Best known for co-founding the early punk duo Suicide, Alan Vega lived a complex and labyrinthine life, driven by a desire to express himself uncompromisingly through art. From his first sketch in art class at Brooklyn College to the 2021 release of the album Mutator five years after his death, Vega continues to shock and inspire. This first-ever ......
The Blues, Boogie, and Beard of ZZ Top's Billy F. Gibbons
Before launching the iconic Texas blues-rock trio ZZ Top, a young Billy Gibbons was hustling through the Lone Star State with a band named the Moving Sidewalks. The small-time band had the chance of a lifetime when they opened for legendary rock guitar maestro Jimi Hendrix, who took the teenage Gibbons and took him under his wing. Over 50 years ......
The stories of rock musicians who die young are the thing of lore and legend. Accidents, drug overdoses, plane crashes--all have taken the lives of male rock stars still in their primes. But what became of their widowed brides? How did they survive a loss so great? What is it like to have to share your grief with millions of strangers? And where ......
That 'll Be The Day - The Birth of Rock & Roll takes you on a musical journey through the first decade of this extraordinary genre that has influenced popular music to the present day. The book features the stories of the biggest rock & roll artists such as Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Chuck Berry through to The Beatles and the Stones and how they ......
Listening to the Music the Machines Make is the revolutionary story of electronic pop from 1978 to 1983, a true golden age of British music. This definitive account explores how krautrock, disco, glam rock and punk inspired a new generation to rip up the rulebook and venture toward a new frontier of electronic music – one that laid the ......
Working within the limits of a popular song, the songwriters of the Great American Songbook wrote with a combination of familiarity and freshness, sentiment, and wit. The songwriters were masters of craft who created a distinctively American popular music that still resonates strongly today. This book looks at the Great American Songbook's ......
The Perfect Harmony and Imperfect Lives of the Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers-aka Don and Phil to fans with an intimate appreciation for them-seemed to exist almost as an apparition. Emerging within the formative era for young Baby Boomer during the blandly regimented '50s, they were a ubiquitous presence, clad in snug suits and skinny ties, hair neatly Brylcreemed, never raising their voices when they ......
Picking up where the critically acclaimed Salad Daze left off, Heady Daze sees Wayne Hussey revisit the years from 1985 to 1990 leading The Mission through their formation to global success. From headlining some of Europe's major festivals, playing with U2, Robert Plant and The Cure and sweeping the UK music papers' readers' polls, to the ......
From his anthemic early hits ("I Want to Take You Higher," "Family Affair," "Dance to the Music"), through the moody meditations of "There's a Riot Going On" and beyond, Sly & the Family Stone left an indelible stamp on rock, funk, pop, and hip hop, and their enigmatic frontman in particular continues to inspire fascination and speculation. ......