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A Spy in the House of Loud: New York Songs and Stories (American Music Series)
by Chris StameyThe musician & producer reflects on New York City&’s early punk rock scene, as well as the creation of some of his most famous albums in this memoir.Popular music was in a creative upheaval in the late 1970s. As the singer-songwriter and producer Chris Stamey remembers, &“the old guard had become bloated, cartoonish, and widely co-opted by a search for maximum corporate profits, and we wanted none of it.&” In A Spy in the House of Loud, he takes us back to the auteur explosion happening in New York clubs such as the Bowery&’s CBGB as Television, Talking Heads, R.E.M., and other innovative bands were rewriting the rules. Just twenty-two years old and newly arrived from North Carolina, Stamey immersed himself in the action, playing a year with Alex Chilton before forming the dB&’s and recording the albums Stands for deciBels and Repercussion, which still have an enthusiastic following.A Spy in the House of Loud vividly captures the energy that drove the music scene as arena rock gave way to punk and other new streams of electric music. Stamey tells engrossing backstories about creating in the recording studio, describing both the inspiration and the harmonic decisions behind many of his compositions, as well as providing insights into other people&’s music and the process of songwriting. Photos, mixer-channel and track assignment notes, and other inside-the-studio materials illustrate the stories. Revealing another side of the CBGB era, which has been stereotyped as punk rock, safety pins, and provocation, A Spy in the House of Loud portrays a southern artist&’s coming-of-age in New York&’s frontier abandon as he searches for new ways to break the rules and make some noise.&“An endlessly fascinating odyssey through the worlds of Southern pop, New York City art punk, and American indie rock. Stamey&’s stories capture you with same finely etched detail and emotional depth that have always marked his best songs. Both an engrossing personal memoir and an eye-opening peek into the creative process, this is a truly essential work of music lit.&” —Bob Mehr, New York Times–bestselling author of Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements &“Informed, eloquent, and daring, this book stands as a model of excellence for both music writing and memoir. Stamey moves effortlessly between analysis and reminiscence, history and personal revelation, shedding light on his own creative journey as well as the city—&‘planet New York&’—that provided a good deal of the inspiration for it. I simultaneously learned so much and was deeply moved.&” —Anthony DeCurtis, author of Lou Reed: A Life &“Where most musician autobiographies are fueled by backstage drama, this book focuses almost entirely on the creative process, a choice that not only proves to be compelling but helps turn Stamey&’s personal journey into a necessary document of peak-era college rock, illustrating how it was a vibrant scene filled with unexpected cross pollination.&” —Pitchfork
Squeeze This!: A Cultural History of the Accordion in America
by Marion JacobsonThe piano accordion experienced a roller coaster ride of popularity--rise to fame on the airwaves, stage and silver screen, then a deathly decline, followed by a pop culture resurgence. Squeeze This! rolls out a history of the squeezebox with the first book-length study of its fascinating role in twentieth-century American music and culture. Focusing on key moments of transition, ethnomusicologist and accordion enthusiast Marion Jacobson shows how the instrument came to be celebrated by ethnic musical communities and mainstream fans alike. She also explores the accordion's rebirth in contemporary music, from the parodies of "Weird Al" Yankovic to geek rock legends They Might Be Giants to accordion-wielding superstars like Bruce Springsteen and Sheryl Crow. Loaded with images of gorgeous instruments, virtuoso performers, and rabid fans, Squeeze This! presents the untold story of America's rich accordion culture.
Squire's Warren Junior Military Band (Images of America)
by Janne Hurrelbrink-BiasSquire�s Warren Junior Military Band had an emotional appeal that endeared it to audiences of all ages. Considered one of northeastern Ohio�s richest artistic assets, the band�s members, who hailed from the entire region, were filled with pride, tradition, patriotism, and a sense of discipline. The original VFW Boys Band was formed in 1927, with Donald W. �Squire� Hurrelbrink becoming director in 1930. In 1957, the name changed to the Warren Junior Military Band. Travels took the band from the East Coast to the West Coast, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and to audiences abroad, amassing an impressive record of Midwest, Canadian, European, American Legion, and VFW National Championships. Throughout the years, the band performed at numerous prestigious events and for an impressive number of dignitaries, as well as a phenomenal number of local, civic, and patriotic festivities. Members were privileged to have Squire�s leadership for 66 years. Alumni continued to lead, direct, and pass on the values they learned under Squire�s guidance. Finally, in 2010, the band ended its long legacy.
