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Willie, Waylon, and the Boys: How Nashville Outsiders Changed Country Music Forever
by Brian FairbanksThe tragic and inspiring story of the leaders of Outlaw country and their influence on today&’s Alt-County and Americana superstars, tracing a path from Waylon Jennings&’ survival on the Day the Music Died through to the Highwaymen and on to the current creative and commercial explosion of Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, Zach Bryan, Jason Isbell, and the Highwomen. On February 2, 1959, Waylon Jennings, bassist for his best friend, the rock star Buddy Holly, gave up his seat on a charter flight. Jennings joked that he hoped the plane, leaving without him, would crash. When it did, killing all aboard, on "the Day the Music Died," he was devastated and never fully recovered. Jennings switched to playing country, creating the Outlaw movement and later forming the Highwaymen supergroup, the first in country music, with Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. The foursome battled addiction, record companies, ex-wives, violent fans, and the I.R.S. and D.E.A., en route to unprecedented mainstream success. Today, their acolytes Kacey Musgraves, Ryan Bingham, Sturgill Simpson, and Taylor Swift outsell all challengers, and country is the most popular of all genres. In this fascinating new book, Brian Fairbanks draws a line from Buddy Holly through the Outlaw stars of the 60s and 70s, all the way to the country headliners and more diverse, up-and-coming Nashville rebels of today, bringing the reader deep into the worlds of not only Cash, Nelson, Kristofferson, and Jennings but artists like Chris Stapleton, Simpson, Bingham, and Isbell, stadium-filling masters whose stories have not been told in book form, as well as new, diverse artists like the Highwomen, Brittney Spencer, and Allison Russell. Thought-provoking and meticulously researched, Willie, Waylon, and the Boys ultimately shows how a twenty-one-year-old bass-playing plane crash survivor helped changed the course of American music.
It Was You All Along
by RussThe self-made musical artist follows his bestseller IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD with this second inspirational book for everyone who’s looking for answers in all the wrong places. It’s a book about self-empowerment, self-awareness, and ultimately self-love.Independent rapper, songwriter, singer, and producer Russ sells out concerts across America and around the globe, collaborating with top artists, such as Snoop Dogg, Joey Bada$$, Ed Sheeran, Rick Ross, Lil Baby, Jadakiss, Bia, and Mozzy to name a few. At twenty-seven, he became a bestselling author with the publication of his debut book, IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD. Now, at thirty-one, Russ returns with a second book even more profound and intimate than his first. Building on his message of self-acceptance, It Was You All Along goes deeper into Russ’s heart and soul as it tracks the keys to knowing and loving yourself.The book addresses the question posed by the subtitle—what if you’re the one you’ve been waiting for?—a line from Russ’s first album inspired by his mother’s advice. Success comes from loving and believing in yourself and working hard regardless of obstacles and naysayers. Published in conjunction with his tour of the same name, It Was You All Along expands on themes found in Russ’s music and across his albums, and each chapter title takes the name of a track. Russ has always followed his own beat—and shows you how to find your own unique rhythm, offering motivational wisdom on everything from trust, discipline, and letting go to authenticity, joy, and faith.Packed with moving observances, It Was You All Along gives fans a rare look into the man behind the music and the challenges he continues to face both personally and as an independent artist. Russ gets deeply personal in these pages, revealing how seeing a therapist helped him understand his relationship with his family and realize that he was so overly focused on helping everyone in his orbit when the person who needed his attention most was himself.Russ uses his immense passion, his experiences, and his love for people to inspire us all. His honesty and straightforwardness will convince even the most reluctant reader that the answer can always be found within. An artist known for his powerful lyrics, Russ uses his songwriting gifts to craft prose that is moving, memorable, and motivational.
