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Barefaced Lies and Boogie-Woogie Boasts
by Harriet Vyner Jools HollandJools Holland has had a fascinating life. From playing on bomb sites as a boy in the East End, to skiving off school and then selling millions of records with Squeeze, the first twenty years of his life were eventful, chaotic and colourful. Then came The Tube with Paula Yates, the seminal live music programme that propelled him to fame. Over the following three decades, Jools succeeded in placing himself at the epicentre of a global community comprising just about anybody who is anybody in music. Through Later with Jools Holland, the longest-running music programme on television, he has given British TV debuts to countless now world famous bands. Packed with hilarious anecdotes written in Holland’s own inimitable style and laced with quirky insights and deliciously acute detail, this autobiography by one of Britain’s most gifted and debonaire musicians is not just for music fans, but for anyone who is looking for something several cuts above the conventional showbiz memoir.
The Penguin Companion to Classical Music
by Paul GriffithsThis superbly authoratitive new work provides a comprehensive A-Z guide to some 1000 years of Western music. It explores in detail the lives and achievements of a vast range of composers, as well as looking at such key topics as music history (from medieval plainchant to contemporary minimalism), performers, theory and jargon. Throught Griffiths skilfully blends lightly worn scholarship with personal insight, whether examining the emotional colouring that different musical keys achieve or charting the rise and development of the symphony.
The Complete Lyrics: 1978-2013
by Nick CaveThe complete collection of Nick Cave lyrics spanning his entire career, from 1978 until 2013, revised and updated by the cult rock star'He is an Australian artist like Sidney Nolan is an Australian artist - beyond comparison, beyond genre, beyond dispute' - from Nick Cave's induction into the Australian Hall of FameThis complete collection of Nick Cave's lyrics spans his entire career, from his writing for The Birthday Party through the highly acclaimed Murder Ballads and The Boatman's Call to recent work with Grinderman and his 2013 album, Push the Sky Away. Brought together in one volume, these lyrics make up one of the most outstanding achievements of contemporary music.Switching between the cynical and the sanguine, the defeated and the defiant, Nick Cave deals in love, war, beauty, children, romance, rejection, Pethedine, poetry, pants, money, flowers and so much more ...From the bestselling author of And the Ass Saw the Angel and The Death of Bunny Munroe this definitive collection will be adored by Nick Cave fans everywhere.'His lyrics deal with passion on the edge, and are peopled with mad bayou preachers, black-hearted lovers and killers. His language is rich, poetic, apocalyptic' Guardian'Richly poetic creations which live a second life on the page ... Essential reading' VoxNick Cave was born in Australia in 1957. He moved to London with his band The Birthday Party in 1990 and four years later he formed The Bad Seeds, with whom he has made 15 studio albums. In recent years he has made two albums with his other band, Grinderman. In 1999 he curated and directed the Meltdown Festival at London's South Bank Centre. He has also written the soundtrack for a number of successful films including The Assassination of Jesse James, Lawless and The Proposition. His novel And the Ass Saw the Angel was an international bestseller, Time Out's Book of the Year, and was reissued in the Penguin Essential series. His second novel The Death of Bunny Monroe was published in 2009. He lives in Brighton with his wife and two children.
Rock Star Babylon: Outrageous Rumors, Legends, And Raucous True Tales Of Rock And Roll Icons
by Jon HolmesWhy was Candle in the Wind for Diana a terrible mistake?Which rock star left an unspeakable gift inside a hotel room hairdryer?What's the story behind Ozzy Osbourne and the exploding mouse?Rock and roll and rumour go together like Peaches and Geldof. Tales of outrageous excess, of the filth and the fury (not to mention the furry) are part of music's heritage.Whether they're true or bare-faced lies, Jon Holmes has gathered together the greatest pop and rock myths and legends ever told. These stories have come straight from the mouths of those that were there, those that shouldn't have been there and those that were there for a bit but left early and only heard about it afterwards.
