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Wasn’t That a Mighty Day: African American Blues and Gospel Songs on Disaster (American Made Music Series)
by Luigi MongeWinner of the 2023 Award for Excellence for Best History in the category of Best Historical Research in Recorded Blues, R&B, Gospel, Hip Hop, or Soul Music from the Association for Recorded Sound CollectionsWasn’t That a Mighty Day: African American Blues and Gospel Songs on Disaster takes a comprehensive look at sacred and secular disaster songs, shining a spotlight on their historical and cultural importance. Featuring newly transcribed lyrics, the book offers sustained attention to how both Black and white communities responded to many of the tragic events that occurred before the mid-1950s. Through detailed textual analysis, Luigi Monge explores songs on natural disasters (hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes); accidental disasters (sinkings, fires, train wrecks, explosions, and air disasters); and infestations, epidemics, and diseases (the boll weevil, the jake leg, and influenza). Analyzed songs cover some of the most well-known disasters of the time period from the sinking of the Titanic and the 1930 Drought to the Hindenburg accident, and more. Thirty previously unreleased African American disaster songs appear in this volume for the first time, revealing their pertinence to the relevant disasters. By comparing the song lyrics to critical moments in history, Monge is able to explore how deeply and directly these catastrophes affected Black communities; how African Americans in general, and blues and gospel singers in particular, faced and reacted to disaster; whether these collective tragedies prompted different reactions among white people and, if so, why; and more broadly, how the role of memory in recounting and commenting on historical and cultural facts shaped African American society from 1879 to 1955.
Wasn't That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the Soul of America
by Jesse JarnowThe dramatic untold story of the Weavers, the hit-making folk-pop quartet destroyed with the aid of the United States government--and who changed the world, anyway Following a series of top-ten hits that became instant American standards, the Weavers dissolved at the height of their fame. Wasn't That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the Soul of America details the remarkable rise of Pete Seeger's unlikely band of folk heroes, from basement hootenannies to the top of the charts, and the harassment campaign that brought them down. Exploring how a pop group's harmonies might be heard as a threat worthy of decades of investigation by the FBI, Wasn't That a Time turns the black-and-white 1950s into vivid color, using the Weavers to illuminate a dark and complex period of American history. With origins in the radical folk collective the Almanac Singers and the ambitious People's Songs, the singing activists in the Weavers set out to change the world with songs as their weapons, pioneering the use of music as a transformative political organizing tool. Using previously unseen journals and letters, unreleased recordings, once-secret government documents, and other archival research, Jesse Jarnow uncovers the immense hopes, incredible pressures, and daily struggles of the four distinct and often unharmonious personalities at the heart of the Weavers.In an era defined by a sharp political divide that feels all too familiar, the Weavers became heroes. With a class- and race-conscious global vision that now makes them seem like time travelers from the twenty-first century, the Weavers became a direct influence on a generation of musicians and listeners, teaching the power of eclectic songs and joyous, participatory harmonies.
A Watch of Nightingales
by Liza WielandA modest, quiet woman, Mara Raynor never dreamed she'd one day find herself in charge of the small private school in Washington, D. C. , where for many years she taught music and choir. But after the unexpected death of her husband, the school's headmaster, Mara finds herself thrust into the public eye, burdened not just with the responsibilities of acting headmaster---a role she never wanted---but also with a potentially explosive political and religious controversy that tests parents' and school administrators' spirit of tolerance. When a Sikh student is caught wearing a ceremonial knife on school grounds, fear spreads among parents and the school board. Coming at the same moment as the disappearance of Mara's teenage daughter, the controversy quickly assumes a far more personal nature. Not just any student, the Sikh boy is both the son of a woman with whom Mara shares a complicated past and---as Mara soon discovers---her own daughter's boyfriend. As it moves back and forth in time between the school in contemporary Washington and a girls' boarding school in the British countryside in 1977, A Watch of Nightingales weaves a rich and textured exploration of fear and remorse, the mysteries of love, and the complicated tensions that ring down the generations from parent to child.
Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N' Roses
by Stephen DavisThe New York Times bestselling epic tale of the last great rock band From the bestselling author of Hammer of the Gods comes the complete story of Guns N? Roses ? from their drug-fueled blastoff in the 80s to the turbulent life of legendary singer Axl Rose, and his fifteen-year, multimillion dollar quest to make the perfect hard rock album. Riotous world tours. Drug-induced rampages. One hundred millions albums sold. In his sixth major rock biography, Stephen Davis details the riveting story of the last great rock band. Watch You Bleed documents the life of every band member, including the improbable story of W. Axl Rose. Davis brilliantly captures the Guns? raw power ? from the gutters of Sunset Strip to the biggest stadiums on the planet. Based on exclusive interviews, private archives, and packed with stunning revelations, Watch You Bleed is the savage, definitive, and highly unauthorized story of Guns N? Roses. For the first time, millions of fans will learn the whole truth about this legendary band.
Watch You Bleed
by Stephen DavisWith 90 million of the band's records sold worldwide since 1987, Guns N' Roses prolonged rock music past its sell by date with controversial albums and immense, often riotous world tours. But the band's complete story has never been fully told - until now. In his sixth major rock biography, Stephen Davis - author of the legendary Hammer of the Gods - details the riveting story of a band that originated in the gutters of Sunset Strip and went on to become the biggest, baddest band on the planet. Davis brilliantly captures the birth of Guns' raw power, which - despite rape charges, drug-induced rampages, and a general appetite for destruction - launched the band into the pantheon of rock gods such as Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. With a wealth of detail, Davis looks at Axl's unrelenting quest to release the long-awaited, mystery shrouded Chinese Democracy album, as well as the further adventures of some of the Gunners under the banner of the hard-rocking band Velvet Revolver. In Watch You Bleed, for the first time, millions of Guns N' Roses fans will learn the whole truth - sometime funny, sometimes tragic - about the last of the great rock bands.
Waterborne Pageants and Festivities in the Renaissance: Essays in Honour of J.R. Mulryne (European Festival Studies: 1450-1700)
by Margaret Shewring Linda BriggsAs the first book-length study of waterborne festivities in Renaissance and early modern Europe, this collection of essays draws on a rich array of sources, many previously un-researched, to explore aspects of scenography, choreography, music, fashion, painting, sculpture, architecture, stage-and personnel-management and urban planning as evinced in spectacles staged on water. Bodies of water in all their variety are explored here: seas, rivers, fountains, lakes and canals and flooded improvised locations within or adjacent to great buildings all provided stages for elaborate and costly performances, utilising the particular qualities of water to reflect light and distort sound. The volume encompasses festivals marking a wide range of occasions from the election of civic officials, the welcome of a monarch, an investiture or coronation, to ambassadorial visits or the arrival of a royal or ducal bride or bridegroom. Often taking the form of re-enactments of naval battles or legendary seaborne quests, these festivals seek to buttress civic and national pride, make claims to mastery over the sea and landscape, and explore the imaginative as well as practical life of performance space which has been a hallmark of the research and publication of this volume's honorand, J.R. (Ronnie) Mulryne.
Watford Forever: How Graham Taylor and Elton John Saved a Football Club, a Town and Each Other
by John Preston Elton JohnThe unforgettable story, decades before Ted Lasso, of the real-life Watford Football Team, transformed into a powerhouse by coach Graham Taylor and owner Elton John. Nothing has brought English soccer more immediately into the American mainstream than Ted Lasso, which captivated the nation in thirty-four episodes over three seasons. But before there was Jason Sudeikis’s lovable and, at first, hapless AFC Richmond, there was Watford Football Club, a team from the outskirts of London with barely enough fans to fill its stands—and which, in the mid-1970s, was languishing in 92nd place at the bottom of the last division of the English Football League. That is, until rock superstar Elton John—who, with his dad, had followed the team as a boy—bought the lowly franchise and, with legendary manager Graham Taylor, transformed the luckless football club into a top-seeded Premier League team. Inspiring, funny, and ultimately heartbreaking, Watford Forever recalls the improbably tender relationship between Elton John and Taylor, a straight-talking former fullback, who together beat the odds and their personal demons to save a club and a struggling community.