I Don't Want to Go Home: The Oral History of the Stone Pony
by Nick CorasanitiA captivating oral history of the iconic music venue the Stone Pony and of the rise, fall, and rebirth of Asbury Park, New Jersey—featuring interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, Southside Johnny, members of the E Street Band and Asbury Jukes, the Ramones, the Jonas Brothers, Jack Antonoff, and other legendary musicians.Featuring exclusive, never-before-seen photos from Danny ClinchIn 1970, Asbury Park, New Jersey, was ripped apart by race riots that left the once-proud beach town an hour away from Manhattan smoldering, suffering and left for dead.Four years later, a few miles down the coast in Seaside Heights, two bouncers, Jack Roig and Butch Pielka, tired of the daily grind, dreamt of owning their own place. Under-prepared and minimally funded, the two bought the first bar they considered, in a city where no one wanted to be, without setting one foot in the place. They named it the Stone Pony, and turned it into a rock club that Bruce Springsteen would soon call home and a dying town would call its beating heart.But the bar had to fight to survive. Despite its success in launching and attracting rockers like Stevie Van Zandt, “Southside” Johnny Lyon, and Springsteen, the Stone Pony—like everything in Asbury Park for the past half century—could only weather the drags of a depressed city for so long.How did the Stone Pony beat the odds to survive? How did it become an international rock pilgrimage site, not just for fans of Springsteen, but for punk rockers, jam bands, pop, indie, alternative and many other musicians as well? And how did it continue to inspire and influence a hall-of-fame list of New Jersey and national rock stars? The story of the Stone Pony—thrillingly charted in this detailed oral history—is the chronicle of a proud and unique cultural mecca blooming in a down-but-not-yet-out tough town. As Nick Corasaniti reveals, the stories of Asbury Park and the Stone Pony are that of modern America itself—a place of battered hopes, big dreams, and dogged resilience.
Too Much Too Young, the 2 Tone Records Story: Rude Boys, Racism, And The Soundtrack Of A Generation
by Daniel RachelThe definitive and remarkable story of 2 Tone Records, featuring an introduction by Pauline Black —A Times/Sunday Times Book of the Year—An Uncut Book of the Year —Long-Listed for the Penderyn Music Book Prize —A Louder Than War Book of the Year —A Blitzed Magazine Book of the Year In 1979, 2 Tone Records exploded into the consciousness of music lovers in Britain, the US, and beyond, as albums by the Specials, the Selecter, Madness, the English Beat, and the Bodysnatchers burst onto the charts and a youth movement was born. 2 Tone was Black and white: a multiracial force of British and Caribbean musicians singing about social issues, racism, class, and gender struggles. It spoke of injustices in society and fought against rightwing extremism. It was exuberant and eclectic: white youths learning to dance to the infectious rhythm of ska and reggae, crossed with a punk attitude, to create an original hybrid. The idea of 2 Tone was born in Coventry, England, and masterminded by a middle-class art student, Jerry Dammers, who envisioned an English Motown. Dammers signed a slew of successful artists, and a number of successive hits propelled 2 Tone onto Top of the Pops and into the hearts and minds of a generation. However, infighting among the bands and the pressures of running a label caused 2 Tone to bow to the inevitable weight of expectation and recrimination. Over the following years, Dammers built the label back up again, entering a new phase full of fresh signings and a beautiful end-piece finale in the activist hit song “(Free) Nelson Mandela.” Told in three parts, Too Much Too Young is the definitive story of a label that for a brief, bright burning moment shaped British, American, and world culture.
Langston Hughes and the Blues
by Steven C. TracyThe shades and structures of the blues had an immense impact on the poetry of Langston Hughes. Steven C. Tracy provides a cultural context for Hughes’s work while revealing how Hughes mined Black oral and literary traditions to create his poetry. Comparing Hughes’s poems to blues texts, Tracy reveals how Hughes’s experimental forms reflect the poetics, structures, rhythms, and musical techniques of the music. Tracy also offers a discography of recordings by the artists--Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and others--who most influenced the poet.
The World Got Away: A Memoir (Music in American Life)
by Mikel RouseOne of the most innovative composers of his generation, Mikel Rouse is known for a trilogy of operas that includes Dennis Cleveland and a gift for superimposing pop vernaculars onto avant-garde music. This memoir channels Rouse’s high energy personality into an exuberant account of the precarity and pleasures of artistic creation. Raconteur and starving artist, witty observer and acclaimed musician, Rouse emerged from the legendary art world of 1980s New York to build a forty-year career defined by stage and musical successes, inexhaustible creativity, and a support network of famous faces, loyal allies, and high art hustlers. Rouse guides readers through a working artists’ hardscrabble life while illuminating the unromantic truth that a project’s reception may depend on a talented cast and crew but can depend on reliable air conditioning. Candid and hilarious, The World Got Away is a one-of-a-kind account of a creative life fueled by talent, work, and luck.
