- Table View
- List View
Losers: Historias de famosos perdedores del rock
by Maximiliano PoterMaxi Poter (re)descubre a esos músicos a los que el destino les jugó una broma pesada que los dejó en el backstage de la gloria. Los artistas que -por azar, tragedias, desencuentros, traiciones, pifies, pelotas en el palo, confusiones y tropiezos cósmicos- se quedaron viendo la consagración desde afuera. Alguna vez The Police fue un desastroso cuarteto. Los Rolling Stones eran seis, pero a uno lo echaron por "feo". En varios países, los Beatles fueron John, Paul, George y un tal "Jimmie". Kiss tuvo un guitarrista con artrosis y Led Zeppelin casi elige al cantante más desafortunado del mundo. La biografía de los más grandes íconos del rock está llena de ilustres desconocidos que, por diversas razones, se quedaron al borde de la fama y hoy son ocultas notas al pie de mitos y leyendas. Maximiliano Poter (re)descubre y (re)valoriza a los otros "Pete Best" de la historia: esos músicos que aun teniendo todo lo que hace falta (talento, carisma, atractivo, dedicación, oportunismo, contactos y hasta la imprescindible "suerte") se quedaron en el backstage de la gloria. Losers reúne las maravillosas y agridulces vidas de esos desdichados que son parte fundamental de la crónica universal del rock pero que -por azar, tragedias, peleas, traiciones, pifies, confusiones, macanas, pelotas en el palo y hasta injusticias cósmicas- no recibieron su merecida consagración. Estos son los más exitosos "casi famosos".
The Losers at the Center of the Galaxy
by Mary Winn HeiderA tuba player without a tuba and his jellyfish-imitating sister cope with their father's disappearance in this hilarious and moving novel by the author of The Mortification of Fovea Munson. When Lenny Volpe, former quarterback of the worst professional football team in the nation, leaves his family and disappears, the Chicago Horribles win their first game in a long time. Fans are thrilled. The world seems to go back to normal. Except for the Volpe kids.Winston throws himself into playing the tuba, and Louise starts secret experiments to find a cure for brain injuries, and they're each fine, just fine, coping in their own way. That is, until the investigation of some eccentric teacher behavior and the discovery of a real live bear paraded as the Horribles' new mascot make it clear that things are very much Not Fine. The siblings may just need each other, after all.
Losing Music: A Memoir
by John Cotter“In his moving memoir, John Cotter anticipates a world without sound . . . a compelling portrait of how deafness isolates people.” —The Washington PostJohn Cotter was thirty years old when he first began to notice a ringing in his ears. Soon the ringing became a roar inside his head. Next came partial deafness, then dizziness and vertigo that rendered him unable to walk, work, sleep, or even communicate. At a stage of life when he expected to be emerging fully into adulthood, teaching and writing books, he found himself “crippled and dependent,” and in search of care.When he is first told that his debilitating condition is likely Ménière’s Disease, but that there is “no reliable test, no reliable treatment, and no consensus on its cause,” Cotter quits teaching, stops writing, and commences upon a series of visits to doctors and treatment centers. What begins as an expedition across the country navigating and battling the limits of the American healthcare system, quickly becomes something else entirely: a journey through hopelessness and adaptation to disability. Along the way, hearing aids become inseparable from his sense of self, as does a growing understanding that the possibilities in his life are narrowing rather than expanding. And with this understanding of his own travails comes reflection on age-old questions around fate, coincidence, and making meaning of inexplicable misfortune.A devastating memoir that sheds urgent, bracingly honest light on both the taboos surrounding disability and the limits of medical science, Losing Music is refreshingly vulnerable and singularly illuminating—a story that will make readers see their own lives anew.
