Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in History & Criticism

Think Oasis was just Britpop and brawls? Think again. In this, the definitive book on Britain’s biggest band, John Robb peels back the layers of Manchester's best known musical export, revealing a tale of ambition, ego, talent, and a whole lot of attitude. From the gritty pubs of Manchester to the dizzying heights of global stardom, this unauthorized biography is a rollercoaster ride through the Gallagher brothers' turbulent lives and the music that defined a generation.

Hence this is a story without precedent, a story in which Elton John plays a royal funeral, Mick Jagger gets a knighthood, Bob Dylan picks up the Nobel Prize, the Beatles become, if anything, bigger than the Beatles and it's beginning to look as though all of the above will, thanks to the march of technology, be playing Las Vegas forever.

Evoking a pivotal moment at the birth of modernity, a time of fear, conspiracy and uprising, and featuring some of the most unusual and brilliant personalities of the eighteenth century, Every Valley tells the story behind the creation of Handel’s Messiah: a cinematic and moving drama of hope in the darkness and the entangled lives that shaped a masterpiece.

The blues grew out of the plantations and prisons, the swampy marshes and fertile cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta. With original research and keen insights, Ted Gioia - the author of a landmark study of West Coast jazz and the critically acclaimed The History of Jazz - brings to life the stirring music of the Delta, evoking the legendary figures who shaped its sound and ethos: Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, and others.

Joe Boyd tells of his journey through Sixties music, from tour managing Muddy Waters and Coleman Hawkins, to plugging in Bob Dylan's electric guitar while working as production manager at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, to becoming a leading record producer. His first session was Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood's "Crossroads" followed by Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, the Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny and many more.

The Beatles landing in New York in February 1964 was the opening shot in a cultural revolution nobody predicted. Suddenly the youth of the richest, most powerful nation on earth was trying to emulate the music, manners and the modes of a rainy island that had recently fallen on hard times.

As a humble barman at the M25 Orbital raves, Kirk Field witnessed the moment acid house exploded. Inspired by media lies to start writing the truth about what he saw unfolding, Kirk became a 'raving' reporter for the clubbers' bible Mixmag, covering the historic parties from the inside and sending sweat-soaked dispatches from distant dancefloors as the scene expanded across Europe and beyond. With a cast of characters, Kirk's whirlwind account of the golden age of clubbing tells the story of what really happened in the 'naughty '90s'.

Prince was a musical genius, one of the most talented, beloved, accomplished, popular, and acclaimed musicians in pop history. But he wasn't only a musician - he was also a startlingly original visionary with an imagination deep enough to whip up whole worlds, from the sexy, gritty funk paradise of his early records to the mythical landscape of Purple Rain to the psychedelia of Paisley Park. But his greatest creative act was turning Prince Rogers Nelson, born in Minnesota, into Prince, the greatest pop star of his era.

From 1965 to 1995, the Grateful Dead flourished as one of the most beloved, unusual, and accomplished musical entities to ever grace American culture. The creative synchronicity among Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan exploded out of the early 60s roots and folk scene, providing the soundtrack for the Dionysian revels of the counterculture. Dennis McNally, the band's historian and publicist for more than 20 years, takes listeners back through the Dead's history.

Amid rising gang violence, the crack epidemic, and police brutality, a group of unlikely voices cut through the chaos of late 1980s Los Angeles: N.W.A. Led by a drug dealer, a glammed-up producer, and a high school kid, N.W.A. gave voice to disenfranchised African Americans across the country. And they quickly redefined pop culture across the world. Their names remain as popular as ever: Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, and Ice Cube. Dre soon joined forces with Suge Knight to create the combustible Death Row Records.

When Miranda Sawyer interviewed Liam Gallagher in 1994, his gag wishing Damon Albarn would die of AIDS became front-page news all over the world. This fascinating pop history, exploring the moment British music suddenly meant everything, explains why. Picking out twenty key songs, delving into the surprising stories behind them and their unlikely creators, UNCOMMON PEOPLE takes us back to when Jarvis Cocker became a national hero, films like Trainspotting were international hits, rave became what everybody did - and it felt like the revolution was happening.