Desert Song
by Laekan Zea KempA family joins the music of the Texas desert night in this tale of tradition and memory from Pura Belpré Honor author Laekan Zea Kemp.It starts with a soft tapping,Uncle Eduardo drumming hishands against his dusty jeans.As the blush of sunset gives way to night in the desert, coyotes, cicadas, and barn owls emerge, each calling out to the moon. Watching from their porch, the family joins the song. One by one, each relative offers their drums, flute, maracas, strings, and voices. They sing with the insects, birds, snakes and toads; and they sing with their ancestors, an audience glittering in the stars overhead. With each strum of passed-down instruments, memories renew, and those gone are alive and near again.Desert Song hums and chimes with all the music a front porch and the desert beyond can hold. Pura Belpré Honor author Laekan Zea Kemp&’s masterfully stirring text dances through Beatriz Gutierrez Hernandez&’s enchanting and dynamic artwork. Readers will be left with the soothing sense that when creativity flourishes, the past is never out of reach, and the bonds that matter never break.Simultaneously published in Spanish as Canción del desierto.
Canción del desierto
by Laekan Zea KempUna familia disfruta de la música nocturna del desierto tejano en esta historia de tradición y recuerdo de Laekan Zea Kemp, ganadora de una Mención de Honor Pura Belpré.Todo empieza con un suave golpeteo,cuando el tío Eduardo tamborilea con las manossobre sus polvorientos pantalones. Cuando el rubor del atardecer da paso a la noche en el desierto, emergen coyotes, cigarras y lechuzas, cada uno de ellos llamando a la luna. Observando desde su porche, la familia participa en la canción. Uno por uno, cada familiar ofrece sus tambores, flauta, maracas, cuerdas y voces. Cantan con los insectos, pájaros, serpientes y sapos; y cantan con sus antepasados, una audiencia que brilla entre las estrellas. Con cada rasgueo de instrumentos heredados, los recuerdos se renuevan y los familiares que han fallecido están vivos y cercanos de nuevo. Canción del desierto tararea y suena con toda la música que un porche y el desierto más allá de él pueden contener. El conmovedor texto de Laekan Zea Kemp, ganadora de una Mención de Honor Pura Belpré, baila a través de las encantadoras ilustraciones de Beatriz Gutiérrez Hernández. Los lectores se quedarán con la reconfortante sensación de que cuando la creatividad florece, el pasado nunca está fuera de su alcance y los vínculos importantes nunca se rompen.
Format Friction: Perspectives on the Shellac Disc (New Material Histories of Music)
by Gavin WilliamsThe first book to consider the shellac disc as a global format. With the rise of the gramophone around 1900, the shellac disc traveled the world and eventually became the dominant sound format in the first half of the twentieth century. Format Friction brings together a set of local encounters with the shellac disc, beginning with its preconditions in South Asian knowledge and labor, to offer a global portrait of this format. Spun at seventy-eight revolutions per minute, the shellac disc rapidly became an industrial standard even while the gramophone itself remained a novelty. The very basis of this early sound reproduction technology was friction, an elemental materiality of sound shaped through cultural practice. Using friction as a lens, Gavin Williams illuminates the environments plundered, the materials seized, and the ears entangled in the making of a sound format. Bringing together material, political, and music history, Format Friction decenters the story of a beloved medium, and so explores new ways of understanding listening in technological culture more broadly.
Music Making Community
by Bruno Nettl Joanna Bosse Stefan Fiol Stephen Blum Veit Erlmann Eduardo Herrera Ioannis Tsekouras Donna A Buchanan Thomas Solomon Sylvia Bruinders David A McDonald Rick DejaMaking music offers enormous possibilities--and faces significant limitations--in its power to generate belonging and advance social justice. Tony Perman and Stefan Fiol edit essays focused on the forms of interplay between music-making and community-making as mutually creative processes. Contributors in the first section look at cases where music arrived in settings with little or no sense of community and formed social bonds that lasted beyond its departure. In the sections that follow, the essayists turn to stable communities that used musical forms to address social needs and both forged new social groups and, in some cases, splintered established communities. By centering the value of difference in productive feedback dynamics of music and community while asserting the need for mutual moral indebtedness, they foreground music’s potential to transform community for the better. Contributors: Stephen Blum, Joanna Bosse, Sylvia Bruinders, Donna A. Buchanan, Rick Deja, Veit Erlmann, Stefan Fiol, Eduardo Herrera, David A. McDonald, Tony Perman, Thomas Solomon, and Ioannis Tsekouras
Rock Chicks: The Hottest Female Rockers from the 1960s to Now
by Alison Stieven-TaylorBrave: Courageously live your truth sets out a clear roadmap for women to reclaim their personal power, providing them with the knowledge and courage to step into an authentic life. Learn how to listen to your intuition, follow your soul purpose and bravely live your truth. This book helps to identify your personal calling, recognising a destiny that yearns to be fulfilled and provides the skills to recognise the power and courage within to take the leap towards a more meaningful and passionate life. This book is for the woman who feels lost in the midst of all the small decisions in her life. Be it following a career path, climbing the corporate ladder or caring for family, sometimes your focus, personal beliefs and goals get lost in the day to day. Now is the time to identify your personal calling and rediscover the destiny that is meant for you alone.
D. O. DOUBLE G: The Og Since 1993 (The\little Book Of... Ser.)
by Orange Hippo!America's Original Gangsta. Snoop Doggy Dogg fired up the burgeoning U.S. rap scene in 1993 with his outstanding debut, Doggystyle. It not only revolutionised a genre, it also put West Coast ganstas at the top of the charts for the first time ever. With producer Dr Dre, Snoop lit the spark for many other famous rappers to find fame and built a global apparel empire and brand that now branches out into multiple bestselling products, all available on his online 'Snoopermarket'.This little guide is the pick-me-up every Snoop fan deserves. With more than 175 whip smart wisecracks from America's highest pop culture power, The Little Guide to Snoop Dogg is the best way to celebrate 30 years of Doggystyle without putting your back out.'I felt like I was out of pocket. I apologised to him, and let him know and I'm just bettering myself. I make mistakes. I ain't perfect. I'm Snoop Dogg.'
Radiohead: Climbing Up the Walls
by Tom SheehanFOREWORD BY RADIOHEAD'S ED O'BRIENExplore the story of Radiohead - perhaps the finest band of a generation - through the lens of legendary Melody Maker chief photographer Tom Sheehan.Through more than 200 photographs and Sheehan's first-hand memories and stories, journey into the eye of a musical storm. From their earliest days as indie upstarts, through the wild, all-conquering years of OK Computer and into the experimental soundscapes beyond, Tom Sheehan captured Radiohead's world in breathtaking detail.Covering recording sessions, live performances, studio portraits and moments snatched on tour around the world, these photographs - many of which have never been published before - paint an intimate picture of a band pushing the boundaries of music.Accompanied by a biography of Radiohead from Craig McLean (Associate Editor, The Face) drawing on his personal interviews with the band, this beautiful book is a unique visual record of a breathtaking musical journey.
I Was There: Dispatches from a Life in Rock and Roll
by Alan Edwards'Alan is such a wonderful storyteller' Debbie Harry 'Alan Edwards is a class act: observant, attentive, always in the right place at the right time. I Was There tells you how' Jon Savage 'A beautiful, warm, jaw-dropping, once-in-a-lifetime, lifting-the-stone guide to a secret world . . . I loved it' Tony Parsons 'Revelatory' Will Hodgkinson, The Times 'A master of page-turning readability . . . an insider's view of operating inside the world of David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Paul McCartney and a gaggle of A+ listers' MojoAlan Edwards, the godfather of British music PR, has worked with some of the most legendary artists of our time, from David Bowie to the Spice Girls via the Rolling Stones, the Stranglers, Prince and Amy Winehouse. In I Was There, he describes getting his break in the mid-'70s as a scruffy, stoned 20-year-old just back from the hippie trail; his encounter with London's thriving punk scene, which inspired him to set up his own PR company; broadening his horizons as his work with the likes of Blondie takes him to the US and beyond; and his move into the world of pop with the Spice Girls during the tabloid-crazed '90s. At the centre of this story sits the defining relationship of Edwards' career: his close, thirty-year collaboration with David Bowie. He guides us through a series of vivid, funny, always insightful behind-the-scenes reports, whether he's playing a spontaneous game of football with Bob Marley, listening to Prince discuss the future of civilisation in a nightclub VIP area, or being used as a pawn in the power struggle between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Above all, we're treated to Edwards' fascinating observations about the brilliant artists he has worked with and what makes them tick, as he looks back on his role in the last five decades of music and culture.
