition contains full
guitar TAB transcriptions for 50 early Stones classics from their
ABKCO years. These are all-new arrangements featuring the most
accurate transcriptions for all of Keith Richard's, Brian Jones',
and Mick Taylor's legendary guitar parts. The book also comes with
a section of the most classic Keith riffs. The songs within are
selected from 12 x 5, Aftermath, Beggars Banquet, Between the
Buttons, Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass), December's Children
(and Everybody's), Flowers, Hot Rocks 1964--1971, Let It Bleed,
Metamorphosis, Sticky Fingers, Their Satanic Majesties Request, and
more Titles: 19th Nervous Breakdown * 2000 Light Years from Home *
As Tears Go By * Back Street Girl * Bitch * Brown Sugar * Can't You
Hear Me Knocking * Child of the Moon (rmk) * Country Honk *
Dandelion * Dead Flowers * Dear Doctor * Factory Girl * Get Off of
My Cloud * Gimme Shelter * Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby,
Standing in the Shadow? * Heart of Stone * Honky Tonk Women * I'm
Free * It's All Over Now * Jigsaw Puzzle * Jumpin' Jack Flash *
Lady Jane * The Last Time * Let It Bleed * Let's Spend the Night
Together * Live with Me * Memo from Turner * Midnight Rambler *
Monkey Man * Mother's Little Helper * No Expectations * Out of Time
* Paint It, Black * Parachute Woman * Play with Fire * Ruby Tuesday
* Salt of the Earth * (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction * She's a
Rainbow * The Spider and the Fly * Stray Cat Blues * Street
Fighting Man * Stupid Girl * Sway * Sympathy for the Devil * Under
My Thumb * Wild Horses * You Can't Always Get What You Want * You
Got the Silver.
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.
This book gives you vital instruction in metal basics from top
guitar teachers, and reveals the secrets of the monsters of metal -
often in their own words. Packed with musical examples, charts and
photos, this is your complete course for learning metal guitar.
In-depth lessons with pros like Andy Ellis, Jesse Gress, Joe Gore,
Jude Gold and Dave Whitehill teach you to build your own style
while exploring the classic and modern sounds of the metal masters.
Covers: tips on altered tunings and 7-string guitar, pros' secrets
of tone and recording, discography of the monsters of metal, and
free access to audio lessons at an exclusive web page!
Beginning in the 1930s, men and a handful of women came from
India's many communities-Marathi, Parsi, Goan, North Indian, and
many others--to Mumbai to work in an industry that constituted in
the words of some, "the original fusion music." They worked as
composers, arrangers, assistants, and studio performers in one of
the most distinctive popular music and popular film cultures on the
planet. Today, the songs played by Mumbai's studio musicians are
known throughout India and the Indian diaspora under the popular
name "Bollywood," but the musicians themselves remain, in their own
words, "behind the curtain"--the anonymous and unseen performers of
one of the world's most celebrated popular music genres.
Now, Gregory D. Booth offers a compelling account of the Bollywood
film music industry from the perspective of the musicians who both
experienced and shaped its history. In a rare insider's look at the
process of musical production from the late 1940s to the mid 1990s,
before the advent of digital recording technologies, Booth explains
who these unknown musicians were and how they came to join the film
music industry. On the basis of a fascinating set of first-hand
accounts from the musicians themselves, he reveals how the
day-to-day circumstances of technology and finance shaped both the
songs and the careers of their creator and performers. Booth also
unfolds the technological, cultural, and industrial developments
that led to the enormous studio orchestras of the 1960s-90s as well
as the factors which ultimately led to their demise in contemporary
India.
Featuring an extensive companion website with video interviews
with the musicians themselves, Behind the Curtain is apowerful,
ground-level view of this globally important music industry.
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