St. Louis Jazz: A History
by Dennis C OwsleyExplore the history of the artists who contributed to the Gateway City&’s jazz scene and the world of music.In the early twentieth century, St. Louis was a hotbed for ragtime and blues, both roots of jazz music. In 1914, Jelly Roll Morton brought his music to the area. In 1919, Louis Armstrong came to town to play on the &“floating conservatories&” that plied the Mississippi. Miles Davis, the most famous of the city&’s jazz natives, changed the course of the genre four different times throughout a world-renowned career. The Black Artists Group of the 1970s was one of the first to bring world music practices into jazz. Author Dennis C. Owsley chronicles the ways both local and national St. Louis musicians have contributed to the city and to the world of music.
St. Matthew Passion: In Full Score
by Johann Sebastian BachOne of the most performed and recorded of Bach's major works, the St. Matthew Passion has been a focal point of concert seasons and festivals around the world for over 150 years. First performed in the late 1720s, it is a drama of epic grandeur, long considered the noblest, most inspired musical treatment of the story of the crucifixion of Christ. Bach set the text, based on two chapters from the Gospel of St. Matthew, using a large ensemble of two choruses, soloists, and two orchestras. The full score is reprinted here from the fine edition prepared by the Bach-Gesellschaft.Although the St. Matthew Passion is often held to be the apotheosis of Lutheran church music, this magnificent oratorio reaches out to its audience in the language, form, and spirit of opera. Richly dramatic and theatrical, following the general form of Baroque opera, it unfolds its deeply moving story in recitatives, ariosos, arias, chorales, and mighty choral movements. This finely produced score offers music lovers the opportunity -- at a price far lower than comparable editions -- to follow performances score in hand, and to gain a more intimate knowledge of the rich musical textures of this great masterwork.
Stage to Studio: Musicians and the Sound Revolution, 1890-1950 (Studies in Industry and Society #9)
by James P. KraftAward for Best Research in the Field of Record Labels or Manufacturers from the Association for Recorded Sound CollectionsWinner of the Kenneth W. Baldridge Prize from the Phi Alpha Theta Honor Society, Hawaii Region Between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth century, technology transformed the entertainment industry as much as it did such heavy industries as coal and steel. Among those most directly affected were musicians, who had to adapt to successive inventions and refinements in audio technology—from wax cylinders and gramophones to radio and sound films. In this groundbreaking study, James P. Kraft explores the intersection of sound technology, corporate power, and artistic labor during this disruptive period.Kraft begins in the late nineteenth century's "golden age" of musicians, when demand for skilled instrumentalists often exceeded supply, analyzing the conflicts in concert halls, nightclubs, recording studios, radio stations, and Hollywood studios as musicians began to compete not only against their local counterparts but also against highly skilled workers in national "entertainment factories." Kraft offers an illuminating case study in the impact of technology on industry and society—and a provocative chapter in the cultural history of America.
The Stage Works of Philip Glass (Composers on the Stage)
by Robert F. WatersThe Stage Works of Philip Glass is the first publication to exclusively examine Glass's stage works from 1976 to the present day. Glass, who is regularly acclaimed as the most popular living classical composer, created stage works that have had a mesmerizing effect on younger generations. Robert Waters analyses Glass and his music for the theatre in the context of other composers interested in so-called minimalist features. His discussion includes three introductory chapters that address the validity versus invalidity of terms such as minimalism, post-minimalism, postmodernism, and neo-Romanticism, together with a brief overview of Glass's life and works. Waters examines the different types of theatre responsible for Glass's impact, including Robert Wilson's Theater of Images. He sheds light on Glass's philosophy regarding staging, text, and other theatrical components, which includes a defiance of conventional narrative, visual and aural dissociation as a theatrical technique, and deconstructionist concepts.
Staging 'Euridice': Theatre, Sets, and Music in Late Renaissance Florence
by Tim Carter Francesca FantappièEuridice was one of several music-theatrical works commissioned to celebrate the wedding of Maria de' Medici and King Henri IV of France in Florence in October 1600. As the first 'opera' to survive complete, it has been viewed as a landmark work, but its libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini and music by Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini have tended to be studied in the abstract rather than as something to be performed in a specific time and place. Staging “Euridice” explores how newly-discovered documents can be used to precisely reconstruct every aspect of its original stage and sets in the room for which it was intended in the Palazzo Pitti. By also taking into account what the singers and instrumentalists did, what the audience saw and heard, and how things changed from creation through rehearsals to performance, this book brings new aspects of Euridice to light in startling ways.
