Music

The first in-depth look at a highly innovative jazz icon

Tony Fletcher's A Light That Never Goes Out - part celebration, part paean - moves from Manchester in the nineteenth-century to the present day to tell the complete story of The Smiths.

Get down with rock, R&B, jazz, blues, funk, and Latin rhythms! Groove to the beat in no time with this ultimate rockin' guide! Whether you're dreaming of starting a band, striking the snares, or simply playing a hand drum, this interactive book-and-CD package makes it easy to pick up the basics.

Celebrate Little Mix's first UK number-one album - Glory Days - by reading the full story of the girls' astonishing rise to pop super stardom. Our World is full of exclusive photos and inspirational stories about Jade, Perrie, Jesy and Leigh-Anne's unique friendship.Little Mix are the UK's most successful girl band. They first found fame - and each other - on The X Factor in 2011. Five years later they have gone from strength to strength, achieving huge global success. With three platinum-selling albums in the UK and over 14 million record sales worldwide, the band are both adored by their fans and critically acclaimed for their brilliant music. In this book the girls share the real behind-the-scenes story of both their personal lives and their success. They reveal the many highs - what it feels like to perform in front of thousands of people; the excitement of seeing your music soar to Number One around the world - but also the lows. Through it all the girls have had each other, and their incredibly close friendship has grown stronger and stronger as the years have gone by. Now the girls are like sisters, and in this book they share their journeys and how it feels for your dreams to come true.Brimming with exclusive photos, this book shares with us the girls' innermost secrets - their hopes and dreams for the future, their families, their relationships, their style advice and above all their friendship. This book is Little Mix's story in their own words and tells you everything you need to know about their lives both in and out of the spotlight.

Sheryl Crow continues to be celebrated for her legacy as a singer-songwriter and pop culture icon. This book provides an introduction to Sheryl Crow's entire music catalog. Organized into chronological periods of time, the author weaves biographical facts throughout a narrative rich with details about her songs: how they were created, recorded, distributed, and modified in live performance. Accompanying commentary features song analysis-including song structure, chord progression, and melody-and provides fascinating insights into the lyrical content of Crow's songwriting. The work begins with Crow's upbringing, her musical roots and influences, and how they manifested themselves in her later career. Subsequent sections delve into her road to success and eventual stardom, revealing how her rise to fame and widespread popularity was littered with broken friendships, acrimony, and suicide. The last several chapters follows her life after a diagnosis of breast cancer and the adoption of her sons. The work also includes a chapter on B-sides and rare songs by Crow.

Welcome to The Periodic Table of Hip Hop. Instead of hydrogen to helium, here you'll find James Brown to Kanye West - 94 artists that have defined Hip Hop arranged following the logic of The Periodic Table of Elements. MCs, DJs, rappers and producers are the elements here, and this expert guide orders them to reveal their contrasts and connections, along with key movements and moments in the history of this music genre. Includes: James Brown, P-Funk, Kool Herc, Melle Mel, Sugarhill Records, Fab Five Freddy, Whodini, Run DMC, Rick Rubin, LL Cool J, Kanye West and Jay Z and many, many more...

The Sunday Times bestseller.David Bowie was arguably the most influential artist of his time, reinventing himself again and again, transforming music, style and art for over five decades. David Buckley's unique approach to unravelling the Bowie enigma, via interviews with many of the singer's closest associates, biography and academic analysis, makes this unrivalled biography a classic for Bowie fans old and new. This revised edition of Strange Fascination captures exclusive details about the tours, the making of the albums, the arguments, the split-ups, the music and, most importantly, the man himself. Also including exclusive photographic material, Strange Fascination is the most complete account of David Bowie and his impact on pop culture ever written.

An essential guide to more than 1,000 years of classical musicLose yourself in the fascinating story of classical music in The Complete Classical Music Guide. Full of beautiful colour photographs, over 300 inspiring composer biographies, analyses of major classical works and information on every genre, style and form, instrument and ensemble, this is essential reading for every lover of classical music.Be inspired by the composers who have shaped the musical landscape over a millennia from the earliest music, through the Baroque and Romantic eras and right up to the modern classical music of today. Presented in a beautiful glossy slipcase in the shape of a grand piano, The Complete Classical Music Guide will hit the right note with any classical music fan.All content previously published in Eyewitness Companions: Classical Music.

'I was 22 years old, a hard-on with a pulse: wretched, vice-ridden, too much to burn and not enough minutes in a hour to do so'The action begins in West Des Moines, Iowa, where Corey Taylor, frontman of heavy metal bands Slipknot and Stone Sour, systematically set about committing each of the Seven Deadly Sins. He has picked fights with douche bags openly brandishing guns. He has set himself on fire at parties and woken up in dumpsters after cocaine binges. He lost his virginity at eleven. He got rich and famous and immersed himself in booze, women, and chaos until one day he realised, suddenly, that he didn't need any of that at all.Now updated with a brand new chapter, Seven Deadly Sins is a brutally honest look at 'a life that could have gone horribly wrong at any turn', and the soul-searching and self-discovery it took to set it right.

This is Part One of Volume One. This extended special edition of Mark Lewisohn's magisterial book Tune In is a true collector's item, featuring hundreds of thousands of words of extra material, as well as many extra photographs. It is the complete, uncut and definitive biography of the Beatles' early years, from their family backgrounds through to the moment they're on the cusp of their immense breakthrough at the end of 1962.The ebook of the extended special edition comes in two parts, mirroring the two hardbacks that make up the deluxe print edition. Each part is sold separately and this is Part One, taking the story from the very beginning to their first, famous trip to Hamburg in 1960. Readers wishing to buy the whole extended special edition of Tune In in ebook should be sure to buy Part One and Part Two. Mark Lewisohn's biography is the first true and accurate account of the Beatles, a contextual history built upon impeccable research and written with energy, style, objectivity and insight. This extended special edition is for anyone who wishes to own the complete story in all its stunning and extraordinary detail. This is, genuinely and without question, the lasting word from the world-acknowledged authority.

Jim Morrison's electrifying live performances, and appetite for sexual and psychedelic experience enflamed the spirit of a generation. In Jim Morrison, critically acclaimed journalist Stephen Davis brings together insights gleaned from dozens of original interviews, long-lost recordings, and Morrison's own unpublished journals to create a vivid portrait of a misunderstood genius. Each page brims with new details on every phase of Morrison's life, from his troubled youth in a strict military household, to his coming of age in the avant-garde scene of 1960s LA, his epic alcohol and drug binges, and sexual affairs.In a gripping final chapter, Davis synthesizes new evidence recently uncovered in Paris to resolve at last many of the mysteries surrounding Morrison's death, and reconstructs the final days and hours of America's greatest rock star. Compelling and harrowing, intimate and revelatory, Jim Morrison is the definitive biography of the rock god who defined the 1960s.

Wild Tales by Graham Nash - a classic rock memoir of the legendary Hollies front man and member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & YoungGraham Nash, lead singer and principal songwriter of the Hollies, then member of supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, made the incredible and possibly unique journey from 60s Manchester to Swinging London to sunny California. And along the way he created many of the iconic songs which defined a generation that began with the opening salvos of the British Rock revolution and ended with the last embers of Woodstock: 'Bus Stop', 'Carrie Anne', 'Marrakesh Express', 'Teach Your Children', among many others.In this candid and riveting autobiography Nash tells it all: growing up in poverty in postwar Manchester, founding the Hollies with schoolfriend Allan Clarke and the incredible success that followed, friendships with all the great British bands of the 60s including the Beatles, the Stones and the Kinks, decamping to America and becoming the lover and muse of Joni Mitchell (for whom he wrote 'Our House'),achieving superstardom with David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Neil Young.From London to Laurel Canyon, the story is extraordinary: the love, the sex, the jealousy, the drugs, and the magical music-making. With an amazing range of characters including John Lennon, Mama Cass, Janis Joplin, Elton John, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen, not to mention Presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama, Wild Tales is one of the great rock and rock stories which befits someone who has been inducted not once but twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.This book will be adored by Graham Nash fans and takes its rightful place in the pantheon of classic music memoirs alongside Book Dylan's Chronicles, Keith Richards' Life and Neil Young's Waging Heavy Peace.Graham Nash was born in Blackpool in 1942 and brought up in Salford. He was cofounder with his schoolfriend Allan Clarke of the Hollies - one of the most successful British pop groups of the 1960s for whom he was lead-singer and one of the principal songwriters. In 1968 he left the UK to live in California, where he became part of the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash (later, after Neil Young joined, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young). Unusually he has been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, for the Hollies and for CSNY, and in 2010 he received the OBE. He is noted for his political and charity work (he played Occupy Wall Street in 2011), is a serious photographer, and has homes in California and Hawaii.