Losing My Virginity: How I've Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way
by Richard Branson"Oh, screw it, let's do it." That's the philosophy that has allowed Richard Branson, in slightly more than twenty-five years, to spawn so many successful ventures. From the airline business (Virgin Atlantic Airways), to music (Virgin Records and V2), to cola (Virgin Cola), to retail (Virgin Megastores), and nearly a hundred others, ranging from financial services to bridal wear, Branson has a track record second to none. Losing My Virginity is the unusual, frequently outrageous autobiography of one of the great business geniuses of our time. When Richard Branson started his first business, he and his friends decided that "since we're complete virgins at business, let's call it just that: Virgin." Since then, Branson has written his own "rules" for success, creating a group of companies with a global presence, but no central headquarters, no management hierarchy, and minimal bureaucracy. Many of Richard Branson's companies--airlines, retailing, and cola are good examples--were started in the face of entrenched competition. The experts said, "Don't do it." But Branson found golden opportunities in markets in which customers have been ripped off or underserved, where confusion reigns, and the competition is complacent. And in this stressed-out, overworked age, Richard Branson gives us a new model: a dynamic, hardworking, successful entrepreneur who lives life to the fullest. Family, friends, fun, and adventure are equally important as business in Branson's life. Losing My Virginity is a portrait of a productive, sane, balanced life, filled with rich and colorful stories: Crash-landing his hot-air balloon in the Algerian desert, yet remaining determined to have another go at being the first to circle the globe Signing the Sex Pistols, Janet Jackson, the Rolling Stones, Boy George, and Phil Collins Fighting back when British Airways took on Virgin Atlantic and successfully suing this pillar of the British business establishment Swimming two miles to safety during a violent storm off the coast of Mexico Selling Virgin Records to save Virgin Atlantic Staging a rescue flight into Baghdad before the start of the Gulf War ... And much more. Losing My Virginity is the ultimate tale of personal and business survival from a man who combines the business prowess of Bill Gates and the promotional instincts of P. T. Barnum.
Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942
by John W. Work III Lewis Wade Jones Samuel C. Adams Jr.Blues Hall of Fame Inductee—Named a "Classic of Blues Literature" by the Blues Foundation, 2019 This remarkable book recovers three invaluable perspectives, long thought to have been lost, on the culture and music of the Mississippi Delta. In 1941 and '42 African American scholars from Fisk University—among them the noted composer and musicologist John W. Work, sociologist Lewis Wade Jones, and graduate student Samuel C. Adams Jr.—joined folklorist Alan Lomax of the Library of Congress on research trips to Coahoma County, Mississippi. Their mission was to explore the musical habits and history of the black community there and "to document adequately the cultural and social backgrounds for music in the community." Among the fruits of the project were the earliest recordings by the legendary blues singer and guitarist Muddy Waters. The hallmark of the study was to have been a joint publication of its findings by Fisk and the Library of Congress. However, the field notes and manuscripts by the Fisk researchers became lost in Washington. Lomax's own book drawing on the project's findings, The Land Where the Blues Began, did not appear until 1993, and although it won a National Book Critics Circle Award, it was flawed by a number of historical inaccuracies. Recently uncovered by author and filmmaker Robert Gordon, the writings, interviews, notes, and musical transcriptions produced by Work, Jones, and Adams in the Coahoma County study now appear in print for the first time. Their work captures, with compelling immediacy, a place, a people, a way of life, and a set of rich musical traditions as they existed sixty years ago. Until the surfacing of these documents, Lomax's perspective was all that was known of the Coahoma County project and its research. Now, at last, the voices of the other contributors can be heard. Including essays by Bruce Nemerov and Gordon on the careers and contributions of Work, Jones, and Adams, Lost Delta Found will become an indispensable historical resource, as marvelously readable as it is enlightening. Illustrated with photos and more than 160 musical transcriptions.
Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942
by John W Work III Lewis Wade Jones Samuel C Adams JrBlues Hall of Fame Inductee—Named a "Classic of Blues Literature" by the Blues Foundation, 2019 This remarkable book recovers three invaluable perspectives, long thought to have been lost, on the culture and music of the Mississippi Delta. In 1941 and &’42 African American schol-ars from Fisk University—among them the noted composer and musicologist John W. Work III, sociologist Lewis Wade Jones, and graduate student Samuel C. Adams Jr.—joined folklorist Alan Lomax of the Library of Congress on research trips to Coahoma County, Mississippi. Their mission was &“to document adequately the cultural and social backgrounds for music in the community.&” Among the fruits of the project were the earliest recordings by the legendary blues singer and guitarist Muddy Waters. The hallmark of the study was to have been a joint publication of its findings by Fisk and the Library of Congress. While this publication was never completed, Lost Delta Found is composed of the writings, interviews, notes, and musical transcriptions produced by Work, Jones, and Adams in the Coahoma County study. Their work captures, with compelling immediacy, a place, a people, a way of life, and a set of rich musical traditions as they existed in the 1940s. Illustrated with photos and more than 160 musical transcriptions.
Lost Genius: The Curious and Tragic Story of an Extraordinary Musical Prodigy
by Kevin BazzanaBorn in 1903, pianist Ervin Nyiregyházi was the subject of the first book devoted to the scientific study of a single prodigy. By twenty-five he had all but disappeared. Mismanaged, exploited, and unfashionably romantic, his career floundered in adulthood. He drank heavily, married ten times, and was reduced to penury, sometimes living on the subway. He settled in Los Angeles where he performed sporadically, counting many of Holly-wood's elite among his friends, including Gloria Swanson, a likely lover. Rediscovered in the 1970s, he enjoyed a sensational and controversial renaissance, before slipping back into obscurity.
Lost Highway: Journeys and Arrivals of American Musicians
by Peter GuralnickThis masterful exploration of American roots music--country, rockabilly, and the blues--spotlights the artists who created a distinctly American sound, including Ernest Tubb, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Elvis Presley, Merle Haggard, and Sleepy LaBeef. In incisive portraits based on searching interviews with these legendary performers, Peter Guralnick captures the boundless passion that drove these men to music-making and that kept them determinedly, and sometimes almost desperately, on the road.
Lost in Music: Culture, Style and the Musical Event (Routledge Library Editions: Popular Music #5)
by Avron Levine WhiteThis collection of essays, first published in 1987, provides a sociological treatment of many musical forms – rock, jazz, classical – with special emphasis on the perspective of the practising musician. Among the topics covered are the legal structures governing musical production and the question of copyright; recording and production technology; the social character of musical style; and the impact of lyrical content, considered socially and historically.
Lost in the Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed
by Kim Cooper David Smay Tom NeelyDo you remember these great pop stars and their hits? Deerhoof's The Man, The King, The Girl Butch Hancock's West Texas Waltzes and Dust Blown Tractor Tunes, Swamp Dogg's Cuffed, Collared and Tagged, Michael Head's The Magical World Of The Strands, John Trubee's The Communists Are Coming to Kill Us, John Phillips's Wolf King of L.A., and Michel Magne's Moshe Mouse Crucifiction? You will when you read Lost in the Grooves, a fascinating guide to the back alleys off the pop music superhighway.Pop music history is full of little-known musicians, whose work stands defiantly alone, too quirky, distinctive, or demented to appeal to a mass audience. This book explores the nooks and crannies of the pop music world, unearthing lost gems from should-have-been major artists (Sugarpie DeSanto, Judee Sill), revisiting lesser known works by established icons (Marvin Gaye's post-divorce kissoff album, Here My Dear; The Ramones' Subterranean Jungle), and spotlighting musicians who simply don't fit into neat categories (k. mccarty, Exuma). The book's encyclopedic alphabetical structure throws off strange sparks as disparate genres and eras rub against each other: folk-psych iconoclasts face louche pop crooners; outsider artists set their odd masterpieces down next to obscurities from the stars; lo-fi garage rock cuddles up with the French avant-garde; and roots rock weirdoes trip over bubblegum. This book will delight any jukebox junkie or pop culture fan.
The Lost Music of the Holocaust: Bringing the music of the camps to the ears of the world at last
by Francesco LotoroScores sewn into coat linings, instruments hidden in suitcases, sheet music stashed among dirty laundry, concertos written on discarded food wrappers - these are just some of the ingenious ways prisoners in civilian, political and military captivity from 1933 to 1953 protected their music in the darkest of times.Italian pianist and composer Francesco Lotoro has been on a lifelong quest to find this remarkable music. He has painstakingly salvaged and performed symphonies, operas and songs written by the incarcerated musicians, many of whom died in the camps. He has travelled the globe to meet with families and survivors whose harrowing testimonies bear witness to the most devastating experiences in twentieth-century history.Movingly piecing together the human stories of those who wrote and performed whilst imprisoned, this compelling book takes readers on a journey into their extraordinary lives and music, shining a light on a unique beauty that somehow prevailed against all odds.
The Lost Music of the Holocaust: Bringing the music of the camps to the ears of the world at last
by Francesco LotoroA great pianist and composer, Francesco Lotoro has been involved for over thirty years in an epochal undertaking: building an archive of the music that survived the concentration camps.Scores sewn into coat linings, instruments hidden in suitcases, sheet music stashed among dirty laundry, concertos written on discarded food wrappers - these are just some of the ingenious ways prisoners in civilian, political and military captivity from 1933 to 1953 protected their music in the darkest of times.Italian pianist and composer Francesco Lotoro has been on a lifelong quest to find this remarkable music. He has painstakingly salvaged and performed symphonies, operas and songs written by the incarcerated musicians, many of whom died in the camps. He has travelled the globe to meet with families and survivors whose harrowing testimonies bear witness to the most devastating experiences in twentieth-century history.Movingly piecing together the human stories of those who wrote and performed whilst imprisoned, this compelling book takes readers on a journey into their extraordinary lives and music, shining a light on a unique beauty that somehow prevailed against all odds.
Lost Nashville (Lost)
by Elizabeth K. GoetschNashville is chock-full of music landmarks, but there are quite a few historic structures that have been lost to time. The elegant Maxwell House Hotel served a breakfast blend that grew into the nationally known coffee brand. Public transportation first arrived in Nashville by way of horse-pulled streetcars in the 1860s. Fort Negley was the largest stone fort built during the Civil War. The Nashville Female Academy once served as the largest school for young ladies in the United States during the nineteenth century. Author Elizabeth Goetsch digs into the archives for some of the Music City's lost structures.
The Lost Paradise: Andalusi Music in Urban North Africa
by Jonathan GlasserFor more than a century, urban North Africans have sought to protect and revive Andalusi music, a prestigious Arabic-language performance tradition said to originate in the "lost paradise" of medieval Islamic Spain. Yet despite the Andalusi repertoire's enshrinement as the national classical music of postcolonial North Africa, its devotees continue to describe it as being in danger of disappearance. In The Lost Paradise, Jonathan Glasser explores the close connection between the paradox of patrimony and the questions of embodiment, genealogy, secrecy, and social class that have long been central to Andalusi musical practice. Through a historical and ethnographic account of the Andalusi music of Algiers, Tlemcen, and their Algerian and Moroccan borderlands since the end of the nineteenth century, Glasser shows how anxiety about Andalusi music's disappearance has emerged from within the practice itself and come to be central to its ethos. The result is a sophisticated examination of musical survival and transformation that is also a meditation on temporality, labor, colonialism and nationalism, and the relationship of the living to the dead.