Staging Ghana: Artistry And Nationalism In State Dance Ensembles (Ethnomusicology Multimedia)
by Paul SchauertThe Ghana Dance Ensemble takes Ghana's national culture and interprets it in performance using authentic dance forms adapted for local or foreign audiences. Often, says Paul Schauert, the aims of the ensemble and the aims of the individual performers work in opposition. Schauert discusses the history of the dance troupe and its role in Ghana's post-independence nation-building strategy and illustrates how the nation's culture makes its way onto the stage. He argues that as dancers negotiate the terrain of what is or is not authentic, they also find ways to express their personal aspirations, discovering, within the framework of nationalism or collective identity, that there is considerable room to reform national ideals through individual virtuosity.
Staging Rebellion in the Musical, Hair: Marginalised Voices in Musical Theatre (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Sarah Elisabeth BrowneThis volume provides a comprehensive survey of the musical Hair and will offer critical analysis which focuses on giving voice to those who are historically considered to be on the margins of musical theatre history. Sarah Browne interrogates key scenes from the musical which will seek to identify the relationship between performance and the cultural moment. Whilst it is widely acknowledged that Hair is a product of the sixties counter-culture, this study will place the analysis in its socio-historical context to specifically reveal American values towards race, gender, and adolescence. In arguing that Hair is a rebellion against the established normative values of both American society and the art form of the musical itself, this book will suggest ways in which Hair can be considered utopian: not only as a utopian ‘text’ but in the practices and values it embodies, and the emotions it generates in its audiences. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of music, musical theatre, popular music, American studies, film studies, gender studies, or African American studies.
Staging the Blues: From Tent Shows to Tourism
by Paige A. McginleySinging was just one element of blues performance in the early twentieth century. Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and other classic blues singers also tapped, joked, and flaunted extravagant costumes on tent show and black vaudeville stages. The press even described these women as "actresses" long before they achieved worldwide fame for their musical recordings. In Staging the Blues, Paige A. McGinley shows that even though folklorists, record producers, and festival promoters set the theatricality of early blues aside in favor of notions of authenticity, it remained creatively vibrant throughout the twentieth century. Highlighting performances by Rainey, Smith, Lead Belly, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee in small Mississippi towns, Harlem theaters, and the industrial British North, this pioneering study foregrounds virtuoso blues artists who used the conventions of the theater, including dance, comedy, and costume, to stage black mobility, to challenge narratives of racial authenticity, and to fight for racial and economic justice.
Staging Tradition: John Lair and Sarah Gertrude Knott (Music in American Life)
by Michael WilliamsBased on extensive archival research and oral history, Staging Tradition traces the parallel careers of the creators of the Renfro Valley Barn Dance and the National Folk Festival. Through their devotion to the staging of traditional culture, including folk, country, and bluegrass music, John Lair (1894-1985) and Sarah Gertrude Knott (1895-1984) became two of the mid-twentieth century's most notable producers. Lair and Knott's discovery of new developments in theater and entertainment during the 1920s led the pair to careers that kept each of them center stage. Inspired by programs such as WLS's Barn Dance and the success of early folk events, Lair promoted Kentucky musicians. Knott staged her own radically inclusive festival, which included Native and African American traditions and continues today as the National Folk Festival. Michael Ann Williams shows how Lair and Knott fed the public's fascination with the "art of the common man" and were in turn buffeted by cultural forces that developed around and beyond them.
Staging Voice (Routledge Voice Studies)
by Michal Grover-FriedlanderStaging Voice is a unique approach to the aesthetics of voice and its staging in performance. This study reflects on what it would mean to take opera’s decisive attribute—voice—as the foundation of its staged performance. The book thinks of staging through the medium of voice. It is a nuances exploration, which brings together scholarly and directorial interpretations, and engages in detail with less frequently performed works of major and influential 20th-century artists—Erik Satie, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill—as well as exposes readers to an innovative experimental work of Evelyn Ficarra and Valerie Whittington. The study is intertwined throughout with the author’s staging of the works accessible online. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in voice studies, opera, music theatre, musicology, directing, performance studies, practice-based research, theatre, visual art, stage design, and cultural studies.
Stairway To Heaven
by Richard ColeThe most powerful, popular and enduring rock band of all time, the excitement of Led Zeppelin's music was matched only by the fever pitch of their off-stage antics. In hotel rooms and stadiums, in a customized private Boeing 707 jet and country estates, tour manager Richard Cole saw it all - and here tells it all in this close-up, down-and-dirty, no-holds-barred account. This revised edition brings readers up to date on the lives and careers of the band members, whose wild excesses, bizarre lifestyles and ground-breaking music are now the stuff of legend.