Often described as aloof, Kim Gordon opens up as never before in Girl in a Band. Telling the story of her family, her life in visual art, her move to New York City, the men in her life, her marriage, her relationship with her daughter, her music, and her band, Girl in a Band is a rich and beautifully written memoir. Gordon takes us back to the lost New York of the 1980s and '90s that gave rise to Sonic Youth, and the Alternative revolution in popular music the band helped usher in-paving the way for Nirvana, Hole, Smashing Pumpkins and many other acts. But at its core, Girl in a Band examines what partnership means-and what happens when it dissolves.

Viv Albertine is one of a handful of original punks who changed music, and the discourse around it, forever. In Clothes ... Music ... Boys a story hitherto dominated by male voices is recast through the eyes of one of the most glamorous, uncompromising and iconic figures of the time. After forming The Flowers of Romance with Sid Vicious in 1976, Viv joined The Slits and made musical history as one of the first generation of punk bands. Here is the story of what it was like to be a girl at the height of punk: the sex, the drugs, the guys, the tours, the hard lessons learnt and those not considered. From Madonna to Lady Gaga, fashion to feminims, Viv Albertine has influenced a range of exceptional artists. Here, before and beyond the break-up of The Slits in 1982, is the full story of a life lived unscripted, with foolishness, bravery and great emotional honesty. A memoir full of raw and uncompromising anecdote and opinion, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys is an unflinching account of a life lived on the frontiers of experience, by a true pioneer.

As they embark upon the fourth decade of the career, Metallica's legacy is as unique as it is remarkable: having sold over 100 million albums their status as the biggest Metal band of all time is indisputable. Following the acclaimed first volume, which chronicled the band's rise to international stardom, the authors now explore the challenges and tensions that ensued for the band.From the phenomenal, breakthrough, success of 1991's 'Black' album to the band's reinvention with the 'Load/Reload' albums; bassist Jason Newsted's shock exit in 2001 and the group's subsequent meltdown, as laid bare in the unvarnished fly-on-the-wall documentary Some Kind Of Monster, to the divisive 'St. Anger' and 'Lulu' sets (recorded with Rick Rubin and in collaboration with Lou Reed respectively), they brilliantly capture this unique bands epic, louder than life saga.

'Re-make/Re-model' tells the extraordinary and largely unknown story of the individuals and circumstances that would lead over a period of almost twenty years to the formation of Roxy Music - a group in which art, fashion and music would combine to create in the words of its inventor, Bryan Ferry, "e;above all, a state of mind"e;.Written with the assistance, for the first time, of all of those involved, including Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Andy Mackay and Phil Manzanera; the fashion designer Antony Price, the founding guru of Pop art, and Bryan Ferry's tutor, Richard Hamilton, and many more, 'Re-make/Re-model' is also the account of how Pop art, the avant garde underground of the 1960s, and the heady slipstream of London in the Sixties was transformed into the fashion cults of revivalism, nostalgia and pop futurism in the early 1970s.