The Lost Pianos of Siberia: A Far-flung Search For Russia's Remarkable Survivors
by Sophy RobertsThis “melodious” mix of music, history, and travelogue “reveals a story inextricably linked to the drama of Russia itself . . . These pages sing like a symphony.” —The Wall Street JournalSiberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies, and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell. Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos—grand instruments created during the boom years of the nineteenth century, as well as humble Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the westernizing influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood.How these pianos traveled into this snowbound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers, and exiles. Siberian pianos have accomplished extraordinary feats, from the instrument that Maria Volkonsky, wife of an exiled Decembrist revolutionary, used to spread music east of the Urals, to those that brought reprieve to the Soviet Gulag. That these instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle.The Lost Pianos of Siberia follows Roberts on a three-year adventure as she tracks a number of instruments to find one whose history is definitively Siberian. Her journey reveals a desolate land inhabited by wild tigers and deeply shaped by its dark history, yet one that is also profoundly beautiful—and peppered with pianos.“An elegant and nuanced journey through literature, through history, through music, murder and incarceration and revolution, through snow and ice and remoteness, to discover the human face of Siberia. I loved this book.” —Paul Theroux
Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919
by Tim BrooksAvailable in paperback for the first time, this groundbreaking in-depth history of the involvement of African Americans in the early recording industry examines the first three decades of sound recording in the United States, charting the surprising roles black artists played in the period leading up to the Jazz Age and the remarkably wide range of black music and culture they preserved. Applying more than thirty years of scholarship, Tim Brooks identifies key black artists who recorded commercially and provides illuminating biographies for some forty of these audio pioneers. Brooks assesses the careers and recordings of George W. Johnson, Bert Williams, George Walker, Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, W. C. Handy, James Reese Europe, Wilbur Sweatman, Harry T. Burleigh, Roland Hayes, Booker T. Washington, and boxing champion Jack Johnson, as well as a host of lesser-known voices. Many of these pioneers faced a difficult struggle to be heard in an era of rampant discrimination and "the color line," and their stories illuminate the forces--both black and white--that gradually allowed African Americans greater entree into the mainstream American entertainment industry. The book also discusses how many of these historic recordings are withheld from the public today because of stringent U.S. copyright laws. Lost Sounds includes Brooks's selected discography of CD reissues, and an appendix by Dick Spottswood describing early recordings by black artists in the Caribbean and South America.
The Lost Story of the Ocean Monarch: Fire, Family, & Fidelity
by Gill HoffsThe ship was almost instantly in flames Some jumped overboard immediately, and all was in indescribable confusion. The masts began to fall one after another, and it is supposed killed great numbers by their descent. Others, it is feared, were roasted alive, but the majority were drowned. (Hull Advertiser and Exchange Gazette, 25 August 1848)The Ocean Monarch was only a few hours out of Liverpool on 24 August 1848 when a cabin passenger shouted Fire! and all hell broke loose. Bound for Boston with almost 400 people on board, the emigrant ship was soon ablaze with little chance of putting the flames out. People watched helplessly from their cottages along the Welsh coast as some ships ignored the travellers plight while others raced to their aid. On the 170th anniversary of the disaster Gill Hoffs reveals the full story of this forgotten wreck, including tales of French royalty, an American artist, and a courageous stewardess who gave her life to save her fellow travellers. Discover what happened to the passengers and crew, including:James K. Fellows, a kindly American jeweller trying to get home to his familyJotham Bragdon, the first mate who fled the wreck then returned to shore a heroMary Walter and her mysterious family, escaping danger in London only to find greater peril lay at seaFollow the murder trial of a crew of rescuers and find out the real fate of their victim and whether the mysterious Irish toddler Kate found her family again.
The Lost Supreme: The Life of Dreamgirl Florence Ballard
by Peter BenjaminsonIn the months before she died, Florence Ballard, the spunky teenager who founded the most successful female vocal group in history--the Supremes--told her own side of the story. Recorded on tape, Flo shed light on all areas of her life, including the surprising identity of the man by whom she was raped prior to her entering the music business, the details of her love-hate relationship with Motown Records czar Berry Gordy, her drinking problem and pleas for help, a never-ending desire to be the Supremes' lead singer, and her attempts to get her life back on track after being brutally expelled from the group. This is a tumultuous and heartbreaking story of a world-famous performer whose life ended at the age of 32 as a lonely mother of three who had only recently recovered from years of poverty and despair.
The Lost Treasures of R&B (A D Hunter Mystery #0)
by Nelson GeorgeNominated for the Brooklyn Public Library's Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize for Fiction"This is a fine mystery and [protagonist] D Hunter is as world weary, yet steadfast, as Philip Marloew, Spenser, Dave Robicheaux, or Easy Rawlins. A definite yes to purchase for both mystery and African American collections."--Library Journal (Starred Review, Pick of the Month)"George covers a lot of ground with style: the rhythm-and-blues music scene past and present, the sometimes startling evolution of Brooklyn and its environs, and the multitude of hangers-on, wannabes, and grifters who want a piece of the action."--Publishers Weekly"Real relationships and real talk frame the mashup of mysteries in George's street-framed series."--Kirkus Reviews"The wonderful sing-song street slang dialogue and esoteric industry knowledge make The Lost Treasures of R&B a richly entertaining addition to George's evolving series."--Shelf Awareness"George uses The Lost Treasures of R&B to tackle the hot-button issue of the gentrification of Brooklyn (and elsewhere) as protagonist D struggles to come to terms with the ghosts of his childhood in 'old Brooklyn.'"--Philadelphia Tribune"Written in the spirit of authors such as Walter Mosley and Donald Goines...The book blends music from the past with thug appeal of the present to appeal to young and old alike."--Baltimore Times"George is a historian of his culture."--The Stranger"Hunter is back in Brooklyn solving a mystery that has a backdrop firmly on the R&B scene."--NBCBLK, 14 Books to Read This Black History Month"Like its predecessor this installment of D's story fuses music, history, and crime on the streets of New York."--Flavorpill NYC"Nelson George delivers an entertaining and hard-boiled look at the music scene, and raises the question of proprietary rights and black culture."--MysteryPeople, One of Three Picks for February"As a huge R&B fan, when I ran across the title, The Lost Treasures of R&B, I just had to read it...and I'm glad I did."--Underrated ReadsProfessional bodyguard D Hunter takes a gig protecting rapper Asya Roc at an underground fight club in poverty-stricken Brownsville, Brooklyn. Unknown to D, the rapper has arranged to purchase illegal guns at the event. An acquaintance of D from the streets (and from the novel The Plot Against Hip Hop) named Ice turns out to be the courier.During the exchange a robbery is attempted. Ice is wounded. D gets Asya Roc to safety but is then chased by two gunmen because he has the bag containing the guns. This lethal chase ends under the elevated subway where D and the two gunmen run into a corrupt detective named Rivera. A bloody shootout ensues.D, who has just moved back to Brooklyn after decades in Manhattan, finds himself involved in multiple mysteries. Who were the gunmen? Why were they after the guns? Who was being set up--Asya Roc or Ice? Meanwhile, he gets a much-needed paying assignment to track down the rarest soul music single ever recorded.With gentrifying Brooklyn as the backdrop, D works to unravel various mysteries--both criminal and musical--while coming to terms with the failure of his security company and the ghosts of his childhood in "old Brooklyn." Like its predecessors The Accidental Hunter and The Plot Against Hip Hop, The Lost Treasures of R&B uses pop music as the backdrop for a noir-flavored big-city tale.
The Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series)
by Helen ReddingtonIn Britain during the late 1970s and early 1980s, a new phenomenon emerged, with female guitarists, bass-players, keyboard-players and drummers playing in bands. Before this time, women's presence in rock bands, with a few notable exceptions, had always been as vocalists. This sudden influx of female musicians into the male domain of rock music was brought about partly by the enabling ethic of punk rock ('anybody can do it!') and partly by the impact of the Equal Opportunities Act. But just as suddenly as the phenomenon arrived, the interest in these musicians evaporated and other priorities became important to music audiences. Helen Reddington investigates the social and commercial reasons for how these women became lost from the rock music record, and rewrites this period in history in the context of other periods when female musicians have been visible in previously male environments. Reddington draws on her own experience as bass-player in a punk band, thereby contributing a fresh perspective on the socio-political context of the punk scene and its relationship with the media. The book also features a wealth of original interview material with key protagonists, including the late John Peel, Geoff Travis, The Raincoats and the Poison Girls.
