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› Find signed collectible books: 'Accordion Crimes'
Proulx found fertile, if rocky, soil for her first two novels (Postcards and The Shipping News) in the far northeastern corner of North America. In Accordion Crimes she ranges much further afield. The novel follows an accordion from the hands of its maker in Sicily in 1890 until it is flattened by a truck in Florida in 1996. In the intervening century it passes through the hands of a host of unlucky owners and their kin: Abelardo Relampago, who dies from the bite of a poisonous spider; Dolor Gagnon, decapitated by his own chain saw; Silvano, cut down in the jungles of Venezuela by an Indian's arrow. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Across the Great Divide: The Band'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Alkan, the Enigma'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Aspects of Wagner'
Many music lovers find Wagner's operas inexpressibly beautiful and richly satisfying, while others find them revolting, dangerous, self-indulgent, and immoral. The man who W.H. Auden once called "perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived" has inspired both greater adulation and greater loathing than any other composer.
Presenting a penetrating analysis of Wagner's work, Magee here concentrates on how his sensational and deeply erotic music uniquely expresses the repressed and highly charged contents of the psyche. He examines not only Wagner's music and detailed stage directions but also the prose works in which he formulated his ideas, and sheds new light on his anti-semitism and the way in which the Nazis twisted his theories to suit their own purposes. Outlining the astonishing range and depth of Wagner's influence on our culture, Magee reveals how he continues to profoundly shock and inspire musicians, poets, novelists, painters, philosophers, and politicians today. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Attentive Listener: Three Centuries of Music Criticism'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bach at Leipzig: A Play'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Bagpipe: The History of a Musical Instrument'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Baroque Concerto'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Beethoven Essays'
› Find signed collectible books: 'Beethoven: His Spiritual Development'
Great men, especially creative artists whose work lives after them, engage people's imagination for centuries. Beethoven, as man and composer, has inspired innumerable books both by his contemporaries and later writers, and it is proof of his endlessly fascinating, controversial nature that they all throw a different light on some aspect of his life and work. Since J.W.N. Sullivan wrote his book in 1927, much new information about Beethoven, his character, his illnesses, and his relationships has come to light, but it is still a valid contribution to the literature on the composer. Sullivan's basic theory is that Beethoven's greatness lies in his extraordinary perceptions, his heightened experiences and "states of consciousness," and his ability to organize and synthesize these into a musical expression of a "view of life." He asserts that Beethoven's initial despairing, then defiant struggle against his suffering--especially his deafness and resulting isolation--gives his middle-period works their heroism, and that his ultimate acceptance of it as necessary to his creativity marks the peak of his "spirituality" and gives his latest works their unparalleled sublimity.
Like many biographies, the book reveals more about the author than the subject. Sullivan, who is not a musician, offers some interesting, if sometimes extravagantly extramusical, analyses of Beethoven's works (though elsewhere he decries injecting "meaning" into music). He sees Beethoven's late fugues as outbursts of "blind and desperate energy," another battle with hostile fate; many musicians see them as another battle with counterpoint. He also makes subjective, high-handed value judgments: he detests Wagner and dismisses Bach as too religious, while Haydn and Mozart are too shallow to equal Beethoven's struggle-generated "spirituality." The book also brings up questions about beauty and greatness in art, the relationship between moral character and genius, and the impact of a man's personal experiences upon his creativity--all age-old but forever timely. --Edith Eisler [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Beethoven's Hair'
A well-publicized 1994 Sotheby's auction listed, among other musical artifacts and ephemera on the block, a lock of Beethoven's hair. The high-bidders of the hair, two Beethoven enthusiasts, were easy enough to identify by their oddball names: one was a doctor named Che Guevara, the other a retired real estate developer named Ira Brilliant. But the real story, as author Russell Martin attempts to explain in this book, is how did the lock end up on the auction block? More important, can we learn anything from a 175-year-old snippet of hair? Somehow, author Russell Martin attempts to weave biographical information about Beethoven's life with scientific findings about his hair (the two buyers had the lock DNA-tested), as well as trace the path the hair took, from the great composer's head right into the present.