Picking up immediately after The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1, authors Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair have brought the same exhaustive research ethos to Volume 2 that made the first volume a critical success. Arguably the most authoritative text on the life of Paul McCartney, Volume 2 follows McCartney the man, establishing himself as a musician beyond Beatlemania and his legacy throughout the 20th century through the present day.

The first book dedicated solely to exploring his creative work, Man in the Music guides us through an unparalleled analysis of Jackson’s recordings, album by album, from his trailblazing work with Quincy Jones to his later collaborations with Teddy Riley, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and Rodney Jerkins. Drawing on rare archival material and on dozens of original interviews with many who helped bring the artist’s music into the world, Jackson expert and acclaimed cultural critic Joseph Vogel reveals what gave rise to an immortal body of work.

In Mark Kermode's Surround Sound the award-winning film critic, together with radio producer Jenny Nelson, embarks on a full-throttle trip down the glorious rabbit hole of film composition. Celebrating the emotional connection that audiences form with film music, exploring the evolution of film scoring from silent films to the present day, and examining how what we hear has an impact on what we see, Mark talks to some of his favourite composers and delves into the movie music he loves.

Without Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen might not be who he is today. The natural follow-up to Springsteen’s hugely successful album The River should have been the hit-packed Born in the U.S.A. But instead, in 1982, he came out with an album consisting of a series of dark songs he had recorded by himself, for himself. But more than forty years later, Nebraska is arguably Springsteen’s most important record—the lasting clue to understanding not just his career as an artist and the vision behind it, but also the man himself.

England's Dreaming is the ultimate book on punk, its progenitors, the Sex Pistols, and the moment they defined for music fans in England and the United States. Savage brings to life the sensational story of the meteoric rise and rapid implosion of the Pistols through layers of rich detail and exclusive interviews. This fully revised and updated edition of the book covers the legacy of punk 25 years later and provides an account of the Pistols' 1996 reunion as well as a completely new introduction.

America, 2003: A country at war, its shiny veneer beginning to crack. Von Dutch and The Simple Life dominate. And on the cover of every magazine, a twenty-one-year-old pop star named Britney Spears. Tracking her every move for a third-tier gossip rag in Los Angeles was an unknown young writer taking whatever job he could while pursuing his distant literary dreams. He'd instead become an eyewitness to the slow tragedy of a changing nation, represented in spirit by “the coy it-girl at the end of history.”

Maximum Volume offers a glimpse into the mind, the music, and the man behind the sound of the Beatles. George Martin's working-class childhood and musical influences profoundly shaped his early career in the BBC's Classical Music department and as head of the EMI Group's Parlophone Records. Out of them flowed the genius behind his seven years producing the Beatles' incredible body of work, including such albums as Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Abbey Road.

The worlds of pop and rock owe a much greater debt to the classical canon than we realise. A direct and fascinating lineage draws from the experimentalism of Pierre Henry to The Beatles' 'Tomorrow Never Knows', from Stockhausen to Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love' and from Bruckner to Sonic Youth via Glenn Branca. In Everything We Do is Music, Elizabeth Alker highlights the innovators of classical music and their fans and collaborators in pop who challenged the notion that such musical worlds were mutually exclusive.

Grammy winner John JR Robinson's bestselling memoir, "King of the Groove - How One Dream Transformed into 60 Years of Making Legendary Music," is captivating listeners with behind-the-scenes stories from his unprecedented six-decade career. This book plays a part in helping others to find new ways to believe in themselves. The memoir, featuring a foreword by the late, Quincy Jones offers listener and listeners an intimate glimpse into Robinson's journey from small-town Creston, Iowa into a legacy of over 500 million records sold, proving that rhythm isn't just what he does—it's who he is.