Lou Harrison: American Musical Maverick
by Bill Alves Brett CampbellA biography on the legendary gay American composer of contemporary classical music.American composer Lou Harrison (1917–2003) is perhaps best known for challenging the traditional musical establishment along with his contemporaries and close colleagues: composers John Cage, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, and Leonard Bernstein; Living Theater founder, Judith Malina; and choreographer, Merce Cunningham. Today, musicians from Bang on a Can to Björk are indebted to the cultural hybrids Harrison pioneered half a century ago. His explorations of new tonalities at a time when the rest of the avant-garde considered such interests heretical set the stage for minimalism and musical post-modernism. His propulsive rhythms and ground-breaking use of percussion have inspired choreographers from Merce Cunningham to Mark Morris, and he is considered the godfather of the so-called “world music” phenomenon that has invigorated Western music with global sounds over the past two decades.In this biography, authors Bill Alves and Brett Campbell trace Harrison’s life and career from the diverse streets of San Francisco, where he studied with music experimentalist Henry Cowell and Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, and where he discovered his love for all things non-traditional (Beat poetry, parties, and men); to the competitive performance industry in New York, where he subsequently launched his career as a composer, conducted Charles Ives’s Third Symphony at Carnegie Hall (winning the elder composer a Pulitzer Prize), and experienced a devastating mental breakdown; to the experimental arts institution of Black Mountain College where he was involved in the first “happenings” with Cage, Cunningham, and others; and finally, back to California, where he would become a strong voice in human rights and environmental campaigns and compose some of the most eclectic pieces of his career.“Lou Harrison’s avuncular personality and tuneful music coaxed affectionate regard from all who knew him, and that affection is evident on every page of Alves and Campbell’s new biography. Eminently readable, it puts Harrison at the center of American music: he knew everyone important and was in touch with everybody, from mentors like Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg and Charles Ives and Harry Partch and Virgil Thomson to peers like John Cage to students like Janice Giteck and Paul Dresher. He was larger than life in person, and now he is larger than life in history as well.” —Kyle Gann, author of Charles Ives’s Concord: Essays After a Sonata
Lou Harrison
by Fredric Lieberman Leta E. MillerMusic's inclusivity--its potential to unite cultures, disciplines, and individuals--defined the life and career of Lou Harrison (1917-2003). Beyond studying with leading composers of the avant-garde such as Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, conducting Charles Ives's Pulitzer Prize-winning Third Symphony, and staging high-profile percussion concerts with John Cage, Harrison has achieved fame for his distinctive blending of cultures--from the Chinese opera, Indonesian gamelan, and the music of Native Americans to modernist dissonant counterpoint. Miller and Lieberman also pull readers into Harrison's rich world of cross-fertilization through an exploration of his outspoken stance on pacifism, gay rights, ecology, and respect for minorities--all of which directly impacted his musical works. Though Harrison was sometimes accused by contemporaries of "cultural appropriation," Miller and Lieberman's brisk study makes it clear why he is now lauded as an imaginative pioneer for his integration of Asian and Western musics, as well as for his work in the development of the percussion ensemble, his use of found and invented instruments, and his explorations of alternative tuning systems. Harrison's compositions are examined in detail through reference to an accompanying CD of representative recordings.
Lou Reed: A Life
by Anthony DecurtisThe essential biography of one of music's most influential icons: Lou ReedAs lead singer and songwriter for the Velvet Underground and a renowned solo artist, Lou Reed invented alternative rock. His music, at once a source of transcendent beauty and coruscating noise, violated all definitions of genre while speaking to millions of fans and inspiring generations of musicians.But while his iconic status may be fixed, the man himself was anything but. Lou Reed's life was a transformer's odyssey. Eternally restless and endlessly hungry for new experiences, Reed reinvented his persona, his sound, even his sexuality time and again. A man of contradictions and extremes, he was fiercely independent yet afraid of being alone, artistically fearless yet deeply paranoid, eager for commercial success yet disdainful of his own triumphs. Channeling his jagged energy and literary sensibility into classic songs - like "Walk on the Wild Side" and "Sweet Jane" - and radically experimental albums alike, Reed remained desperately true to his artistic vision, wherever it led him. Now, just a few years after Reed's death, Rolling Stone writer Anthony DeCurtis, who knew Reed and interviewed him extensively, tells the provocative story of his complex and chameleonic life. With unparalleled access to dozens of Reed's friends, family, and collaborators, DeCurtis tracks Reed's five-decade career through the accounts of those who knew him and through Reed's most revealing testimony, his music. We travel deep into his defiantly subterranean world, enter the studio as the Velvet Underground record their groundbreaking work, and revel in Reed's relationships with such legendary figures as Andy Warhol, David Bowie, and Laurie Anderson. Gritty, intimate, and unflinching, Lou Reed is an illuminating tribute to one of the most incendiary artists of our time.