Stairway To Heaven: Led Zeppelin Uncensored
by Richard Cole Richard TruboThis account of Led Zeppelin’s decadent life on the road by their longtime tour manager “dishes up the real dirt as only an insider’s report can” (Kirkus Reviews).No one knew Led Zeppelin like Richard Cole. The band’s tour manager for more than a decade, Cole was there when they burst onto the music scene, achieved cult status, cut platinum records, and transformed popular music. Second only to the Beatles in sales for years, Led Zeppelin was rock’s premier group. But unlike the boys from Liverpool, the excitement of this band’s music was matched by the fever pitch of their antics on and off the stage.In hotel rooms and stadiums, in a customized private Boeing 707 jet and country estates, Richard Cole saw it all—and tells it all in this close-up, down-and-dirty, no-holds-barred account that records the highs, the lows, and the occasional in-betweens. This revised edition includes updates on the band members’ lives and careers, which may be a little quieter now, but their songs remain the same.
Stalebread Charlie and the Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band
by Michael MahinBased on a true story, a vibrant, inspirational picture book about self-reliance and the power of creativity and music, in which a group of hungry homeless kids in 19th century New Orleans build their own musical instruments from discarded items and become a successful band. It's 1895, and ten-year-old Stalebread Charlie and his friend Warm Gravy roam the streets of New Orleans, homeless and hungry. Stalebread has heard folks say that music feeds the soul—and he wonders if it could also fill their bellies. Soon he and his friends are playing instruments made out of junk—a fiddle from a cigar box, a kazoo from a comb—until their hats are filled with coins, their bellies are filled with beignets, and their souls are filled with music. This inspiring make-lemonade-from-lemons tale includes author/illustrator notes about the real Stalebread and the research behind the book and a make-your-own-instrument activity.
Stambeli: Music, Trance, and Alterity in Tunisia (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology)
by Richard C. JankowskyIn Stambeli, Richard C. Jankowsky presents a vivid ethnographic account of the healing trance music created by the descendants of sub-Saharan slaves brought to Tunisia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Stambeli music calls upon an elaborate pantheon of sub-Saharan spirits and North African Muslim saints to heal humans through ritualized trance. Based on nearly two years of participation in the musical, ritual, and social worlds of stambeli musicians, Jankowsky’s study explores the way the music evokes the cross-cultural, migratory past of its originators and their encounters with the Arab-Islamic world in which they found themselves. Stambeli, Jankowsky avers, is thoroughly marked by a sense of otherness—the healing spirits, the founding musicians, and the instruments mostly come from outside Tunisia—which creates a unique space for profoundly meaningful interactions between sub-Saharan and North African people, beliefs, histories, and aesthetics. Part ethnography, part history of the complex relationship between Tunisia’s Arab and sub-Saharan populations, Stambeli will be welcomed by scholars and students of ethnomusicology, anthropology, African studies, and religion.
Stambeli: Music, Trance, and Alterity in Tunisia (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology)
by Richard C. JankowskyIn Stambeli, Richard C. Jankowsky presents a vivid ethnographic account of the healing trance music created by the descendants of sub-Saharan slaves brought to Tunisia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Stambeli music calls upon an elaborate pantheon of sub-Saharan spirits and North African Muslim saints to heal humans through ritualized trance. Based on nearly two years of participation in the musical, ritual, and social worlds of stambeli musicians, Jankowsky’s study explores the way the music evokes the cross-cultural, migratory past of its originators and their encounters with the Arab-Islamic world in which they found themselves. Stambeli, Jankowsky avers, is thoroughly marked by a sense of otherness—the healing spirits, the founding musicians, and the instruments mostly come from outside Tunisia—which creates a unique space for profoundly meaningful interactions between sub-Saharan and North African people, beliefs, histories, and aesthetics. Part ethnography, part history of the complex relationship between Tunisia’s Arab and sub-Saharan populations, Stambeli will be welcomed by scholars and students of ethnomusicology, anthropology, African studies, and religion.
Stambeli: Music, Trance, and Alterity in Tunisia (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology)
by Richard C. JankowskyIn Stambeli, Richard C. Jankowsky presents a vivid ethnographic account of the healing trance music created by the descendants of sub-Saharan slaves brought to Tunisia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Stambeli music calls upon an elaborate pantheon of sub-Saharan spirits and North African Muslim saints to heal humans through ritualized trance. Based on nearly two years of participation in the musical, ritual, and social worlds of stambeli musicians, Jankowsky’s study explores the way the music evokes the cross-cultural, migratory past of its originators and their encounters with the Arab-Islamic world in which they found themselves. Stambeli, Jankowsky avers, is thoroughly marked by a sense of otherness—the healing spirits, the founding musicians, and the instruments mostly come from outside Tunisia—which creates a unique space for profoundly meaningful interactions between sub-Saharan and North African people, beliefs, histories, and aesthetics. Part ethnography, part history of the complex relationship between Tunisia’s Arab and sub-Saharan populations, Stambeli will be welcomed by scholars and students of ethnomusicology, anthropology, African studies, and religion.
