Elliott Smith was one of the most gifted songwriters of the nineties, adored by worshipful fans for his subtly melancholic words and melodies. The sadness had its sources in the life. There was trauma from an early age, years of drug abuse and a chronic sense of disconnection that sometimes seemed almost self-engineered. Smith died violently in Los Angeles in 2003, under what some believe to be questionable circumstances, of a single fatal stab wound to the chest. By this time fame had found him, and record buyers who shared the listening experience felt he spoke directly to them from beyond: lonely, lovelorn, frustrated, fighting until he could fight no more. And yet, although his achingly intimate lyrics carried the weight of truth, Smith remained unknowable. In Torment Saint, William Todd Schultz gives us the first proper biography of the rock star, a decade after his death, imbued with affection, authority, sensitivity and long-awaited clarity. Torment Saint draws on Schultz's careful, deeply knowledgeable readings and insights, as well as on more than 150 hours of interviews with close friends, lovers, bandmates, peers, managers, label owners, and recording engineers and producers. This book unravels the remaining mysteries of Smith's life and his shocking, too-early end. It will be an indispensable examination of his life and legacy, both for Smith's legions of fans as well as readers still discovering his songbook.

Bob Marley is the unchallenged king of reggae and one of music's great iconic figures. Rita Marley was not just his wife and the mother of four of his children but his backing singer and friend, life-long companion and soul mate. They met in Trenchtown when he was 19 and she was 18, and she was very much part of his musical career, selling his early recordings from their house in the days before Island Records signed up the Wailers. She shared the hard times and the dangers - when Bob was wounded in a gunfight before the Peace Concert, Rita was shot in the head and left for dead. Their marriage was not always easy but Rita was the woman Bob returned to no matter where music and other women might take him, the woman who held him when he died at the age of 35. Today she sees herself as the guardian of his legacy. Full of new insights, No Woman No Cry is a unique biography of Marley by someone who understands what it meant to grow up in poverty in Jamaica, to battle racism and prejudice. It is also a moving and inspiring story of a marriage that survived both poverty and then the strains of global celebrity.

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.

Sin Documentos is a landmark album in Spanish popular culture and continues to maintain considerable popularity more than two decades after its release. The characteristic guitar riff of the title song, a kind of rumba-rock, still occupies a place at every party in Spain. Los Rodriguez's success came after a decade characterized by the rise and fall of local-language punk and new wave bands. By the time Sin Documentos appeared, however, rock journalism was fascinated by the thriving indie scene, where the bands were singing in English and had turned to grunge and noise rock. This book evaluates the influence of Latin American pop-rock in the modernization of Spanish popular music from the 1950s, despite the Anglophilia of Spanish rock scenes, especially in the 1990s. Through interviews with members of the band and members of the record label DRO, analysis of the media coverage of the album and a cultural analysis of its meanings, it delves into the cultural trends of Spain throughout the 1990s and beyond.

Winner of the 2010 Non-Fiction National Book Award Patti Smith's definitive memoir: an evocative, honest and moving coming-of-age story of her extraordinary relationship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe 'Sharp, elegiac and finely crafted' Sunday Times 'Terrifically evocative ... The most spellbinding and diverting portrait of funky-but-chic New York in the late '60s and '70s that any alumnus has committed to print' New York Times 'Render, harrowing, often hilarious' Vogue In 1967, a chance meeting between two young people led to a romance and a lifelong friendship that would carry each to international success never dreamed of. The backdrop is Brooklyn, Chelsea Hotel, Max's Kansas City, Scribner's Bookstore, Coney Island, Warhol's Factory and the whole city resplendent. Among their friends, literary lights, musicians and artists such as Harry Smith, Bobby Neuwirth, Allen Ginsberg, Sandy Daley, Sam Shepherd, William Burroughs, etc. It was a heightened time politically and culturally; the art and music worlds exploding and colliding. In the midst of all this two kids made a pact to always care for one another. Scrappy, romantic, committed to making art, they prodded and provided each other with faith and confidence during the hungry years--the days of cous-cous and lettuce soup. Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. Beautifully written, this is a profound portrait of two young artists, often hungry, sated only by art and experience. And an unforgettable portrait of New York, her rich and poor, hustlers and hellions, those who made it and those whose memory lingers near.

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.

Just as punk created a space for bands such as the Slits and Poly Styrene to challenge 1970s norms of femininity, through a transgressive, strident new female-ness, it also provoked experimental feminist film makers to initiate a parallel, lens-based challenge to patriarchal modes of film making. In this book, Rachel Garfield breaks new ground in exploring the rebellious, feminist Punk audio-visual culture of the 1970s, tracing its roots and its legacies. In their filmmaking and their performed personae, film and video artists such as Vivienne Dick, Sandra Lahire, Betzy Bromberg, Ruth Novaczek, Sadie Benning, Leslie Thornton, Abigail Child and Anne Robinson offered a powerful, deliberately awkward alternative to hegemonic conformist femininity, creating a new "Punk audio visual aesthetic". A vital aspect of our vibrant contemporary digital audio visual culture, Garfield argues, can be traced back to the techniques and forms of these feminist pioneers, who like their musical contemporaries worked in a pre-digital, analogue modality that nevertheless influenced the emergent digital audio visual culture of the 1990s and 2000s.

"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.

'This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius' - QUESTLOVE Equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century. He wasn't known to mainstream audiences, and when he died at age thirty-two, he had never had a pop hit. Yet since his death, J Dilla has become a demigod, revered as one of the most important musical figures of the past hundred years. At the core of this adulation is innovation: as the producer behind some of the most influential rap and R&B acts of his day, Dilla created a new kind of musical time-feel, an accomplishment on a par with the revolutions wrought by Louis Armstrong and James Brown. Dilla and his drum machine reinvented the way musicians play. In Dilla Time, Dan Charnas chronicles the life of James DeWitt Yancey, from his gifted Detroit childhood to his rise as a sought-after hip-hop producer to the rare blood disease that caused his premature death. He follows the people who kept Dilla and his ideas alive. And he rewinds the histories of American rhythms: from the birth of Motown soul to funk, techno, and disco. Here, music is a story of what happens when human and machine times are synthesized into something new. This is the story of a complicated man and his machines; his family, friends, partners, and celebrity collaborators; and his undeniable legacy. Based on nearly two hundred original interviews, and filled with graphics that teach us to feel and "see" the rhythm of Dilla's beats, Dilla Time is a book as defining and unique as J Dilla's music itself. Financial Times Music Book of the Year 2022

The only book Michael Jackson ever wrote about his life It chronicles his humble beginnings in the Midwest, his early days with the Jackson 5, and his unprecedented solo success. Giving unrivalled insight into the King of Pop's life, it details his songwriting process for hits like Beat It, Rock With You, Billie Jean, and We Are the World; describes how he developed his signature dance style, including the Moon Walk; and opens the door to his very private personal relationships with his family, including sister Janet, and stars like Diana Ross, Berry Gordy, Marlon Brando, Quincy Jones, Paul McCartney, and Brooke Shields. At the time of its original publication in 1988, MOONWALK broke the fiercely guarded barrier of silence that surrounded Michael Jackson. Candidly and courageously, Jackson talks openly about his wholly exceptional career and the crushing isolation of his fame, as well as the unfair rumours that have surrounded it. MOONWALK is illustrated with rare photographs from Jackson family albums and Michael's personal photographic archives, as well as a drawing done by Michael exclusively for the book. It reveals and celebrates, as no other book can, the life of this exceptional and beloved musician.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music and Youth Culture provides a comprehensive and fully up-to-date overview of key themes and debates relating to the academic study of popular music and youth culture. While this is a highly popular and rapidly expanding field of research, there currently exists no single-source reference book for those interested in this topic. The handbook is comprised of 32 original chapters written by leading authors in the field of popular music and youth culture and covers a range of topics including: theory; method; historical perspectives; genre; audience; media; globalization; ageing and generation.

Bella Ciao is the album that kick-started the Italian folk revival in the mid-1960s, made by Il Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano, a group of researchers, musicians, and radical intellectuals. Based on a contested music show that debuted in 1964, Bella Ciao also featured a double version of the popular song of the same title, an anti-Fascist anthem from World War II, which was destined to become one of the most sung political songs in the world and translated into more than 40 languages. The book reconstructs the history and the reception of the Bella Ciao project in 1960s' Italy and, more broadly, explores the origins and the distinctive development of the Italian folk revival movement through the lens of this pivotal album.

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.

In The Meat Puppets and the Lyrics of Curt Kirkwood from Meat Puppets II to No Joke!, Matthew Smith-Lahrman sheds light on the words of Curt Kirkwood, founding member and songwriter of the Meat Puppets, a pioneering rock 'n' roll band of the last forty years. Smith-Lahrman covers Kirkwood's lyrics on nine albums, from 1983 to 1995, when he wrote virtually every lyric for the band. A lyricist whom Rolling Stone writer Kurt Loder once rated alongside Bob Dylan, Kirkwood remains an important, yet overlooked songwriter. The original Meat Puppets spent their early career releasing albums on the seminal indie rock label SST Records, moving on to the major label London Records in the early 1990s. Along the way they forged a unique blend of punk, country, psychedelic, and hard rock that paved the way for the grunge and alternative movements. As a lyricist, Kirkwood commonly addresses the individual psyche and behavioral expectations, drug use, mental illness, and Christianity. As the original Meat Puppets began to dissolve, Kirkwood turned to writing about personal issues: his frustrations with the major label industry, the death of his mother, the addictions of his brother, and the demise of the band itself. The Meat Puppets and the Lyrics of Curt Kirkwood from Meat Puppets II to No Joke! is the perfect work for Meat Puppets fans worldwide.

Sprung from the roots of 70s hard rock, Metallica defined the look and sound of 1980s heavy metal, just as Led Zeppelin had for hard rock and the Sex Pistols for punk before them. Inventors of thrash metal--Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth followed--it was always Metallica who led the way, who pushed to another level, who became the last of the superstar rockers.

Though plagued by adversities, including the death of their bassist in a bus crash, infighting and substance abuse, they survived to became the biggest-selling band in the world. With 100 million records sold worldwide, their music has extended its reach beyond rock and metal, and into the pop mainstream, as they went from speed metal to MTV with their hit single "Enter Sandman." Until now there hasn't been a critical, authoritative, in-depth portrait of the band. Mick Wall's thoroughly researched, insightful work is enriched by his interviews with band members, record company execs, roadies, and fellow musicians. He tells the story of how a tennis-playing, music-loving Danish immigrant named Lars Ulrich created a band with singer James Hetfield and made his dreams a reality. "Enter Night" delves into the various incarnations of the band, and the personalities of all key members, past and present--especially Ulrich and Hetfield--to produce the definitive word on the biggest metal band on the planet