Lou Reed: Radio 4 Book of the Week
by Anthony DeCurtisA GUARDIAN AND CHOICE BOOK OF THE YEAR'A walk on the wild side with the alt-rock pioneer' GQ'DeCurtis is well placed to trace Reed's five-decade career, drawing on insider knowledge but skilfully balancing it with detailed research and fascinating interviews' Mojo MagazineAs lead singer and songwriter for the Velvet Underground and a renowned solo artist, Lou Reed invented alternative rock. His music, at once the height of sanctity and perversity, transcended a genre, speaking to millions of listeners, inspiring a new generation of musicians, and forever changing the way we think of that iconic era of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. Throughout his five-decade career, Reed embodied artistic self-awareness and captured the beauty, paranoia, and vivacity of his time into an array of hit songs, experimental albums, and a larger-than-life persona. With such masterpieces as 'Sweet Jane' and 'Walk on the Wild Side', Reed exerted an influence on popular music rivaled only by the likes of Bob Dylan and the Beatles and is recognized to this day as one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century.Now, just a few years after Reed's death, comes the thrilling, provocative story of his complex life. An acclaimed Rolling Stone contributor, Anthony DeCurtis interviewed Reed extensively and knew him well. With unparalleled access to Reed's friends, family, and dozens of other intimate relations, DeCurtis brings Reed's story compellingly alive and deepens our understanding of his indelible music. We travel deep into the underground artist clubs, listen along in the studio as the Velvet Underground record their signature work, and revel in Reed's relationship with legendaries like Andy Warhol, Patti Smith, and David Bowie. Insightful, revelatory, and intimate, Lou Reed is a gripping tribute to a quintessential American icon.
Lou Reed: Radio 4 Book of the Week
by Anthony DeCurtisA GUARDIAN AND CHOICE BOOK OF THE YEAR'A walk on the wild side with the alt-rock pioneer' GQ'DeCurtis is well placed to trace Reed's five-decade career, drawing on insider knowledge but skilfully balancing it with detailed research and fascinating interviews' Mojo MagazineAs lead singer and songwriter for the Velvet Underground and a renowned solo artist, Lou Reed invented alternative rock. His music, at once the height of sanctity and perversity, transcended a genre, speaking to millions of listeners, inspiring a new generation of musicians, and forever changing the way we think of that iconic era of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. Throughout his five-decade career, Reed embodied artistic self-awareness and captured the beauty, paranoia, and vivacity of his time into an array of hit songs, experimental albums, and a larger-than-life persona. With such masterpieces as 'Sweet Jane' and 'Walk on the Wild Side', Reed exerted an influence on popular music rivaled only by the likes of Bob Dylan and the Beatles and is recognized to this day as one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century.Now, just a few years after Reed's death, comes the thrilling, provocative story of his complex life. An acclaimed Rolling Stone contributor, Anthony DeCurtis interviewed Reed extensively and knew him well. With unparalleled access to Reed's friends, family, and dozens of other intimate relations, DeCurtis brings Reed's story compellingly alive and deepens our understanding of his indelible music. We travel deep into the underground artist clubs, listen along in the studio as the Velvet Underground record their signature work, and revel in Reed's relationship with legendaries like Andy Warhol, Patti Smith, and David Bowie. Insightful, revelatory, and intimate, Lou Reed is a gripping tribute to a quintessential American icon.