Prince was an icon. A man who defined an era of music and changed the shape of popular culture forever. There is no doubt that he was one of the most talented and influential artists of all time, and also one of the most mysterious. On 21st April 2016 the world lost its Prince; it was the day the music died. This book will open a door to Prince's world like never before - from his traumatic childhood and demonic pursuit of music as a means of escape, to his rise to superstardom, professional rivalries and marriages shrouded in tragedy, internationally bestselling music writer Mick Wall explores the historical, cultural and personal backdrop that gave rise to an artist the likes of which the world has never seen - and never will again. Mick, a lifelong Prince fan, was one of the first UK journalists to ever write about this enigmatic star, and it was his story that put Prince on the cover of Kerrang magazine in 1984 and inspired the biggest mailbag of letters the magazine has ever had. As Prince sang in '7', 'no one in the whole universe will ever compare', and this book is a shining tribute to the forever incomparable Prince.

The music of 'Motown' needs no introduction. Berry Gordy's record label became a style unto itself, producing hit after suave, sassy and sophisticated hit, and shaped the careers of so many of the greatest musicians of all time. The label produced more US number-one hits than the Beatles, Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys combined. Now, and with fresh new insights and an incredible visual narrative, the official, visual history of this momentous contribution to music and American culture is told in full. This book delves deep into the success stories of Motown's powerhouse creative team, including the Holland-Dozier-Holland triumvirate, and unpicks backstories of the Motown musicians envied by many, and covered by the rest. The roster includes Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross & the Supremes, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, the Jackson 5, The Temptations and Martha Reeves & The Vandellas. Motown: The Sound of Young America is dense with information and materials gathered from the personal accounts and archives of many of the key players. It is a spectacular labour of love befitting an incredible story.

2020 marks the 60th anniversary of Tamla Motown, arguably the greatest recording label in the history of African American soul music. Detroit Motor City 1960 and with racial tensions simmering and with only eight thousand dollars, Berry Gordy, a man with an unshakeable detrmination and vision moved into a modest building that was to become HITSVILLA USA from where he and his close inner circle gave the world the unique Motown sound. The first person Berry Gordy hired at Motown was a white jewish boy called Al Abrams, who got The Supremes on the cover of a magazine, as the first black group ever. From the plantations of the Deep South where African American music was born to Gordy's early successes with Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Martha Reeves, to his involvement with the Black Mafia and his move to Los Angeles following the race riots and the departure of his legendary songwriting team of Holland Dozier Holland. This is the story of Berry Gordy and Motown who changed the face and sound of African American soul music forever more.

A riveting cautionary tale about the ecstasy and dangers of loving Marvin Gaye, a performer passionately pursued by all-and a searing memoir of drugs, sex, and old school R&B from the wife of legendary soul icon Marvin Gaye. After her seventeenth birthday in 1973, Janis Hunter met Marvin Gaye-the soulful prince of Motown with the seductive liquid voice whose chart-topping, socially conscious album What's Going On made him a superstar two years earlier. Despite a seventeen-year-age difference and Marvin's marriage to the sister of Berry Gordy, Motown's founder, the enchanted teenager and the emotionally volatile singer began a scorching relationship. One moment Jan was a high school student; the next she was accompanying Marvin to parties, navigating the intriguing world of 1970s-'80s celebrity; hanging with Don Cornelius on the set of Soul Train, and helping to discover new talent like Frankie Beverly. But the burdens of fame, the chaos of dysfunctional families, and the irresistible temptations of drugs complicated their love. Primarily silent since Marvin's tragic death in 1984, Jan at last opens up, sharing the moving, fervently charged story of one of music history's most fabled marriages. Unsparing in its honesty and insight, illustrated with sixteen pages of black-and-white photos, After the Dance reveals what it's like to be in love with a creative genius who transformed popular culture and whose artistry continues to be celebrated today.