Seriously Sassy: Pinch me, I'm dreaming...
by Maggi Gibson'I sing cos I care about things. I'm not gonna change just to be famous!'Sassy Wilde has plenty to say about life, love and . . . lemurs. She's a rock chick with eco attitude, but for Sassy it's not all about fame.There's Twig, the boy who makes her feel squidgy inside. And Cordelia and Tas, her bestest mates. But as the Wiccaman Festival beckons, and Sassy's dreams start to come true, will she have to leave them behind?Suddenly Sassy's in a whirl of bezzies and boys. It's not just her guitar strings that are twanging - it's her heart strings too . . .
Seriously Sassy: Crazy Days
by Maggi Gibson'I'm gonna use my fame and money to make the world a better place . . . OK?'Life is seriously good for Sassy Wilde - she's had her first kiss, she has the two bestest bezzies ever and her rock-chick dreams are on the verge of coming true.But just as everything's set to take off, her new boyfriend starts acting weird - and then the record company turns Sassy's world upside down!Sassy feels like giving it all up - until a real disaster strikes. Now's not the time for Sassy to pack away her guitar, cos her talents are needed more than ever . . .
Benjamin Britten: A Life in the Twentieth Century
by Paul KildeaPublished to mark the beginning of the Britten centenary year in 2013, Paul Kildea's Benjamin Britten: A Life in the Twentieth Century is the definitive biography of Britain's greatest modern composer. In the eyes of many, Benjamin Britten was our finest composer since Purcell (a figure who often inspired him) three hundred years earlier. He broke decisively with the romantic, nationalist school of figures such as Parry, Elgar and Vaughan Williams and recreated English music in a fresh, modern, European form. With Peter Grimes (1945), Billy Budd (1951) and The Turn of the Screw (1954), he arguably composed the last operas - from any composer in any country - which have entered both the popular consciousness and the musical canon. He did all this while carrying two disadvantages to worldly success - his passionately held pacifism, which made him suspect to the authorities during and immediately after the Second World War - and his homosexuality, specifically his forty-year relationship with Peter Pears, for whom many of his greatest operatic roles and vocal works were created. The atmosphere and personalities of Aldeburgh in his native Suffolk also form another wonderful dimension to the book. Kildea shows clearly how Britten made this creative community, notably with the foundation of the Aldeburgh Festival and the building of Snape Maltings, but also how costly the determination that this required was. Above all, this book helps us understand the relationship of Britten's music to his life, and takes us as far into his creative process as we are ever likely to go. Kildea reads dozens of Britten's works with enormous intelligence and sensitivity, in a way which those without formal musical training can understand. It is one of the most moving and enjoyable biographies of a creative artist of any kind to have appeared for years. Paul Kildea is a writer and conductor who has performed many of the Britten works he writes about, in opera houses and concert halls from Sydney to Hamburg. His previous books include Selling Britten (2002) and (as editor) Britten on Music (2003). He was Head of Music at the Aldeburgh Festival between 1999 and 2002 and subsequently Artistic Director of the Wigmore Hall in London.
Hellfire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story
by Nick ToschesThe dramatic and tormented life of Jerry Lee Lewis is the most fabled in rock 'n' roll history. Hellfire is a wild, riveting, and beautifully written biography that received universal acclaim on its original publication and is now an American classic. Born in Louisiana to a family legacy of great courage and greater madness, Jerry Lee was torn throughout his life between a harsh Pentecostal God and the Devil of alcohol, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. At twenty-one he recorded 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On', which propelled him to stardom. Almost immediately, news of his marriage to his thirteen-year-old cousin all but destroyed his career. Over the next twenty years, Jerry Lee, ever indomitable and ever wild, would rise again as a country star, and then lose it all again to his own inner demons. Hellfire is a brilliant, audacious journey into the soul of a rock 'n' roll legend, and into the soul of rock 'n' roll itself.
Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King
by Lloyd BradleyThe first major account of the history of reggae, black music journalist Lloyd Bradley describes its origins and development in Jamaica, from ska to rock-steady to dub and then to reggae itself, a local music which conquered the world. There are many extraordinary stories about characters like Prince Buster, King Tubby and Bob Marley. But this is more than a book of music history: it relates the story of reggae to the whole history of Jamaica, from colonial island to troubled independence, and Jamaicans, from Kingston to London.