No other jazz musician has proved so inspirational and so fascinating as Coltrane. Ben Ratliff, jazz critic for the New York Times, has written the first book to do justice to this great and controversial music pioneer. As well as an elegant narrative of Coltrane's life Ratliff does something incredibly valuable - he writes about the saxophonist's unique sound.

Johann Joachim Quantz's On Playing the Flute has long been recognized as one of the primary sources of information about eighteenth-century performance practice. In spite of its title, it is not simply a tutor for the flute, but a fully-fledged programme for training musicians of all types, with detailed information on intonation, ornamentation, dynamics, the 'duties' of the various accompanying performers, including the leader of the orchestra, and the principal forms and styles (French, Italian and German) of the time. Although Quantz is most often identified as the teacher of Frederick the Great, his musical roots were in Dresden, the most brilliant musical establishment in Germany; and his travels and studies in Italy, France and England gave him direct experience of most phases of European musical life in the 1720s and 30s. This reissue of the second edition provides a wonderfully complete and detailed picture of musical taste and performance practice in the 18th century, and includes a new introduction by Professor Reilly, drawing attention to recent research on Quantz. Whether you want to learn to play the flute and be taught by the teacher of Frederick the Great, or just to gain a first-hand insight into the history of classical music, On Playing the Fluteis an essential and entertaining read.

This volume uniquely combines a lively biography of one of the best-loved composers of the nineteenth century with a detailed chronological guide to much of his oeuvre, from the most popular - Swan Lake or the 1812 Overture - to the lesser known pieces. David Brown enthusiastically and sensitively guides the reader through Tchaikovsky's music in the context of his life. His writing on the music is accessible and informative, both for the professional musician and the keen amateur listener. The biographical writing includes fascinating quotations from the composer's letters, and those of his friends; the Tchaikovsky that emerges is, despite his periodic struggle with depression, a man with a positive attitude to life, and a kind and supportive friend to many around him. This is essential reading for anyone with an interest in Tchaikovsky, his music, or the culture of the time.'One of the finest one-volume biographies to have appeared in recent years, written with such insight that it feels as though one is on a hot-line to the composer himself . . . by the end I felt I knew Tchaikovsky so much better. A classic.' Classic FM Magazine'I can't imagine a more intelligently sympathetic treatment of the man and his music.' BBC Music Magazine

Miles Davis is one of the most revered artists of the last 100 years, regardless of the art form. Credited with ushering in a new age of jazz more than once, Davis’s unique perception of the world is best known through his memorable music and is arguably more popular now than ever. In later years, he earned additional acclaim as an abstract painter, with many of his originals selling for thousands of dollars and continuing to escalate in value.  But his sense of personal expression didn’t stop with music and painting. Miles Davis’s restless, rebellious personality found an additional creative outlet through his interest in fashion.  From the big shouldered, pleated suits of the forties, to the Ivy League look of the fifties, the sleek Italian suits of the sixties and the more avant-garde looks of the last twenty years of his life, Miles Davis blazed a fashion trail whose impact is still being felt today.MILESSTYLE is the first book to examine Miles Davis, the artist, using himself as a creative canvas.  MILESSTYLE features observations from notable fashionistas like Lenny Kravitz, Bryan Ferry and Lloyd Boston, as well as friends and bandmates like Quincy Jones, Ron Carter, Clark Terry and more regarding his sartorial evolution as well as what his style said about the music and the man.  

The Ultimate Guide to Blues Guitar SoloingAre you struggling to learn the authentic language of blues guitar soloing? Joseph Alexander has helped over 500,000 guitar players improve their skills with his practical, step-by-step guitar guides and his blues books are among his most popular. Finally, he's released his exclusive guide to learning authentic blues guitar soloing from scratch.Far more than a book of licks, this guitar method will help you learn the language of the blues soloing and speak it fluently. Beginner Blues Guitar SoloingThis book will teach you how to play meaningful blues guitar solos from the ground up, with the minimum of theory. Here's what you get:¿ An easy reference guide covering every aspect of blues soloing for beginners¿ Simple but effective lead guitar riffs you can use immediately¿ 160 musical examples, with studio quality audio FREE to download¿ Full-length solos to learn that demonstrate each technique and add to your arsenal of blues licksCan you speak blues?An entire chapter is dedicated to one of the most important aspects of blues vocabulary: question and answer phrasing. Guitar players are often guilty of noodling with scales - which demonstrates their knowledge but lacks real musicality. In this chapter you'll learn how to tell a story with your playing and master the art of phrasing. Great question and answer phrasing is making your music speak so that people will listen - and the techniques you learn here won't only help you play the blues, they'll make you a better all-round musician. As well as ensuring you have good phrasing, you'll also learn a host of expressive articulation techniques.

'ABBA Song by Song' takes a detailed look at every single song by Swedish supergroup ABBA. All of their worldwide hits, the gems hidden on their albums and B sides, and lost songs performed in concert or hidden in the vaults for decades.

Candace can't believe her luck when she's picked to travel to Seoul and train to become a K-pop star. There's only one problem: she's really not cut out for it. Amidst scandals, gruelling dance practices and gorgeous boybands, Candace must decide whether a spot in the world's biggest K-pop group is really worth risking it all ...

In 1721 a 20-year-old soprano employed at the princely court in Kthen married the courts Kapellmeister, set to become the greatest composer of the age. As his second wife she married into a young family with four children, and a busy household filled with music. The music book that Johann Sebastian Bach presented to his new wife Anna Magdalena in 1722, and replaced more lavishly in 1725, treats us to a tantalizing glimpse inside this unique family, allowing us to sit beside Bach as a composer, teacher, husband and father. Over the years, these notebooks became a place for the family to share instructional exercises, favourite pieces

The Pet Shop Boys are one of the most successful and unusual bands of the last five decades. They are the pop duo that proves pop music can be modern, ecstatic and playful as well as serious and intelligent, winning them legions of devoted fans throughout the world. In 1989, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe invited journalist Chris Heath and photographer Lawrence Watson to shadow them around Hong Kong, Japan and the UK as they embarked on their first-ever tour. This book is the result: an immersive portrait giving access into the duo‿s inner sanctum, showing them in brilliantly observed detail as they work, relax, gossip, argue and occasionally try to make sense of what they do. ‿As clear a picture as could be wished for of the seething mass of elegant contradictions that is the Pet Shop Boys‿ on-the-road experience.‿ Independent on Sunday‿This superbly reported book transcends tired rock journalism cliché. It‿s about what it means to be a pop star, what it means to be a Pet Shop Boy‿ how to love pop, hold it to a higher standard and subvert its expectations.‿ Laura Snapes

No other pop group in recent history has faced fame with such intelligence, humour and shrewdness as the Pet Shop Boys. it is an unusually intimate portrait of two maverick British musicians always reluctant to compromise. 'There was a time when the Pet Shop Boys seemed to exist entirely on radio, television and in magazines.

Me and My Piano is the best-selling series by the distinguished authors Fanny Waterman and Marion Harewood, that has sold over 2 million copies worldwide. Designed especially for the needs of the younger beginner and delightfully illustrated throughout, the series makes learning the piano an enjoyable experience for both pupil and teacher.This Complete Edition combines Parts 1 and 2 in one book. Part 1 takes the young pianist step by step through the earliest stages of piano technique, leading to very easy pieces for hands together using a constant five-finger hand position in C major. Part 2 builds on these foundations by extending the compass of notes, introducing new rhythms, note values, chords and changes of hand position. Games and puzzles throughout give elementary theory a new lease of life, and children will love the rhymes, songs and Monkey Puzzles pages.

Walking Bass for Jazz and Blues is a complete method to help beginners master each element of Blues and Jazz walking bass. It is designed to develop strong harmonic skills, rhythm, phrasing and note choice.

This perfect resource for any country guitar player contains three bestselling country guitar books in one complete volume. You'll go from absolute basics to playing astonishing country guitar solos. Contains Country Guitar for Beginners - Country Guitar Soloing Techniques - 100 Licks for Country Guitar