Laura Nyro (1947-1997) was one of the most significant figures to emerge from the singer-songwriter boom of the 1960s. She first came to attention when her songs were hits for Barbra Streisand, The Fifth Dimension, Peter, Paul and Mary, and others. But it was on her own recordings that she imprinted her vibrant personality. With albums like Eli and the Thirteenth Confession and New York Tendaberry she mixed the sounds of soul, pop, jazz and Broadway to fashion autobiographical songs that earned her a fanatical following and influenced a generation of music-makers. In later life her preoccupations shifted from the self to embrace public causes such as feminism, animal rights and ecology - the music grew mellower, but her genius was undimmed. This book examines her entire studio career from 1967's More than a New Discovery to the posthumous Angel in the Dark release of 2001. Also surveyed are the many live albums that preserve her charismatic stage presence. With analysis of her teasing, poetic lyrics and unique vocal and harmonic style, this is the first-ever study to concentrate on Laura Nyro's music and how she created it. Elton John idolised her; Joni Mitchell declared her 'a true original'. Here's why.

Come to My Garden (1970) introduced the world to Minnie Riperton, the solo artist. Minnie captivated listeners with her earth-shattering voice's uncanny ability to evoke melancholy and exultance. Born out of Charles Stepney's masterful composition and Richard Rudolph's attentive songwriting, the album fused a plethora of music genres. A blip in the universe of fusion music that would come to dominate the 1970s, Come to My Garden also featured the work of young bandleaders like Ramsey Lewis and Maurice White, thus bridging the divide between jazz and R&B. Despite fairly positive reviews of the album, even in its many re-releases, it never garnered critical attention. Minnie Riperton's Come to My Garden by Brittnay L. Proctor uses rare archival ephemera, the multiple re-issues of the album, interviews, cultural history, and personal narrative to outline how the revolutionary album came to be and its lasting impact on popular music of the post-soul era (the late 20th to the early 21st century).

When he died suddenly at the age of twenty-six, Otis Redding (1941-1967) was the conscience of a new kind of soul music. Berry Gordy built the first black-owned music empire at Motown but Redding was doing something as historic: mainstreaming black music within the whitest bastions of the post-Confederate south. As a result, the Redding story-still largely untold-is one of great conquest but grand tragedy. Now, in this transformative work, Mark Ribowsky contextualises Redding's life within the larger cultural movements of his era. What emerges in Dreams to Remember is not only a triumph of music history but also a reclamation of a visionary who would come to define an entire era.

Featuring insights on even more groundbreaking recording sessions, rehearsals, and sound checks, the expanded edition of Duane Tudahl's award-winning book pulls back the paisley curtain to reveal the untold story of Prince's rise from cult favorite to the biggest rock star on the planet. His journey is meticulously documented through detailed accounts of his time secluded behind the doors of the recording studio as well as his days on tour. With unprecedented access to the musicians, singers, and studio engineers who knew Prince best, including members of the Revolution and the Time, Duane Tudahl weaves an intimate saga of an eccentric genius and the people and events who helped shape the groundbreaking music he created. From Sunset Sound Studios' daily recording logs and the Warner Bros. vault of information, Tudahl uncovers hidden truths about the origins of songs such as "Purple Rain," "When Doves Cry," and "Raspberry Beret" and also reveals never-before-published details about Prince's unreleased outtakes. This definitive chronicle of Prince's creative brilliance during 1983 and 1984 provides a new experience of the Purple Rain album as an integral part of Prince's life and the lives of those closest to him.