Wax Trash and Vinyl Treasures: Record Collecting As A Social Practice (Ashgate Popular And Folk Music Ser.)
by Roy ShukerThe term 'record collecting' is shorthand for a variety of related practices. Foremost is the collection of sound recordings in various formats - although often with a marked preference for vinyl - by individuals, and it is this dimension of record collecting that is the focus of this book. Record collecting, and the public stereotypes associated with it, is frequently linked primarily with rock and pop music. Roy Shuker focuses on these broad styles, but also includes other genres and their collectors, notably jazz, blues, exotica and 'ethnic' music. Accordingly, the study examines the history of record collecting; profiles collectors and the collecting process; considers categories - especially music genres - and types of record collecting and outlines and discusses the infrastructure within which collecting operates. Shuker situates this discussion within the broader literature on collecting, along with issues of cultural consumption, social identity and 'the construction of self' in contemporary society. Record collecting is both fascinating in its own right, and provides insights into broader issues of nostalgia, consumption and material culture.
Way Beyond Compare
by John C. WinnAn answered prayer for Beatles fans and collectors, the first volume of a unique work that exhaustively chronicles all known and available Beatles recordings!Have you ever watched a Beatles film clip and wondered:* Where was that filmed?* Is any more of that footage available?Have you ever heard a Beatles interview and asked:* When was that taped?* Where's the best place to find the complete recording?Way Beyond Compare has the answers to these and thousands of similar questions. It's the key to unlocking the secrets behind every known Beatles recording in circulation through 1965, telling you where to find them, what makes them unique, and how they fit within the context of the Beatles' amazing musical and cultural journey.Author John C. Winn has spent twenty years (twice as long as the Beatles were together!) sifting through, scrutinizing, organizing, and analyzing hundreds of hours of audio and video recordings--and putting them into a digestible chronological framework for Way Beyond Compare and its companion volume, That Magic Feeling: The Beatles' Recorded Legacy, Volume Two, 1966-1970."It takes a rare and special kind of mind to sift through it all, to research and enquire, catalogue and chronicle, assess and contrast, identify and label, and to fit all the myriad pieces into the vast jigsaw puzzle that is the Beatles' career. John C. Winn is that person, and he's done it with a rare skill and intelligence." --Mark LewisohnFrom the Trade Paperback edition.
The Way I Was
by Marvin Hamlisch Gerald GardnerMarvin Hamlisch got his start as a rehearsal pianist for Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand, and went on to co-create A Chorus Line, write the Oscar-winning musical score for The Way We Were, and win many other awards for the music he wrote for the stage and screen. Hamlisch is one of only a handful of people to win a Grammy, a Tony, an Oscar, and an Emmy. In this revealing autobiography, written in partnership with noted freelance writer Gerald C. Gardner, Hamlisch tells the story of his childhood, his marriage, and his friendships with stars including Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, and Groucho Marx. The autobiography paints a nostalgic and intimate picture of Broadway and Hollywood. After his death in 2012, Barbra Streisand made a tribute to him in her appearance on the 2013 Oscar broadcast. This book includes moving words from Hamlisch's many celebrity friends during the memorial service held shortly after his death. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Marvin Hamlisch (1944-2012) was an award-winning American composer and conductor. Born in Manhattan to Viennese Jewish parents, Hamlisch was a child prodigy, and was admitted into the Juilliard School at the age of seven. He wrote his first Billboard Hot 100 song at the age of 21. Hamlisch wrote music for several early Woody Allen films, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Way We Were, and the original theme music for Good Morning America--among many other compositions. He also served as Principal Pops Conductor for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the San Diego Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, and several others. He is one of only a handful of people in the world to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. He also won two Golden Globes and a Pulitzer Prize. Hamlisch was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Soundtrack Awards in 2009. Gerald C. Gardner is an author, scriptwriter, producer, and screenwriter. He is the author of 22 episodes of The Monkees and 11 episodes of Get Smart, several of which were nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards. He was also a senior writer for the series of live news satire broadcasts That Was the Week That Was. He is also the author of over 30 books.