D. O. DOUBLE G: The Og Since 1993 (The\little Book Of... Ser.)
by Orange Hippo!America's Original Gangsta. Snoop Doggy Dogg fired up the burgeoning U.S. rap scene in 1993 with his outstanding debut, Doggystyle. It not only revolutionised a genre, it also put West Coast ganstas at the top of the charts for the first time ever. With producer Dr Dre, Snoop lit the spark for many other famous rappers to find fame and built a global apparel empire and brand that now branches out into multiple bestselling products, all available on his online 'Snoopermarket'.This little guide is the pick-me-up every Snoop fan deserves. With more than 175 whip smart wisecracks from America's highest pop culture power, The Little Guide to Snoop Dogg is the best way to celebrate 30 years of Doggystyle without putting your back out.'I felt like I was out of pocket. I apologised to him, and let him know and I'm just bettering myself. I make mistakes. I ain't perfect. I'm Snoop Dogg.'
Radiohead: Climbing Up the Walls
by Tom SheehanFOREWORD BY RADIOHEAD'S ED O'BRIENExplore the story of Radiohead - perhaps the finest band of a generation - through the lens of legendary Melody Maker chief photographer Tom Sheehan.Through more than 200 photographs and Sheehan's first-hand memories and stories, journey into the eye of a musical storm. From their earliest days as indie upstarts, through the wild, all-conquering years of OK Computer and into the experimental soundscapes beyond, Tom Sheehan captured Radiohead's world in breathtaking detail.Covering recording sessions, live performances, studio portraits and moments snatched on tour around the world, these photographs - many of which have never been published before - paint an intimate picture of a band pushing the boundaries of music.Accompanied by a biography of Radiohead from Craig McLean (Associate Editor, The Face) drawing on his personal interviews with the band, this beautiful book is a unique visual record of a breathtaking musical journey.
The Piano Player of Budapest: A True Story of Holocaust Survival, Music and Hope
by Roxanne de BastionOne man, his piano and their miraculous survival.'Extraordinary' Baroness Julia Neuberger'Stunning. A beautiful blend of action, poetry, thought-provoking comment and music ... just brilliant' James Ainscough OBE'A gripping narrative of suffering, loss and survival, with music at its heart' Fiona MaddocksAll future, freedom and success lay ahead of young pianist Stephen de Bastion in 1930s Hungary. Life whirled headily around cocktails, romance, applause and the buzz of Budapest late into the night. Then, 1939. Stephen's world disintegrates and this becomes a story of his brutal descent, of his time in labour camps, of Mauthausen and Gunskirchen and the unimaginable horrors he endured during the Holocaust as a man of Jewish descent. Yet, this is also a tale of extraordinary escape ... and the piano, waiting for him.The same piano that Roxanne de Bastion, his granddaughter, inherits when her father dies. It has been in the family over one hundred years but it is only when, deep in grief, she discovers a cassette recording of Stephen, that the astonishing history of the piano, the man and her family begins to unravel. Weaving together his original recordings, unpublished memoirs, letters and documents, Roxanne sings out her grandfather's story of music and hope, lost and found. Luminous and profoundly moving, this book captures the great spirit of one man in the face of darkness and the hope that echoes down through generations.
Under A Rock
by Chris SteinThis audiobook includes the song 'Heartbreak Kid', an exclusive early track from Blondie's forthcoming album'Sometimes fate deals up a wild card. There's a lot to be said for one of these wild cards and from what I've learned over the fifty or so years of our friendship, Chris is a card from the unexpected deck' - from the foreword by Debbie HarryMusician, photographer, storyteller, and longtime partner to Debbie Harry, Chris Stein defined the sound of an era, catapulting the icon band Blondie to #1 and selling over 20 million copies of Parallel Lines.In this no-holds-barred autobiography, Stein reveals himself-this time not in songwriting or photography, which he's previously been known for, but in words. From a Brooklyn boyhood, a move across the river to the gritty and fecund East Village in the late 1970s allowed Stein to tap the explosive creativity that defined the era in the city. It was a time when David Bowie and the Ramones were also making music, when Andy Warhol was still alive and promoting Jean-Michel Basquiat's work, when cool was defined not by where you came from but by what you could contribute to culture.UNDER A ROCK is a plunge into that vanished time period, and into the moments that turned the fresh sound and new look of punk and new wave into a giant artistic and commercial sensation. Stein takes us there in this revelatory, propulsive, distinctive memoir.