At its most intimate, music heals our emotional wounds and inspires us; at its most public, it unites people across cultural boundaries. But can it rebuild a city? Renowned music writer John Swenson asks that question with New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans, a story about America's most colorful and troubled city and its indominable will to survive. Under sea level, repeatedly harangued by fires, crime, and most devastatingly, by Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has the potential to one day become a "New Atlantis," a lost metropolis under the waves. But this threat has failed to prevent its stalwart musicians and artists from living within its limits, singing its praises and attracting the economic growth needed for its recovery. New Atlantis records how the city's jazz, Cajun, R&B, Bourbon Street, second line, brass band, rock and hip hop musicians are reconfiguring the city's unique artistic culture, building on its historic content while reflecting contemporary life in New Orleans. New Atlantis is a city's tale made up of citizen's tales. It's the story of Davis Rogan, a songwriter, bandleader and schoolteacher who has become an integral part of David Simon's new HBO series Treme (as compelling a story about New Orleans as The Wire was about Baltimore). It's the story of trumpeter Irvin Mayfield, who lost his father in the storm and has since become an important political and musical force shaping the future of New Orleans. It's the story of Bo Dollis Jr., chief of the Wild Magnolias Mardi Gras Indians, as he tries to fill the shoes of his ailing father Bo Dollis, one of the most charismatic figures in Mardi Gras Indian history. It is also the author's own story; each musician profiled will be contextualized by Swenson's three-decades-long coverage of the New Orleans music scene.

This beautifully illustrated unofficial retrospective celebrates the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, and reflects on her life, music, and legacy. Aretha Franklin's voice was legendary, unforgettable: deeply rooted in gospel, yet versatile enough to brilliantly interpret R&B, rock, soul, pop, and jazz standards, it fueled a six-decade career. Her vocal wallop was a mix of preaching, rebuke, and elation. From the languorous "I Never Loved a Man (the Way That I Love You)," to the funky "Chain of Fools," to the fiercely feminist "Think," to the definitive, demanding version of Otis Redding's "Respect," Franklin's songs played out against the tumultuous sociopolitical backdrop of the late '60s like a soundtrack meant to set things right. Her accolades were many: she received the Kennedy Center honor in 1994, won 18 Grammys(R), was the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and performed for presidents and the Pope. Illustrated with 85 photos, and with insightful text from noted radio personality and author Meredith Ochs, Aretha explores the diva's life, from her formative years growing up in Detroit, to her singing and recording career from the 1950s until her untimely death in 2018, to her numerous honors, awards, and causes, including her advocacy for civil rights and the arts.

Detroit in the 1960s was a city with a pulse: people were marching in step with Martin Luther King, Jr., dancing in the street with Martha and the Vandellas, and facing off with city police. Through it all, Motown provided the beat. This book tells the story of Motown--as both musical style and entrepreneurial phenomenon--and of its intrinsic relationship to the politics and culture of Motor Town, USA. As Suzanne Smith traces the evolution of Motown from a small record company firmly rooted in Detroit's black community to an international music industry giant, she gives us a clear look at cultural politics at the grassroots level. Here we see Motown's music not as the mere soundtrack for its historical moment but as an active agent in the politics of the time. In this story, Motown Records had a distinct role to play in the city's black community as that community articulated and promoted its own social, cultural, and political agendas. Smith shows how these local agendas, which reflected the unique concerns of African Americans living in the urban North, both responded to and reconfigured the national civil rights campaign. Against a background of events on the national scene--featuring Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes, Nat King Cole, and Malcolm X--Dancing in the Street presents a vivid picture of the civil rights movement in Detroit, with Motown at its heart. This is a lively and vital history. It's peopled with a host of major and minor figures in black politics, culture, and the arts, and full of the passions of a momentous era. It offers a critical new perspective on the role of popular culture in the process of political change.

The first in-depth biography of one of music's most fascinating, colourful and innovative characters. This book is the most comprehensive history yet of the life, music and cultural significance of the last of the great black music pioneers and the era which spawned him. Clinton stands alongside James Brown, Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone as one of the most influential black artists of all time who, along with his vast P-Funk army took black funk into the US charts and sold out stadiums by the mid 1970s with his mind-blowing shows and legendary Mothership extravaganzas. The book contains first hand interview material with Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey, Junie Morrison, Bobby Gillespie, Afrika Bambaataa, Jalal Nuriddin (Last Poets), Juan Atkins, John Sinclair, Rob Tyner (MC5), Ed Sanders (The Fugs), Chip Monck ("The Voice of Woodstock") plus other P-Funk associates and friends. The book presents an insiders' view of the rise of Parliament and Funkadelic from the doowop era and LSD-crazed early shows through to P-Funk's huge rise, the era of the Mothership and beyond.