Wagner and Philosophy: Wagner And Philosophy
by Bryan MageeWagner was one of the few major composers who studied philosophy seriously. Bryan Magee places the composer's artistic development in the context of the philosophy of his age, and gives us the first detailed and comprehensive study of the close links between Wagner and the philosophers - from the pre-Marxist socialists to Feuerbach and Schopenhauer. Magee explores the relationship between words and music, between the conscious and the unconscious mind, between art and philosophy. It tackles soberly and judiciously the Wagner whose paranoia, egocentricity and anti-semitism are repugnant, as well as the Wagner of artistic genius. The resulting text illuminates Wagner and the music-dramas in altogether new ways.
Ronnie: The Utterly Splendid Biography Of Ronnie Le Drew
by Ronnie DrewThe late great Dubliner, Ronnie Drew, was six months into writing his biography when he was diagnosed with cancer. He had produced warm, witty and insightful material that made it clear that he was a wonderful writer as well as a great singer and storyteller. With the encouragement of his wife Deirdre and his family, he continued to think about the book and conducted a number of interviews to keep things ticking over until he was well enough to resume work on it. But sadly, much as he wanted to, Ronnie did not get to finish his story.However, with the whole-hearted co-operation of his daughter and son, Cliodhna and Phelim, it has been possible to put together Ronnie's work on his memoir along with his other writings, interviews with Cliodhna and Phelim, a wealth of photographs and other material from the family archive, and contributions from close friends, to create a book that is a wonderful portrait of, and a fitting and loving tribute to, the man Bono called 'the king of Ireland'.
Rockers and Rollers: An Automotive Autobiography
by Brian JohnsonBy night, Brian Johnson sings in the biggest rock 'n' roll band on the planet.But by day, AC/DC's charismatic, flat-capped frontman gets to indulge his passion for all things automotive.Cars and rock 'n'roll, they were made for each other.Car racer, car collector and all-round car enthusiast, Johnson is an incurable, certifiable petrolhead who can't remember a time when four wheels didn't feature as large in his life as music.Starting, as a young boy growing up in Tyneside, with an old steering wheel and his imagination, a lifelong passion took root early.And through cramped teenage fumbles in an old mini and clapped-out, hygienically challenged tour vans, to chauffeur-driven, leather-trimmed limos and a sideline as a successful racing driver, it's been there ever since.By turns, surprising, joyful, poignant and usually laugh-out-loud funny, Rockers and Rollers is the story of man with an insatiable appetite for life and a glimpse into the extraordinary world of AC/DC, set soon to overtake the Beatles as the biggest selling-band in history.Packed with hair-raising anecdotes and revealing a God-given talent for comic writing on every page, Brian Johnson has written the most unique, entertaining autobiography of the year.And essential reading for car nuts and rock fans.Well that'll be most of us then ...
English Folk Songs: Full Score
by Ralph Vaughan WilliamsThis collection is filled with songs that tell of the pleasures and pains of love, the patterns of the countryside and the lives of ordinary people. Here are unfaithful soldiers, ghostly lovers, whalers on stormy seas, cuckolds and tricksters. By turns funny, plain-speaking and melancholic, these songs evoke a lost world and, with their melodies provided, record a vital musical tradition. Generations of inhabitants have helped shape the English countryside - but it has profoundly shaped us too.It has provoked a huge variety of responses from artists, writers, musicians and people who live and work on the land - as well as those who are travelling through it.English Journeys celebrates this long tradition with a series of twenty books on all aspects of the countryside, from stargazey pie and country churches, to man's relationship with nature and songs celebrating the patterns of the countryside (as well as ghosts and love-struck soldiers).
31 Songs
by Nick Hornby'I decided that I wanted to write a little book of essays about songs I loved ... Songs are what I listen to, almost to the exclusion of everything else.'In his first non-fiction work since Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby writes about 31 songs that either have some great significance in his life - or are just songs that he loves. He discusses, among other things, guitar solos and losing your virginity to a Rod Stewart song and singers whose teeth whistle and the sort of music you hear in Body Shop.'The soundtrack to his life ... a revealing insight into one of Britain's most popular writers' Evening Standard
Owning Up: The Trilogy
by George MellyThis single volume includes three famous memoirs - Scouse Mouse, Rum, Bum & Concertina and Owning Up, with a new introduction by the author. Scouse Mouse is a funny and frequently touching story of the author's 1930s childhood in a middle-class Liverpudlian household. Rum, Bum & Concertina, the naval equivalent of wine, women and song, describes Melly's National Service as one of the most unlikely naval ratings ever. He becomes an anarchist and connoisseur of Surrealist Art while self-educating himself on some of the wilder shores of love. Once demobbed, Melly comes to London to work in an art gallery, and in Owning Up he describes how he slipped into the world of the jazz revival, revelling in an endless round of pubs, clubs, seedy guest-houses and transport caffs while surrounded by a mad array of musicians, tarts, drunks and arch-eccentrics.