The Way I Was
by Marvin Hamlisch Gerald GardnerThe EGOT-winning composer of The Way We Were and A Chorus Line recounts his remarkable life from childhood to Broadway and Hollywood. The son of Jewish Viennese immigrants, six-year-old Marvin Hamlisch&’s early musical talent and discipline led him to Julliard, where he studied for more than a decade. From there, Hamlisch got his start as a rehearsal pianist for Funny Girl starring Barbra Streisand. He went on to co-create the classic American musical A Chorus Line and wrote the Oscar Award–winning musical score for The Way We Were. Hamlisch is one of only a handful of people to achieve EGOT status—winning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. In this autobiography, Hamlisch tells the tale of his life and career, revealing personal stories of his childhood, his marriage, and his friendships with stars including Liza Minnelli, Groucho Marx, and others. It offers an intimate view of his life and a compelling portrait of Broadway and Hollywood through the second half of the twentieth century.
The Way It Was: My Life with Frank Sinatra
by Eliot Weisman Jennifer ValoppiA candid and eye-opening inside look at the final decades of Sinatra's life told by his longtime manager and friend, Eliot Weisman.By the time Weisman met Sinatra in 1976, he was already the Voice, a man who held sway over popular music and pop culture for forty years, who had risen to the greatest heights of fame and plumbed the depths of failure, all the while surviving with the trademark swagger that women pined for and men wanted to emulate. Passionate and generous on his best days, sullen and unpredictable on his worst, Sinatra invited Weisman into his inner circle, an honor that the budding celebrity manager never took for granted. Even when he was caught up in a legal net designed to snare Sinatra, Weisman went to prison rather than being coerced into telling prosecutors what they wanted to hear. With Weisman's help, Sinatra orchestrated in his final decades some of the most memorable moments of his career. There was the Duets album, which was Sinatra's top seller, the massive tours, such as Together Again, which featured a short-lived reunion of the Rat Pack--until Dean Martin, having little interest in reliving the glory days, couldn't handle it anymore--and the Ultimate Event Tour, which brought Liza Minelli and Sammy Davis Jr. on board and refreshed the much-needed lining of both their pocketbooks. Weisman also worked with many other acts, including Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, and an ungrateful Don Rickles, whom Weisman helped get out from under the mob's thumb. Over their years together, Weisman became a confidant to the man who trusted few, and he came to know Sinatra's world intimately: his wife, Barbara, who socialized with princesses and presidents and tried to close Sinatra off from his rough and tough friends such as Jilly Rizzo; Nancy Jr., who was closest to her dad; Tina, who aggressively battled for her and her siblings' rights to the Sinatra legacy and was most like her father; and Frank Jr., the child with the most fraught relationship with the legendary entertainer. Ultimately Weisman, who had become the executor of Sinatra's estate, was left alone to navigate the infighting and hatred between those born to the name and the wife who acquired it, when a mystery woman showed up and threatened to throw the family's future into jeopardy. Laden with surprising, moving, and revealing stories, The Way It Was also shows a side of Sinatra few knew. As a lion in winter, he was struggling with the challenges that come with old age, as well as memory loss, depression, and antidepressents. Weisman was by his side through it all, witness to a man who had towering confidence, staggering fearlessness, and a rarely seen vulnerability that became more apparent as his final days approached.
The Way of the Wesleys: A Short Introduction
by John R. TysonEngaging, accessible survey of major Wesleyan theological themes The Wesley brothers -- John (1703–1791) and Charles (1707–1788) -- are famous as the cofounders of the Wesleyan tradition and the Methodist family of churches. Their impact and legacy have been huge: what began as the excited outpouring of their conversion experiences grew into a transatlantic revival and became a vibrant and significant theological tradition. But what exactly did they believe and teach? In this book John Tyson, an acknowledged authority on Methodist studies, offers a helpful introduction to the main teachings and practices of both John and Charles Wesley. The first book to show how Charles, the younger and lesser-known brother, contributed in particular to Wesleyan theology, The Way of the Wesleys takes readers through main theological points thematically. Tyson also includes suggestions for further reading and questions for reflection at the end of each chapter. Lavishly documented from the Wesleys’ own writings, this engaging, accessible book shows why the Wesleys remain relevant to the faith journey of Christians today.
The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin'
by Bill ZehmeIn The Way You Wear Your Hat, author Bill Zehme presents a masterful assembly of the most personal details and gorgeous minutiae of Frank Sinatra's way of livingmatters of the heart and heartbreak, friendship and leadership, drinking and cavorting, brawling and wooing, tuxedos and snap-brimsall crafted from rare interviews with Sinatra himself as well as many other intimates, including Tony Bennett, Don Rickles, Angie Dickinson, Tony Curtis, and Robert Wagner, in addition to daughters Nancy and Tina Sinatra. Capturing the timeless romance and classic style of the fifties and the loose sixties, The Way You Wear Your Hat is a stunning exploration of the Sinatra mystique.
Wayfaring Stranger: A Musical Journey in the American South
by Emma JohnCan you feel nostalgic for a life you've never known?Suffused with her much-loved warmth and wit, Emma John's memoir follows her moving and memorable journey to master one of the hardest musical styles on earth - and to find her place in an alien world.Emma had fallen out of love with her violin when a chance trip to the American South introduced her to bluegrass music. Classically trained, highly strung and wedded to London life, Emma was about as country as a gin martini. So why did it feel like a homecoming?Answering that question takes Emma deep into the Appalachian mountains, where she uncovers a hidden culture that confounds every expectation - and learns some emotional truths of her own.
Wayfaring Stranger: A Musical Journey in the American South
by Emma JohnCan you feel nostalgic for a life you've never known?Suffused with her much-loved warmth and wit, Emma John's memoir follows her moving and memorable journey to master one of the hardest musical styles on earth - and to find her place in an alien world.Emma had fallen out of love with her violin when a chance trip to the American South introduced her to bluegrass music. Classically trained, highly strung and wedded to London life, Emma was about as country as a gin martini. So why did it feel like a homecoming?Answering that question takes Emma deep into the Appalachian mountains, where she uncovers a hidden culture that confounds every expectation - and learns some emotional truths of her own.
Wayfaring Stranger: A Musical Journey in the American South
by Emma JohnCan you feel nostalgic for a life you've never known?Suffused with her much-loved warmth and wit, Emma John's memoir follows her moving and memorable journey to master one of the hardest musical styles on earth - and to find her place in an alien world.Emma had fallen out of love with her violin when a chance trip to the American South introduced her to bluegrass music. Classically trained, highly strung and wedded to London life, Emma was about as country as a gin martini. So why did it feel like a homecoming?Answering that question takes Emma deep into the Appalachian mountains, where she uncovers a hidden culture that confounds every expectation - and learns some emotional truths of her own.
A Wayfaring Stranger: Ernst von Dohnányi's American Years, 1949-1960 (California Studies in 20th-Century Music #25)
by Veronika KuszOn March 10, 1948, world-renowned composer and pianist Ernst von Dohnányi (1877−1960) embarked for the United States, leaving Europe for good. Only a few years earlier, the seventy-year-old Hungarian had been a triumphant, internationally admired musician and leading figure in Hungarian musical life. Fleeing a political smear campaign that sought to implicate him in intellectual collaboration with fascism, he reached American shores without a job or a home. A Wayfaring Stranger presents the final period in Dohnányi’s exceptional career and uses a range of previously unavailable material to reexamine commonly held beliefs about the musician and his unique oeuvre. Offering insights into his life as a teacher, pianist, and composer, the book also considers the difficulties of émigré life, the political charges made against him, and the compositional and aesthetic dilemmas faced by a conservative artist. To this rich biographical account, Veronika Kusz adds an in-depth examination of Dohnányi’s late works—in most cases the first analyses to appear in musicological literature. This corrective history provides never-before-seen photographs of the musician’s life in the United States and skillfully illustrates Dohnányi’s impact on European and American music and the culture of the time.