Rip It Up And Start Again
by Simon ReynoldsIn this, the first book to take a big-picture view of the entire post punk period, acclaimed author and music journalist Simon Reynolds recreates a time of tremendous urgency and idealism in pop music.Full of anecdote and insight, and featuring the likes of Joy Division, The Fall, Pere Ubu, PiL and Talking Heads, Rip It Up And Start Again stands as one of the most inspired and inspiring books on popular music ever written.
Under A Rock
by Chris Stein'Sometimes fate deals up a wild card. There's a lot to be said for one of these wild cards and from what I've learned over the fifty or so years of our friendship, Chris is a card from the unexpected deck' - from the foreword by Debbie HarryMusician, photographer, storyteller, and longtime partner to Debbie Harry, Chris Stein defined the sound of an era, catapulting the icon band Blondie to #1 and selling over 20 million copies of Parallel Lines.In this no-holds-barred autobiography, Stein reveals himself-this time not in songwriting or photography, which he's previously been known for, but in words. From a Brooklyn boyhood, a move across the river to the gritty and fecund East Village in the late 1970s allowed Stein to tap the explosive creativity that defined the era in the city. It was a time when David Bowie and the Ramones were also making music, when Andy Warhol was still alive and promoting Jean-Michel Basquiat's work, when cool was defined not by where you came from but by what you could contribute to culture.UNDER A ROCK is a plunge into that vanished time period, and into the moments that turned the fresh sound and new look of punk and new wave into a giant artistic and commercial sensation. Stein takes us there in this revelatory, propulsive, distinctive memoir.
The Piano Player of Budapest: A True Story of Holocaust Survival, Music and Hope
by Roxanne de BastionOne man, his piano and their miraculous survival.'Extraordinary' Baroness Julia Neuberger'Stunning. A beautiful blend of action, poetry, thought-provoking comment and music ... just brilliant' James Ainscough OBE'A gripping narrative of suffering, loss and survival, with music at its heart' Fiona MaddocksAll future, freedom and success lay ahead of young pianist Stephen de Bastion in 1930s Hungary. Life whirled headily around cocktails, romance, applause and the buzz of Budapest late into the night. Then, 1939. Stephen's world disintegrates and this becomes a story of his brutal descent, of his time in labour camps, of Mauthausen and Gunskirchen and the unimaginable horrors he endured during the Holocaust as a man of Jewish descent. Yet, this is also a tale of extraordinary escape ... and the piano, waiting for him.The same piano that Roxanne de Bastion, his granddaughter, inherits when her father dies. It has been in the family over one hundred years but it is only when, deep in grief, she discovers a cassette recording of Stephen, that the astonishing history of the piano, the man and her family begins to unravel. Weaving together his original recordings, unpublished memoirs, letters and documents, Roxanne sings out her grandfather's story of music and hope, lost and found. Luminous and profoundly moving, this book captures the great spirit of one man in the face of darkness and the hope that echoes down through generations.
Mozart in Motion: His Work and His World in Pieces
by Patrick MackieIn exhilarating, transformative prose, the poet Patrick Mackie reveals a musician in dialogue with culture at its most sweepingly progressive.Mozart is one of the most familiar and beloved icons of our culture, but how much do we really understand about his music, and what can it reveal to us about the great composer?Following Mozart from his youth in Salzburg to his early death, from his close and rivalrous relationship with his father to his romantic attachments, from his hugely successful operas to intimate compositions on the keyboard, Patrick Mackie leads the reader through the major and lesser-known moments of the composer’s life and brings alive the teeming, swiveling modernity of eighteenth-century Europe. In this era of rococo painting, surrealist aesthetics, and political turbulence, Mozart reckoned with a searing talent that threatened to overwhelm him, all the while pushing himself to extraordinary feats of musicianship.In Mozart in Motion, we are returned to the volatility of the eighteenth century and hear Mozart’s music in all its audacious vividness, gaining fresh perspectives on why his works still move us so intensely today as we continue to search for a modernity he imagined into being.