How Music Works: A listener's guide to harmony, keys, broken chords, perfect pitch and the secrets of a good tune
by John Powell·What is the difference between a musical note and any other sort of sound?·What is harmony, and why does it sound good?·Why is it easy to tell the difference between a flute and a clarinet even if they are playing exactly the same note?·Why do ten violins sound only twice as loud as one?·What is perfect pitch, and do I have it?Discover the answers to these and many other questions in John Powell's charming, straight-talking and ear-opening guide to what music is and how exactly it works. Written by a composer with a PhD in physics, How Music Works is a unique and entertaining guide. Opening up the world of acoustics and the science of music to deepen our appreciation and understanding of what we listen to, How Music Works covers subjects from the difference between how we hear a musical note and any other kind of sound, to a brief history of the scale system, why a run of arpeggios sounds 'romantic' and why a flute sounds different to a clarinet. The perfect book for players and listeners alike.
The Penguin Jazz Guide: The History of the Music in the 1000 Best Albums
by Brian Morton Richard CookThe Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings is firmly established as the world's leading guide to recorded jazz, a mine of fascinating information and a source of insightful - often wittily trenchant - criticism. This is something rather different: Brian Morton (who taught American history at UEA) has picked out the 1000 best recordings that all jazz fans should have and shows how they tell the history of the music and with it the history of the twentieth century. He has completely revised his and Richard Cook's entries and reassessed each artist's entry for this book. The result is an endlessly browsable companion that will prove required reading for aficionados and jazz novices alike.'It's the kind of book that you'll yank off the shelf to look up a quick fact and still be reading two hours later' Fortune'Part jazz history, part jazz Karma Sutra with Cook and Morton as the knowledgeable, urbane, wise and witty guides ... This is one of the great books of recorded jazz; the other guides don't come close' Irish Times
The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs
by Julia Bishop Steve RoudOne of the Spectator's Books of the Year 2012 'Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladiesFarewell and adieu to you ladies of SpainFor we've received orders for to sail for old EnglandBut we hope in a short while to see you again'One of the great English popular art forms, the folk song can be painful, satirical, erotic, dramatic, rueful or funny. They have thrived when sung on a whim to a handful of friends in a pub; they have bewitched generations of English composers who have set them for everything from solo violin to full orchestra; they are sung in concerts, festivals, weddings, funerals and with nobody to hear but the singer.This magical new collection brings together all the classic folk songs as well as many lesser-known discoveries, complete with music and annotations on their original sources and meaning. Published in cooperation with the English Folk Dance and Song Society, it is a worthy successor to Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L.Lloyd's original Penguin Book of English Folk Songs.'Her keen eye did glitter like the bright stars by nightThe robe she was wearing was costly and whiteHer bare neck was shaded with her long raven hairAnd they called her pretty Susan, the pride of Kildare'In association with EFDSS, the English Folk Dance and Song Society
Naked (Fiction - Young Adult Ser.)
by Kevin BrooksLondon, 1976: a summer of chaos, punk, love . . . and the boy they called Billy the Kid.It was the summer of so many things. Heat and violence, love and hate, heaven and hell. It was the time I met William Bonney - the boy from Belfast known as Billy the Kid. I've kept William's secrets for a long time, but now things have changed and I have to tell the truth. But I can't begin until I've told you about Curtis Ray. Hip, cool, rebellious Curtis Ray. Without Curtis, there wouldn't be a story to tell. It's the story of our band, of life and death . . . and everything in between.This characteristically gripping novel from award-winning author Kevin Brooks will rock you to the core.