Wayfaring Strangers: The Musical Voyage from Scotland and Ulster to Appalachia
by Fiona Ritchie Doug OrrFrom the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, a steady stream of Scots migrated to Ulster and eventually onward across the Atlantic to resettle in the United States. Many of these Scots-Irish immigrants made their way into the mountains of the southern Appalachian region. They brought with them a wealth of traditional ballads and tunes from the British Isles and Ireland, a carrying stream that merged with sounds and songs of English, German, Welsh, African American, French, and Cherokee origin. Their enduring legacy of music flows today from Appalachia back to Ireland and Scotland and around the globe. Ritchie and Orr guide readers on a musical voyage across oceans, linking people and songs through centuries of adaptation and change.Enriched by the insights of key contributors to the living tradition on both sides of the Atlantic, accompanying this abundantly illustrated volume is an online Spotify playlist featuring over 20 songs by musicians profiled in the book, including Dolly Parton, Dougie MacLean, Cara Dillon, John Doyle, Pete Seeger, Sheila Kay Adams, Jean Ritchie, Doc Watson, David Holt, Anais Mitchell, Al Petteway, and more.
Ways of Hearing: Reflections on Music in 26 Pieces
by Scott Burnham, Marna Seltzer & Dorothea von MoltkeAn outstanding anthology in which notable musicians, artists, scientists, thinkers, poets, and more—from Gustavo Dudamel and Carrie Mae Weems to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Paul Muldoon—explore the influence of music on their lives and workContributors include: Laurie Anderson ● Jamie Barton ● Daphne A. Brooks ● Edgar Choueiri ● Jeff Dolven ● Gustavo Dudamel ● Edward Dusinberre ● Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim ● Frank Gehry ● James Ginsburg ● Ruth Bader Ginsburg ● Jane Hirshfield ● Pico Iyer ● Alexander Kluge ● Nathaniel Mackey ● Maureen N. McLane ● Alicia Hall Moran ● Jason Moran ● Paul Muldoon ● Elaine Pagels ● Robert Pinsky ● Richard Powers ● Brian Seibert ● Arnold Steinhardt ● Susan Stewart ● Abigail Washburn ● Carrie Mae Weems ● Susan Wheeler ● C. K. Williams ● Wu FeiWhat happens when extraordinary creative spirits—musicians, poets, critics, and scholars, as well as an architect, a visual artist, a filmmaker, a scientist, and a legendary Supreme Court justice—are asked to reflect on their favorite music? The result is Ways of Hearing, a diverse collection that explores the ways music shapes us and our shared culture. These acts of musical witness bear fruit through personal essays, conversations and interviews, improvisatory meditations, poetry, and visual art. They sound the depths of a remarkable range of musical genres, including opera, jazz, bluegrass, and concert music both classical and contemporary.This expansive volume spans styles and subjects, including Pico Iyer’s meditations on Handel, Arnold Steinhardt’s thoughts on Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, and Laurie Anderson and Edgar Choueiri’s manifesto for spatial music. Richard Powers discusses the one thing about music he’s never told anyone, Daphne Brooks draws sonic connections between Toni Morrison and Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg reveals what she thinks is the sexiest duet in opera. Poems interspersed throughout further expand how we can imagine and respond to music. Ways of Hearing is a book for our times that celebrates the infinite ways music enhances our lives.
Ways of the Hand: The Organization of Improvised Conduct
by David SudnowThis is David Sudnow's classic account of how his hands learned to improvise jazz on the piano. David Sudnow is the author of Passing On and editor of Studies in Social Interaction. Since writing this book, he has developed a piano training method based on its insights.