Stance: Ideas about Emotion, Style, and Meaning for the Study of Expressive Culture (Music Culture)
by Harris M. BergerWhy does music move us? How do the immediate situation and larger social contexts influence the meanings that people find in stories, rituals, or films? How do people engage with the images and sounds of a performance to make them come alive in sensuous, lived experience? Exploring these questions, Stance presents a major new theory of emotion, style, and meaning for the study of expressive culture. In clear language, the book reveals dimensions of lived experience that everyone is aware of but that scholars rarely account for.Though music is at the heart of the book, its arguments are illustrated with a wide range of clear examples--from the heavy metal concert to the recital hall, from festivals to dance, stand-up comedy, the movies, and beyond. Helping ethnographers get closer to the experiences of the people with whom they work, this book will be of immediate interest to anyone in ethnomusicology, folklore, popular music studies, anthropology, or performance studies.
Stand By Your Man: An Autobiography
by Tammy WynetteWynette, the queen of country western music, tells the inspiring life story of her ascent from rags to riches.
Stand Up Straight and Sing!: A Memoir
by Jessye NormanIn this uplifting memoir, the acclaimed singer reflects &“on life, the arts, and spirituality . . . Inspiring&” (Booklist). Jessye Norman is one of the world&’s most admired and beloved singers—and her life story is as moving and dramatic as the great operatic roles she has performed on stage. Born and raised in Augusta, Georgia, she studied the piano and sang the songs of her childhood, never dreaming that this passion for music might lead to her life&’s profession. Here she presents &“a rich portrait of a childhood firmly grounded by family, church and community,&” and recalls in rich detail the strong women who were her role models, from her ancestors to family friends, relatives, and teachers (The Wall Street Journal). She also discusses her relationship with the pioneering African American singer Marian Anderson—revealing the lifelong support she provided through her example of dignity and grace at all times. Norman also describes coming face-to-face with racism, both as a child living in the segregated South and as an adult out and about in the world. Filled with inspiration and wisdom, Stand Up Straight and Sing! is not just for lovers of music, but for everyone.
Stanier: Black Five Locomotives (Locomotive Portfolios)
by Keith LangstonIt is possible that in the history of British steam locomotives no class of engine was ever more universally popular than the Stanier 5MT 4-6-0 class, which were generally referred to as Black Fives. This informative book includes numerous images of the class at work, many of which are published for the first time.Introduced by the London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) in 1934 the building of the 842-strong class was shared between the locomotive works at Crewe, Horwich and Derby and also by the private builders Armstrong Whitworth Ltd. and Vulcan Foundry Ltd. With the exception of a pause in production during the war time years Black Five locomotives continued to be built until May 1951, when the last example was out-shopped from BR Horwich Works. Only four examples of the class were named, but a fifth locomotive was allocated a name which it reportedly never carried.They were often referred to as the finest mixed-traffic locomotives ever to run in Britain. William Arthur Stanier joined the LMS in 1932 having previously served the Great Western Railway (GWR) at Swindon Works, doubtless his LMS 2-cylinder tapered boiler Class 5 4-6-0 design reflected his Swindon experiences.This highly efficient and reliable general-purpose design (in several variants) could generally be seen at work over all of the former LMS network, from Thurso in the north of Scotland to Bournemouth (Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway) in the south of England. They became the ultimate go everywhere steam locomotives, working all manner of trains from slow goods to express passenger services.In 1967 just prior to the end of steam, British Railways remarkably listed 151 Stanier Black Fives as serviceable locomotives. A total of 18 Stanier Black Five locomotives survived into preservation, with the majority of those having been returned to steam.
Star: The Bird Who Inspired Mozart
by Mireille MessierA chance encounter with a starling inspires Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in this picture book based on a true story.Star: The Bird Who Inspired Mozart is based on the true story of how Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the world's most remarkable musicians, was inspired by one of the world's most unremarkable birds: a starling. In this charming picture book, author Mireille Messier tells the story of a very special relationship and how it began: with a chance musical encounter. And Matte Stephens's playful art captures both the grandeur of 18th century Vienna and the budding unlikely friendship between a famous musician and a humble starling.