Killing Bono: I Was Bono's Doppelganger
by Neil McCormick'Squirm-inducing, excruciatingly honest and painfully funny' Joseph O'ConnorWe all went to school with friends who've turned out more successful than ourselves. But they don't all phone from improbably glamorous places and drive us mad by telling us about it. And they're not all Bono. Neil McCormick always dreamed of life as a rock star. Instead, he had to watch while his friend became one of the most famous men on the planet. Killing Bono tells the story of the less-than-successful rival band which he set up with his brother Ivan in the late 1970s. While the young brothers struggled to find success Bono and his friends went on to achieve superstar status. A heartwarming story of friendship, loyalty, rivalry and ambition, read it and weep - with sympathy and laughter.
The Triumph of Music: Composers, Musicians and Their Audiences, 1700 to the Present (Penguin Modern Classics)
by Tim BlanningOnce musicians such as Mozart were little more than court servants; now they are multimillionaire superstars wielding more power than politicians. How did this extraordinary change come about? Tim Blanning's brilliantly enjoyable book examines how everything from the cult of the romantic to technology and travel all fed the inexorable rise of music in the West, making it the most dominant and ubiquitous of the art forms. Encompassing balladeers, the great composers, jazz legends and rock gods, this is an enthralling story of power, patronage, creativity and genius.
Autobiography: The Autobiography To End All Theatrical Biographies (Penguin Modern Classics Series)
by MorrisseySteven Patrick Morrissey was born in Manchester on May 22nd 1959. Singer-songwriter and co-founder of the Smiths (1982-1987), Morrissey has been a solo artist for twenty-six years, during which time he has had three number 1 albums in England in three different decades.Achieving eleven Top 10 albums (plus nine with the Smiths), his songs have been recorded by David Bowie, Nancy Sinatra, Marianne Faithfull, Chrissie Hynde, Thelma Houston, My Chemical Romance and Christy Moore, amongst others. An animal protectionist, in 2006 Morrissey was voted the second greatest living British icon by viewers of the BBC, losing out to Sir David Attenborough. In 2007 Morrissey was voted the greatest northern male, past or present, in a nationwide newspaper poll. In 2012, Morrissey was awarded the Keys to the City of Tel-Aviv. It has been said 'Most pop stars have to be dead before they reach the iconic status that Morrissey has reached in his lifetime.'Autobiography covers Morrissey's life from his birth until the present day.'The Best Music Biog Ever ... In the world of rock autobiographies, Morrissey's is nigh-on perfect'NME
Piano Notes: The Hidden World of the Pianist
by Charles RosenIn this eloquent, intimate exploration of the delights and demands of the piano, world-renowned concert pianist and music writer Charles Rosen draws on a lifetime's wisdom to consider every aspect of the instrument: from what makes a beautiful sound to suffering from stage fright, from the physical challenges of playing to tales of great musicians, including Vladimir Horowitz's recording tricks, Rachmaninov's hands and why Artur Rubenstein applied hairspray to the keys. Gracefully blending anecdote, history, expertise and memoir, Piano Notes will enchant anyone with a passion for music.
Berlioz: The Making of an Artist 1803-1832
by David CairnsNo artist's achievement connects more directly with early experience than that of Berlioz. David Cairns draws on a wealth of family papers to recreate in authentic and intimate detail the provincial milieu of Berlioz's boyhood, showing how the son of a village doctor was already transforming himself into the composer of the Fantastic Symphony. Berlioz's desperate attempts to win his father's approval for his vocation, his struggles to establish himself on the Parisian musical scene, and his passionate pursuit of love are all brought vividly to life in this first volume of David Cairn's award-winning biography.
Berlioz: Servitude and Greatness 1832-1869
by David CairnsBerlioz was one of the towering figures of Romanticism: not only was he a great and revolutionary composer, but also the finest composer of his day and an outstanding critic and writer. Yet throughout his life he struggled for money and his music was persistently reviled in his native France. With exceptional insight and sympathy, David Cairns draws together the major strands of Berlioz's life: his tempestuous marriage to the actress Harriet Smithson; the genesis of his famous works, including the Requiem, Romeo and Juliet and his crowning masterpiece The Trojans; his friendships with Mendelssohn, Liszt, Princess Wittgenstein and Wagner; and, finally, his last years haunted once again by personal tragedy. Here, as never before, is Berlioz the artist - and the man.