Ways of Voice: Vocal Striving and Moral Contestation in North India and Beyond (Music / Culture)
by Matthew RahaimVocal Striving and Moral Contestation in North India and Beyond
Wayward: Just Another Life to Live
by Vashti Bunyan'Magical and transporting . . . Wayward proves that Bunyan has lived the best possible life, on her own idiosyncratic terms'Maggie O'Farrell'A gorgeous account of outsiderness and survival: a map of how to live outside the boundaries and of striving for an authentic artistic life. A quietly defiant and moving work' Sinéad Gleeson'An epic in miniature . . . I loved - and lived - every sentence' Benjamin MyersIn 1968, Vashti Bunyan gave up everything and everybody she knew in London to take to the road with a horse, wagon, dog, guitar and her then partner. They made the long journey up to the Outer Hebrides in an odyssey of discovery and heartbreak, full of the joy of freedom and the trudge of everyday reality, sleeping in the woods, fighting freezing winters and homelessness. Along the way, Vashti wrote the songs that would lead to the recording of her 1970's album Just Another Diamond Day, the lilting lyrics and guitar conveying innocent wonder at the world around her, whilst disguising a deeper turmoil under the surface. From an unconventional childhood in post-war London, to a fledgling career in mid-sixties pop - recording a single written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards - to the despair and failure to make any headway with her own songs, she rejected the music world altogether and left it all behind. After retreating to a musical wilderness for thirty years, the rediscovery of her recordings in 2000 brought Vashti a second chance to write, record and perform once more. One of the great hippie myths of the 1960s, Wayward, Just Another Life to Live, rewrites the narrative of a barefoot girl on the road to describe a life lived at full tilt from the first, revealing what it means to change course and her emotional struggle, learning to take back control of her own life.
Wayward: Just Another Life to Live
by Vashti Bunyan'Magical and transporting . . . Wayward proves that Bunyan has lived the best possible life, on her own idiosyncratic terms'Maggie O'Farrell'A gorgeous account of outsiderness and survival: a map of how to live outside the boundaries and of striving for an authentic artistic life. A quietly defiant and moving work' Sinéad Gleeson'An epic in miniature . . . I loved - and lived - every sentence' Benjamin MyersIn 1968, Vashti Bunyan gave up everything and everybody she knew in London to take to the road with a horse, wagon, dog, guitar and her then partner. They made the long journey up to the Outer Hebrides in an odyssey of discovery and heartbreak, full of the joy of freedom and the trudge of everyday reality, sleeping in the woods, fighting freezing winters and homelessness. Along the way, Vashti wrote the songs that would lead to the recording of her 1970's album Just Another Diamond Day, the lilting lyrics and guitar conveying innocent wonder at the world around her, whilst disguising a deeper turmoil under the surface. From an unconventional childhood in post-war London, to a fledgling career in mid-sixties pop - recording a single written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards - to the despair and failure to make any headway with her own songs, she rejected the music world altogether and left it all behind. After retreating to a musical wilderness for thirty years, the rediscovery of her recordings in 2000 brought Vashti a second chance to write, record and perform once more. One of the great hippie myths of the 1960s, Wayward, Just Another Life to Live, rewrites the narrative of a barefoot girl on the road to describe a life lived at full tilt from the first, revealing what it means to change course and her emotional struggle, learning to take back control of her own life.
We All Shine On: John, Yoko, and Me
by Elliot MintzA personal and revealing look at the last ten years of John Lennon&’s life and his partnership with Yoko Ono, written by the friend who knew them best In 1972, Elliot Mintz installed a red light in his bedroom in Laurel Canyon. When it started flashing, it meant that either John Lennon or Yoko Ono—or sometimes both—were calling him. Which they did almost every day for nearly ten years, engaging Mintz in hours-long late-night phone conversations that all but consumed him for the better part of a decade. In We All Shine On, Mintz—a former radio and television host in Los Angeles—recounts the story of how their unlikely friendship began and where it led him over the years, revealing the ups and downs of a wild, touching, heartbreaking, and sometimes shocking relationship. Mintz takes readers inside John and Yoko&’s inner sanctums, including their expansive seventh-floor apartment in New York&’s fabled Dakota building, where Mintz was something of a semipermanent fixture, ultimately becoming the Lennons' closest and most trusted confidant. Mintz was with John and Yoko through creative highs, relationship and private challenges, fascinating interactions with the other former Beatles, and the happiest moment of their lives together, the birth of their son, Sean. He was also by Yoko&’s side during the aftermath of John&’s assassination on the doorstep of the Dakota—not merely a witness to it all, but a key figure in the drama of John and Yoko&’s extraordinary lives. We All Shine On is a must-read for Beatles and Lennon fans, offering an up close and intimate view of one of the most celebrated artists of the twentieth century, as well as one of the most fascinating marriages. But it&’s also a relationship story that just about everyone can relate to, a tale about partnership, loyalty, and trust, and most of all, the lasting legacy of a true and deep friendship.