Cocoa the Tour Dog: A Children's Picture Book
by Adam Mansbach Stick Figure#1 best-selling reggae artist Stick Figure (Scott Woodruff) and #1 New York Times best-selling author Adam Mansbach team up for a sweet, funny children's picture book about a real-life rescue dog turned worldwide icon Cocoa the Tour Dog is the saga of an Australian shepherd who meets her soul mate: a struggling musician, Scott, with dreams of spreading love on stages across the globe. When Scott's work starts to pay off, Cocoa wanders onstage herself and finds sudden fame—and the two of them embark on an adventure that takes them around the world playing music, delighting fans, and ignoring leash laws. But as the pace of life quickens, Cocoa begins to feel worn out—she misses the simpler times, and she's no longer seeing the world with puppy eyes. Luckily, Scott has just the thing to restore Cocoa's sense of wonder: a little sister dog. The two of them set off on an adventure to add Molly to the family, and soon Cocoa is teaching the puppy all about life on the road . . . and even how to take it to the stage.
Beethoven: Studies In The Creative Processes
by Lewis LockwoodAn authoritative work offering a fresh look at Beethoven’s life, career, and milieu. “Magisterial” —New York Review of Books. This brilliant portrayal weaves Beethoven's musical and biographical stories into their historical and artistic contexts. Lewis Lockwood sketches the turbulent personal, historical, political, and cultural frameworks in which Beethoven worked and examines their effects on his music. "The result is that rarest of achievements, a profoundly humane work of scholarship that will—or at least should—appeal to specialists and generalists in equal measure" (Terry Teachout, Commentary). Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. "Lewis Lockwood has written a biography of Beethoven in which the hours that Beethoven spent writing music—that is, his methods of working, his interest in contemporary and past composers, the development of his musical intentions and ideals, his inner musical life, in short—have been properly integrated with the external events of his career. The book is invaluable." —Charles Rosen "Lockwood writes with poetry and clarity—a rare combination. I especially enjoyed the connection that he makes between the works of Beethoven and the social and political context of their creation—we feel closer to Beethoven the man without losing our wonder at his genius." —Emanuel Ax "The magnum opus of an illustrious Beethoven scholar. From now on, we will all turn to Lockwood's Beethoven: The Music and the Life for insight and instruction." —Maynard Solomon "This is truly the Beethoven biography for the intelligent reader. Lewis Lockwood speaks in his preface of writing on Beethoven's works at 'a highly accessible descriptive level.' But he goes beyond that. His discussion of the music, based on a deep knowledge of its context and the composition processes behind it, explains, elucidates, and is not afraid to evaluate; while the biographical chapters, clearly and unfussily written, and taking full account of the newest thinking on Beethoven, align closely with the musical discussion. The result is a deeply perceptive book that comes as close as can be to presenting the man and the music as a unity."—Stanley Sadie, editor, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians "Impressive for both its scholarship and its fresh insights, this landmark work—fully accessible to the interested amateur—immediately takes its place among the essential references on this composer and his music."—Bob Goldfarb, KUSC-FM 91.5 "Lockwood writes like an angel: lucid, enthusiastic, stirring and enlightening. Beethoven has found his ablest interpreter."—Jonathan Keates, The Spectator "There is no better survey of Beethoven's compositions for a wide audience."—Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times Book Review
How to Make Music in an Epidemic: Popular Music Making During the AIDS Crisis, 1981-1996 (ISSN)
by Matthew JonesThis volume examines responses to the epidemic of HIV/AIDS in Anglophone popular musicians and music video during the AIDS crisis (1981–1996).Through close reading of song lyrics, musical texts, and music videos, this book demonstrates how music played an integral part in the artistic-activist response to the AIDS epidemic, demonstrating music as a way to raise money for HIV/AIDS services, to articulate affective responses to the epidemic, to disseminate public health messages, to talk back to power, and to bear witness to the losses of AIDS.Drawing methodologies from musicology, queer theory, critical race studies, public health, and critical theory, the book will be of interest to a wide readership, including artists, activists, musicians, historians, and other scholars across the humanities as well as to people who lived through the AIDS crisis.