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Black Vinyl White Powder is the definitive story of the British
music industry's first five decades, as told by its ultimate
insider. A key player since the 1960s - whether penning hits for
Dusty Springfield, discovering Marc Bolan or managing a series of
stellar acts ranging from the Yardbirds to Wham! - Simon
Napier-Bell draws on his wealth of contacts and unparalleled
personal experience to give an enthralling account of a business
that became like no other. From the crazed debauchery of rock
megastars like the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin to the ecstasy
culture that shaped dance music in the 1980s, Napier-Bell charts
the growth of a world in which bad behaviour is not only tolerated
but encouraged; where drugs are as important as talent; and where
artists are pushed to their mental and physical limits in the name
of profit and ego. Filled with the voices of artists, producers,
managers and record company execs, Black Vinyl White Powder is the
most raucous, entertaining and revealing history of British pop
ever written.
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50 Years Legal (Paperback)
Simon Napier-Bell; Edited by Mark Neeter
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R404
R365
Discovery Miles 3 650
Save R39 (10%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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This is both the story of the 50-year battle for equal rights and
deeply personal accounts from high profile politicians, comedians,
actors and others in the public arena. The book features
contributions from David Hockney, Stephen Fry, Julian Clary, Matt
Lucas, Matthew Parrish, Simon Callow, Will Young, Sir Derek Jacobi,
Tom Robinson, Marc Almond, Sir Elton John, Alain Judd, Simon
Callow, Angela Eagle, Baroness Barker, Dan Gillespie Sells, Evan
Davis, Jake Graf, Jason Prince, Jon Savage, Lee Tracy, Lord Browne,
Lord Cashman, Lord Paddick, Lord Smith, Manny, Mark Mcadam, Mark
Wardell, Mathew Todd, Olly Alexander, Paris Lee, Paul Gambaccini,
Peter Tachell, QBoy, Shon Faye, Stephanie Hirst, Stephen Amos,
Steve Blame, The Reverend Andrew Foreshew-Cain, Tris Penna, Yotan
Ottolenhgi and Zoe Lyons and more.
Sour Mouth, Sweet Bottom is the book Simon Napier-Bell's fans have
always hoped he'd write. His previous bestsellers lifted the lid on
the industry, combining brilliant analysis with unforgettable
stories of fame and wild excess. But those books hardly scratched
the surface. Now, at long last, he's turned the spotlight on
himself. From a childhood spent in the cinemas of post-war London
and a brief spell playing trumpet in the seedy bars of Montreal, to
getting stoned by the pool with Peter Falk and Jack Lemmon in
Beverly Hills and co-writing a hit single for Dusty Springfield,
this book is a kaleidoscopic sequence of more than sixty episodes
drawn from Simon's life that makes most memoirs look like thin
gruel by comparison. There are stories of the stellar acts Simon
has managed - from the Yardbirds and Marc Bolan to Wham! and Sinead
O'Connor - and there's also the wisdom gathered from a louche
existence of clubs, restaurants, gigs, award ceremonies,
bankruptcies, booze and sex, both gay and straight. You could call
the book 'How to Use the Music Industry to Create a Lifestyle'. You
might equally call it 'How to Use Your Lifestyle to Gain Access to
the Music Industry'. Either way, Simon pulls no punches, and the
result is a frank, funny and fascinating account of a life truly
like no other.
Let legendary impresario Simon Napier-Bell take you inside the
world of popular music: not just a cradle for talent and
expression, but a business that has made people rich beyond their
wildest dreams. He balances seductive anecdotes - pulling back the
curtain on the gritty and absurd side of the industry - with an
insightful exploration of the relationship between creativity and
money. The Business describes the evolution of the industry from
its birth in the eighteenth century to the huge global market it
has become today. Inside you will uncover a treasure trove of
musical facts, including how a formula for writing hits in the
1900s helped create 50,000 of the best-known songs of all time; how
Jewish immigrants and Black jazz musicians dancing cheek-to-cheek
established a template for all popular music that followed; and how
rock tours became the biggest, quickest, sleaziest and most
profitable ventures the industry had ever seen. Read it and you'll
never listen to music in the same way again.
'The most authoritative, intelligent, diligently researched and unpretentious analysis of the British pop scene yet written' Sunday TelegraphBlack Vinyl White Powder charts the amazing fifty year history of the British music business in unparalleled scale and detail. As a key player across the decades, Napier-Bell - who discovered Marc Bolan and managed amongst others The Yardbirds and Wham! - uses his wealth of contacts and extraordinary personal experiences to tell the story of an industry that is like no other. Where bad behaviour is not only tolerated but encouraged, where drugs are sometimes as important as talent, where artists are pushed to their physical and mental limits in the name of profit and ego. The Greatest Ever Book Written about English Pop-Breathtakingly Brilliant' Julie Burchill'The cold print equivalent of a sparkling evening with a world-class raconteur.' Charles Shaar Murray, Independent'Bitchy, glib, fun and shrewd' Daily Telegraph
Pop manager extraordinaire Simon Napier-Bell had had enough. He'd
had enough of pop groups. He'd had enough of the constant grief at
home with his two ex-boyfriends bickering and bleeding him dry; and
most of all he'd had enough of the music biz. But then he fell in
love with a new passion - the Far East; and a dynamic new duo -
George and Andrew - jointly called Wham! Soon, in an audacious
attempt to have the best of both worlds, he found himself offering
to arrange for Wham! to be the first ever Western pop group to play
in communist China - a masterstroke of PR which, in one swift
stroke, would make them one of the biggest groups in the world.
What follows is an exciting, unpredictable and hilarious romp
around the more curious corners of the world as Napier-Bell dives
into the unknown, attempting to achieve the unachievable. We soon
find ourselves in the company of a wonderful cast of petulant pop
stars, shady international 'businessmen', and a hilarious confusion
of spies, students and institutionalised officials and ministers as
he edges ever closer to inadvertently becoming one of the first
Westerners to break down the walls of communist China.
Marc Bolan burst onto the music scene in the late 1960s, an elfin
hippie who sang otherworldly tunes about unicorns. Two years later,
he formed legendary band T. Rex and pioneered glam rock in Britain.
Co-written by Bolan's first manager, this definitive biography
traces Bolan's life from the early struggles to his emergence as a
teen idol on par with the Beatles, to his untimely death at age 29.
Written with the cooperation of the Marc Bolan Fan Club and Bolan's
first wife, this book covers every corner of a blazing, too-brief
life.
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