Following the success of Jazz Covers, this epic volume of groove assembles over 500 legendary covers from a golden era in Black music. Psychedelia meets Black Power, sexual liberation meets social conscience, and street portraiture meets fantastical cartoon in this dazzling anthology of visualized funk and soul. Gathering both classic and rare covers, the collection celebrates each artwork's ability to capture not only a buyer's interest, but an entire musical mood. Browse through and discover the brilliant, the bold, the outlandish and the sheer beautiful designs that fans rushed to get their hands on as the likes of Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Michael Jackson, and Prince changed the world with their unique and unforgettable sounds. Featuring interviews with key industry figures, Funk & Soul Covers also provides cultural context and design analysis for many of the chosen record covers.

Throughout Les McCann s incredible jazz career, he took hundreds of photos at clubs, studios, and festivals around the world and documented the vibrant cultural life of jazz and soul between 1960 and 1980. These photos include a very young Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sammy Davis Jr., John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, Nancy Wilson, Richard Pryor, Quincy Jones, Tina Turner, Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderly, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, B.B. King, Errol Garner, Stanley Clarke, Bill Evans, Lionel Hampton, and other black celebrities, such as Bill Cosby, Muhammed Ali, and Stokely Carmichael to name but a few. These photos are characterized by their intimacy, and the cross-section of names listed is merely the tip of the iceberg. The book features candid commentary by McCann himself and is curated by Pat Thomas (Listen, Whitey : The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975) and maverick music producer Alan Abrahams (Pure Prairie League, Joan Baez, Stanley Turrentine, Kris Kristofferson, Taj Mahal)."

In Do You Remember? Celebrating Fifty Years of Earth, Wind & Fire, Trenton Bailey traces the humble beginning of Maurice White, his development as a musician, and his formation of Earth, Wind & Fire, a band that became a global phenomenon during the 1970s. By the early 1980s, the music industry was changing, and White had grown weary after working constantly for more than a decade. He decided to put the band on hiatus for more than three years. The band made a comeback in 1987, but White's health crisis soon forced them to tour without him. During the twenty-first century, the band has received numerous accolades and lifetime achievement and hall of fame awards. The band remains relevant today, collaborating with younger artists and maintaining their classic sound. Earth, Wind & Fire stood apart from other soul bands with their philosophical lyrics and extravagant visual art, much of which is studied in the book, including album covers, concerts, and music videos. The lyrics of hit songs are examined alongside an analysis of the band's chart success. Earth, Wind & Fire has produced twenty-one studio albums and several compilation albums. Each album is analyzed for content and quality. Earth, Wind & Fire is also known for using ancient Egyptian symbols, and Bailey thoroughly details those symbols and Maurice White's fascination with Egyptology. After enduring many personnel changes, Earth, Wind & Fire continues to perform around the world and captivate diverse audiences.

For ten years between 1965 and 1975, James Brown was the most popular and cutting-edge of any black artist. As one journalist put it, "before Brown, there was music with a beat. After Brown music had found a groove." The drawing out of this "groove," leveraged on "the one," - or the first and third beats of a 4/4 bar, - would provide the key to much of Brown's subsequent musical success and instil within popular music an unprecedented drive that would characterize not only the funk style, but also provide the rhythmic blueprint for dance music up to the present day. This book explores how funk emerged in the mid-1960s at the very apex of the civil rights movement and shows how this music mirrored the broader changes taking place within the African-American community at a crucial political time and continues to this day to underpin remix culture. It traces the extent of the Brown legacy, musically, culturally and otherwise articulating decisive links between Brown's work and the DJ culture that embraced it so emphatically that Brown is now considered to be the most widely sampled African-American recording artist in history; indeed, we seem to have reached a point where many of Brown's refrains - the screams, the horn stabs, the "funky drummer" breakbeats - have been sampled so often as to have seemingly become part of the public domain. Traversing the past forty years of popular music, the book explores how the ubiquitous presence of Brown's groove, the affective and transformative capacities of a grunt or a well-timed "Good God" or punctuating scream take over where language fails and compel even the most sedate listener to take to the floor.

Denise LaSalle's journey took her from rural Mississippi to an unquestioned reign as the queen of soul-blues. From her early R&B classics to bold and bawdy demands for satisfaction, LaSalle updated the classic blueswoman's stance of powerful independence while her earthy lyrics about relationships connected with generations of female fans. Off-stage, she enjoyed ongoing success as a record label owner, entrepreneur, and genre-crossing songwriter.As honest and no-nonsense as the artist herself, Always the Queen is LaSalle's in-her-own-words story of a lifetime in music. Moving to Chicago as a teen, LaSalle launched a career in gospel and blues that eventually led to the chart-topping 1971 smash "Trapped by a Thing Called Love" and a string of R&B hits. She reinvented herself as a soul-blues artist as tastes changed and became a headliner on the revitalized southern soul circuit and at festivals nationwide and overseas. Revered for a tireless dedication to her music and fans, LaSalle continued to tour and record until shortly before her death.

Beginning in the year of Prince's birth, 1958, with the recording of Minnesota's first R&B record by a North Minneapolis band called the Big Ms, Got to Be Something Here traces the rise of that distinctive sound through two generations of political upheaval, rebellion, and artistic passion. Funk and soul become a lens for exploring three decades of Minneapolis and St. Paul history as longtime music journalist Andrea Swensson takes us through the neighborhoods and venues, and the lives and times, that produced the Minneapolis Sound. Visit the Near North neighborhood where soul artist Wee Willie Walker, recording engineer David Hersk, and the Big Ms first put the Minneapolis Sound on record. Across the Mississippi River in the historic Rondo district of St. Paul, the gospel-meets-R&B groups the Exciters and the Amazers take hold of a community that will soon be all but erased by the construction of I-94. From King Solomon's Mines to the Flame, from The Way in Near North to the First Avenue stage (then known as Sam's) where Prince would make a triumphant hometown return in 1981, Swensson traces the journeys of black artists who were hard-pressed to find venues and outlets for their music, struggling to cross the color line as they honed their sound. And through it all, there's the music: blistering, sweltering, relentless funk, soul, and R&B from artists like Maurice McKinnies, Haze, Prophets of Peace, and The Family, who refused to be categorized and whose boundary-shattering approach set the stage for a young Prince Rogers Nelson and his peers Morris Day, Andre Cymone, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis to launch their careers, and the Minneapolis Sound, into the stratosphere. A visit to Prince's Paisley Park and a conversation with the artist provide a rare glimpse into his world and an intimate sense of his relationship to his legacy and the music he and his friends crafted in their youth.

2022 Winner of the Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research - Association of Recorded Sound Collections ARSC It has long been acknowledged that Berry Gordy Jr and his Motown Empire put Detroit on the International musical map but it was the creative genius of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland who would take the sound into uncharted territory. In this book Howard Priestley explores in depth the story of the three friends, their meteoric rise to fame and their fall from the heights. How they helped to put Detroit Soul on the map and the series of events that saw the collapse of not only the recognised sound of Detroit but Soul in general as the 70s gave way to a more collective sound away from the diversity of Memphis, Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami and, of course, Detroit. Priestley writes in both an entertaining and analytical way that reminds us just how many songs the trio have composed that have become an important and enduring part of the soundtrack to so many of our lives.