Mostrando títulos en Historia y Crítica

Kelefa Sanneh, one of the essential voices of our time on music and culture, has made a deep study of how popular music unites and divides us, charting the way genres become communities. In Major Labels, Sanneh distills a career’s worth of knowledge about music and musicians into a brilliant and omnivorous reckoning with popular music - as an art form (actually, a bunch of art forms), as a cultural and economic force, and as a tool that we use to build our identities.

In his rough yet sweet voice, Alex recounts the brothers’ childhood, first in the Netherlands and then in working class Pasadena, California, with an itinerant musician father and a very proper Indonesian-born mother—the kind of mom who admonished her boys to “always wear a suit” no matter how famous they became—a woman who was both proud and practical, nonchalant about taking a doggie bag from a star-studded dinner. He also shares tales of musical politics, infighting, and plenty of bad-boy behavior. But mostly his is a story of brotherhood, music, and enduring love.

Utilizing his incomparable career and inspired collaborations with Talking Heads, Brian Eno, and many others, David Byrne taps deeply into his lifetime of knowledge to explore the panoptic elements of music, how it shapes the human experience, and reveals the impetus behind how we create, consume, distribute, and enjoy the songs, symphonies, and rhythms that provide the backbeat of life. Byrne’s magnum opus uncovers thrilling realizations about the redemptive liberation that music brings us all.

Of all the musical developments of rock in the 1960s, one in particular fundamentally changed the music's structure and listening experience: the incorporation of extended improvisation into live performances. While many bands—including Cream, Pink Floyd, and the Velvet Underground—stretched out their songs with improvisations, no band was more identified with the practice than the Grateful Dead. In Get Shown the Light Michael Kaler examines how the Dead's dedication to improvisation stemmed from their belief that playing in this manner enabled them to touch upon transcendence.

Look to the shadowy corridor between chart-topping hits and the cryptic tales that lurk behind them in “Rock & Roll Nightmares: Blood On The Tracks.” This electrifying true crime tome peels back the curtain on the eerie nexus of melody and morbidity, guiding you through a chilling journey where the anthems of the airwaves meet their macabre muses.

From 1965 to 1995, the Grateful Dead flourished as one of the most beloved, unusual, and accomplished musical entities to ever grace American culture. The creative synchronicity among Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan exploded out of the early 60s roots and folk scene, providing the soundtrack for the Dionysian revels of the counterculture. Dennis McNally, the band's historian and publicist for more than 20 years, takes listeners back through the Dead's history.

Discovered at last, the legendary lost manuscript of Grateful Dead co-founder and primary lyricist Robert Hunter, written in the early 1960s—a wry, richly observed, and enlightening remembrance of “the scene” in Palo Alto that gave rise to an incredible partnership of Hunter and Jerry Garcia, and then to the Grateful Dead itself—with a Foreword by John Mayer, an Introduction by Dennis McNally, and an Afterword by Brigid Meier.

A landmark release, this is the first of a two-volume biography of Metallica, the biggest metal band of all time, told via exclusive interviews with the band and their world.

Ed Ward covers the first half of the history of rock & roll in this sweeping and definitive narrative - from the 1920s, when the music of rambling medicine shows mingled with the songs of vaudeville and minstrel acts to create the very early sounds of country and rhythm and blues, to the rise of the first independent record labels post-World War II, and concluding in December 1963, just as an immense change in the airwaves took hold and the Beatles prepared for their first American tour.

Laurel Canyon was the neighborhood perched above the clubs and record companies of Sunset Strip where Joni Mitchell, Jim Morrison, Graham Nash, Cass Elliot, Carole King, Don Henley, and Peter Tork, just to name a few, lived and collaborated to make an indelible mark on our music and our culture.

Acclaimed journalist Peter Doggett recounts the previously untold story of the dramatic final chapter in the lives, loves, and legal battles of John, Paul, George, and Ringo - a.k.a. The Beatles - from their breakup in 1969 to the present day. Called "refreshingly straightforward and highly readable" by the Daily Telegraph (London), You Never Give Me Your Money is the dramatic and intimate story of the breakup and aftermath of The Fab Four as it's never been told before.

In America, in London, in Amsterdam, in Paris, revolutionary ideas fomenting since the late 1950s reached boiling point, culminating in a year in which the transient pop moment burst forth. Exploring the canonical figures, from The Beatles and Boty to Warhol and Reagan, 1966 delves deep into the social and cultural heart of the decade through masterfully compiled archival primary sources.

For millennia, the sacred drummers of pre-Christian Mediterranean and western Asia were women. In this inspiring book, Layne Redmond, herself a renowned drummer, tells their history.

The rich and colorful story of America's most popular music and the singers and songwriters who captivated, entertained, and consoled listeners throughout the 20th century - based on the upcoming eight-part film series to air on PBS in September 2019.

Introduced with more than 90 biographical entries that trace the friendships, loves, and rivalries that inspired each musical genius and their work. Profiles offer revealing insights into what drove each individual to create the musical masterpieces - symphonies, concertos, and operatic scores - that changed the direction of classical music and are still celebrated as masterpieces today.

Samuel Charters has been studying and writing about New Orleans music for more than 50 years. A Trumpet around the Corner: The Story of New Orleans Jazz is the first book to tell the entire story of a century of jazz in New Orleans. Although there is still controversy over the racial origins and cultural sources of New Orleans jazz, Charters provides a balanced assessment of the role played by all three of the city's musical lineages - African American, white, and Creole - in jazz's formative years.

If you were a fan of popular music in the 1960s and early '70s, you were a fan of the Wrecking Crew - whether you knew it or not. On hit record after hit record by everyone from the Byrds, the Beach Boys, and the Monkees to the Grass Roots, the 5th Dimension, Sonny & Cher, and Simon & Garfunkel, this collection of West Coast studio musicians from diverse backgrounds established themselves as the driving sound of pop music - sometimes over the objection of actual band members....

Ever since the Beatles’ British Invasion, numerous rock bands and singers have created albums that still have many fans’ love and devotion today. Was it raw talent, or was there something below the surface that transformed these dreamers into Hollywood legends? Icons of Rock invites music lovers to discover the truth behind their favorite artists and how they created the best songs of all time. Investigating the psychology and chemistry behind artistic inspiration, you will find how much an unconscious influence can change not only one person’s life, but the entire world.

The violin has formed an important aspect of Jewish culture for centuries, both as a popular instrument with classical Jewish musicians—Jascha Heifetz, Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhak Perlman—and also a central factor of social life as part of the enduring Klezmer tradition. But during the Holocaust, the violin assumed extraordinary new roles within the Jewish community. For some musicians, the instrument was a liberator; for others, it was a savior that spared their lives. Music historian James A. Grymes tells the amazing, horrifying, and inspiring story of the violins of the Holocaust.

From the author of the definitive biography of Frank Sinatra, the story of how jazz arrived at the pinnacle of American culture in 1959, told through the journey of three towering artists—Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans—who came together to create the most iconic jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue.