Showing titles in History & Criticism

Reflective and expansive, Mirror in the Sky situates Stevie Nicks as one of the finest songwriters of the twentieth century. This biography from distinguished music historian Simon Morrison examines Nicks as a singer and songwriter before and beyond her career with Fleetwood Mac, from the Arizona landscape of her childhood to the strobe-lit Night of 1000 Stevies celebrations.

Highly original and fascinating cultural and political history told through Belfast’s popular music scene in the 1960s in the context of Northern Ireland’s sociopolitical milieu. With particular emphasis on Van Morrison, Them, and Ottilie Patterson; also features the Peter Whitehead film of The Rolling Stones.

Children of the Stone chronicles Ramzi's journey - from stone thrower to music student to school founder - and shows how through his love of music he created something lasting and beautiful in a land torn by violence and war. This is a story about the power of music, but also about freedom and conflict, determination and vision.

Amid a background of wars and revolution, the 19th century produced many of the world's best-loved composers, including Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, and Tchaikovsky. Discover: Music of the Romantic Era charts the course of music through those turbulent but exhilarating times with 40 music excerpts. Light-hearted but authoritative, it tells the fascinating, often scandalous life stories of the 19th century's greatest composers and describes how they created musical history.

From National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Sam Quinones, the story of a demanding instrument, the determined people who play it, and the hope they offer a fractured nation.

Frances Fyfield and Clemency Burton Hill explore the tales and tribulations revealed in the hand-written music of artists including Bach, Vivaldi, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, Stravinsky, Schubert, Rachmaninov and Chopin. Joined by world-leading musicians and musical experts, they investigate the stories behind the manuscripts for famous songs like 'On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring', and some of the best known operas and shows of all time including The Barber of Seville, The Pirates of Penzance and Madame Butterfly. 

At the height of the ideological antagonism of the Cold War, the US State Department unleashed an unexpected tool in its battle against Communism: jazz. From 1956 through the late 1970s, America dispatched its finest jazz musicians to the far corners of the earth, from Iraq to India, from the Congo to the Soviet Union, in order to win the hearts and minds of the Third World and to counter perceptions of American racism.

In the '60s and '70s, America's music scene was marked by raucous excess, reflected in the tragic overdoses of young superstars such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. At the same time, the uplifting harmonies and sunny lyrics that propelled Karen Carpenter and her brother, Richard, to international fame belied a different sort of tragedy - the underconsumption that led to Karen's death at age 32 from the effects of an eating disorder.

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung contains the wild and brilliant writings of Lester Bangs—the most outrageous and popular rock critic of the 1970s—edited and with an introduction by the reigning dean of rock critics, Greil Marcus.

The Story of Rock and Roll an epic tale with a cast of thousands (if you count the crowd at Woodstock), spanning more than a century. It’s also an American story (at least until the Beatles arrived) about music created by individuals clinging to the lowest rung of the social ladder who, nevertheless, invented a musical idea that engulfed the entire world, influencing all aspects of culture, and drawing every other kind of music into its orbit. It’s a story that has everything: scandal, betrayal, big money, murder, tragedy and triumph, long successful careers, and lives unexpectedly cut short.

In a book that inspired the Amazon original series starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Malcolm McDowell, oboist Blair Tindall recounts her decades-long professional career as a classical musician, from the recitals and Broadway orchestra performances to the secret life of musicians who survive hand to mouth in the backbiting New York classical music scene, trading sexual favors for plum jobs and assignments in orchestras across the city.

Since 1925, the Grand Ole Opry has left an undeniable mark on American culture. What began as an impromptu performance of old-time fiddle tunes has transformed into the longest-running radio broadcast in US history, as well as a live performance for millions of country music fans each year. Replete with gorgeous illustrations and tributes from country music’s biggest names, 100 Years of Grand Ole Opry is a glorious, one-of-a-kind celebration, and a must-have for any country music fan.

Art students Gina Birch and Ana da Silva formed The Raincoats in 1977. Since the release of their seminal early records, the 'godmothers of grunge' have been revered by punk, queer, feminist and indie pop artists alike. The Raincoats reimagined the nature of experimental music and DIY design and went on to inspire Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and an entire generation of Riot Grrrl and queercore musicians.

In Elvis Presley: A Southern Life, one of the most admired Southern historians of our time takes on one of the greatest cultural icons of all time. The result is a masterpiece: a vivid, gripping biography, set against the rich backdrop of Southern society - indeed, American society - in the second half of the 20th century.

Dismantles the Woody Guthrie we have been taught—the rough-and-ready rambling’ man—to reveal an artist who discovered how intimacy is crucial for political struggle Woody Guthrie is often mythologized as the classic American “rambling’ man,” a real-life Steinbeckian folk hero who...

David W. Barber has delighted fans around the world with Accidentals on Purpose, When the Fat Lady Sings, and other internationally best-selling books of musical humor. His best-selling Bach, Beethoven and the Boys chronicles the lives of the great (and not-so-great) composers, exploring their sex lives, exposing their foibles, and expanding on our understanding of these all-too-human creatures.

Eight years after its founding in Basildon, Essex, Depeche Mode, rooted in 1970s Krautrock, combined old-fashioned touring, well-crafted songs, and the steadfast support of KROQ to dominate Southern California, the United States, and then the world, kicking open the doors for the likes of Nirvana in the process. 101 is the hidden-in-plain-sight hinge of modern music history.

This Is Our Music, declared saxophonist Ornette Coleman's 1960 album title. But whose music was it? At various times during the 1950s and 1960s, musicians, critics, fans, politicians, and entrepreneurs claimed jazz as a national art form, an Afrocentric race music, an extension of modernist innovation in other genres, a music of mass consciousness, and the preserve of a cultural elite. This original and provocative book explores who makes decisions about the value of a cultural form and on what basis.

Here, Rob Trucks talks to Lindsey Buckingham, as well as members of Animal Collective, Camper Van Beethoven, the New Pornographers, Wolf Parade, and the USC Trojan marching band in order to chart both the story and the impact of an album born of personal obsession and a stubborn unwillingness to compromise.

Stephen Catanzarite takes a close look at what many consider to be U2's most fully formed album through the prisms of religion, politics, spirituality, and culture, illuminating its previously unexplored depths, arguing that it's a concept album about love and the fall of man.