This is the autobiography of Woody Guthrie, the founder of modern American folk music. It is a funny, cynical, earthy and tragic account of his life in an Oklahoma oil-boom town, of the Depression, and of his subsequent travels in, on and under trains, in stolen cars and on his feet round America.
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings is firmly established as the world's leading guide to recorded jazz, a mine of fascinating information and a source of insightful - often wittily trenchant - criticism. This is something rather different: Brian Morton (who taught American history at UEA) has picked out the 1000 best recordings that all jazz fans should have and shows how they tell the history of the music and with it the history of the twentieth century. He has completely revised his and Richard Cook's entries and reassessed each artist's entry for this book. The result is an endlessly browsable companion that will prove required reading for aficionados and jazz novices alike.
Gay Talese is the father of American New Journalism, who transformed traditional reportage with his vivid scene-setting, sharp observation and rich storytelling. His 1966 piece for Esquire, one of the most celebrated magazine articles ever published, describes a morose Frank Sinatra silently nursing a glass of bourbon, struck down with a cold and unable to sing, like 'Picasso without paint, Ferrari without fuel - only worse'. The other writings in this selection include a description of a meeting between two legends, Fidel Castro and Muhammad Ali; a brilliantly witty dissection of the offices of Vogue magazine; an account of travelling to Ireland with hellraiser Peter O'Toole; and a profile of fading baseball star Joe DiMaggio, which turns into a moving, immaculately-crafted meditation on celebrity.
Presents an account of the history of reggae. This book describes reggae's origins and development in Jamaica, from ska to rock-steady to dub and to reggae itself, a local music which conquered the world. It relates the story of reggae to the history of Jamaica, from Colonial Island to troubled independence, and Jamaicans, from Kingston to London.
This work publishes the diaries of Kurt Cobain that were found after his death in 1994. Genuinely moving, provocative and candid, and surprisingly funny, pieces of writing which, as a whole, provide a unique account of the rise and fall of a great popular artist and icon.
"A joy... essential reading for anyone seeking an engaging and highly informed chronicle of the great composers and their works... takes the story of opera from its roots in late-Renaissance Italy via Mozart, Rossini, Wagner, Verdi, Puccini, Strauss and many less familiar figures through to Berg, Britten and beyond". Daniel Snowman, Opera.
'Squirm-inducing, excruciatingly honest and painfully funny' Joseph O'Connor We all went to school with friends who've turned out more successful than ourselves. But they don't all phone from improbably glamorous places and drive us mad by telling us about it. And they're not all Bono.
Neil McCormick always dreamed of life as a rock star. Instead, he had to watch while his friend became one of the most famous men on the planet. Killing Bono tells the story of the less-than-successful rival band which he set up with his brother Ivan in the late 1970s.
While the young brothers struggled to find success Bono and his friends went on to achieve superstar status. A heartwarming story of friendship, loyalty, rivalry and ambition, read it and weep - with sympathy and laughter.
When eighteen year old Danny Goldberg wrote his first music review for Billboard, he couldn't have imagined that he would go on to enjoy one of the most varied and influential careers in the world of rock and roll. He went on to do PR for Led Zeppelin and KISS, launched Stevie Nicks' solo career, was Bonnie Raitt's manager when she won four Grammys for Nick of Time, managed the career of Nirvana, signed Warren Zevon to his label for the artist's last album, and, in between, ran Atlantic Records, Mercury Records and Warner Bros Records. In Bumping into Geniuses, Goldberg shares his stories about those artists with whom he worked closely, as well as others who represent a powerful portion of the psychic real estate of the rock and roll kingdom over the last forty years, including Patti Smith, The Moody Blues, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Courtney Love, Steve Earle, and more.
But there is more to this story than Goldberg's career. It's a revealing look at the music industry itself: a business that was neither the romantic vehicle for self-expression that its most naive fans imagined, nor the purely crass money machine depicted by its most cynical critics. It was complex and chaotic - a mixture of art and commerce, idealism and selfishness - and sometimes, rock's most gifted musicians were able to transcend it all. Despite the drugs, lies and shallow quests for fame and money that stalked the rock industry, it managed to produce the music that Goldberg and countless fans love.
Above all, this book is Goldberg's love letter to rock and roll and to the countless musical geniuses he bumped into along the course of his extraordinary career. For anyone interested in the rock and roll industry, or simply the mores and temperaments of the musicians themselves, Bumping into Geniuses is an incredible insider's tale that only Goldberg could tell.
Mozart's unusual childhood as a musical prodigy touring Europe as a performer from an early age is well known. This book presents a narrative that puts Mozart's operas in the context of his life, showing how they illuminate his creativity as a whole.
Drawing upon a lifetime of knowledge and many great performers of the past, Charles Rosen explores every aspect of the piano. He shows why the instrument demands such a stark combination of mental and physical prowess.
This concise edition of the critically-acclaimed New Penguin Opera Guide focusses on the composers and works most frequently performed today - ranging from Britten to Massenet, and from Mozart to Wagner.