It's a tall order and one at which Martin partially succeeds. His facts about Beethoven and Ferdinand Hiller (the original keeper of the lock) are solid, but he hypothesizes at length about how the hair ended up in a small port town in Denmark during the Nazi occupation. Likewise, he spends nearly the entire second half of the book describing the lives of Guevara and Brilliant, occasionally sounding more like a press agent than a journalist. Subtitled "An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Musical Mystery Solved," Beethoven's Hair doesn't truly solve any musical mysteries, but it is a fascinating, original read for Beethoven-philes who want to learn a little bit more about their favorite composer. --Jason Verlinde [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Beethoven's Hair: An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Solved'
A well-publicized 1994 Sotheby's auction listed, among other musical artifacts and ephemera on the block, a lock of Beethoven's hair. The high-bidders of the hair, two Beethoven enthusiasts, were easy enough to identify by their oddball names: one was a doctor named Che Guevara, the other a retired real estate developer named Ira Brilliant. But the real story, as author Russell Martin attempts to explain in this book, is how did the lock end up on the auction block? More important, can we learn anything from a 175-year-old snippet of hair? Somehow, author Russell Martin attempts to weave biographical information about Beethoven's life with scientific findings about his hair (the two buyers had the lock DNA-tested), as well as trace the path the hair took, from the great composer's head right into the present.
It's a tall order and one at which Martin partially succeeds. His facts about Beethoven and Ferdinand Hiller (the original keeper of the lock) are solid, but he hypothesizes at length about how the hair ended up in a small port town in Denmark during the Nazi occupation. Likewise, he spends nearly the entire second half of the book describing the lives of Guevara and Brilliant, occasionally sounding more like a press agent than a journalist. Subtitled "An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Musical Mystery Solved," Beethoven's Hair doesn't truly solve any musical mysteries, but it is a fascinating, original read for Beethoven-philes who want to learn a little bit more about their favorite composer. --Jason Verlinde [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Benjamin Britten: A Biography'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Castrati in Opera'
hardcover [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Chronicles'
As the first volume of Chronicles, Bob Dylans long-anticipated autobiography, finally appears, we are given a forcible reminder how it has never been easy to be a Dylan admirer. How could the fiercely anti-establishment composer of With God on Our Side embrace (in turn) orthodox Judaism, then fundamentalist Christianity two religions absolutely antithetical to his celebration of the unfettered human spirit ? How could the demigod of folk (and disciple of Woody Guthrie) make his controversial move into electric rock? How could this man of the streets become the arch capitalist? If no answers to these questions are to be found within the pages of Chronicles, there is nevertheless a whole host of pleasures to be encountered: literary felicities, brilliantly etched pen portraits of musical personalities he has encountered, the biting wit one might expect not to mention a thousand surprises (how could a man hardly noted for the beauty of his vocal tones be such an admirer of composers whose work he could never tackle, such as Harold Arlen, composer of Over the Rainbow?.
Those who have loved Dylans lyrics (and thats a good chunk of the academic world these days) will find the same coruscating prose here: idea and image fused into brilliant (if often opaque) word pictures, as Dylan takes us back to his early days on the New York folk scene, before he became the face of rebellion in music. There are insights into his reluctance to conform to the image his fans have of him (hence his highly unlikely conversion to religious dogmas?), and this inaugural volume of his autobiography takes the reader up to the moment of his first real celebrity. Its a fascinating and infuriating read, of a piece with Dylan the Enigma. And perhaps answers to those unanswered questions will appear in succeeding volumes. --Barry Forshaw [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Chronicles: A Bob Dylan Series'
One would not anticipate a conventional memoir from Bob Dylan--indeed, one would not have foreseen an autobiography at all from the pen of the notoriously private legend. What Chronicles: Volume 1 delivers is an odd but ultimately illuminating memoir that is as impulsive, eccentric, and inspired as Dylan's greatest music.
Eschewing chronology and skipping over most of the "highlights" that his many biographers have assigned him, Dylan drifts and rambles through his tale, amplifying a series of major and minor epiphanies. If you're interested in a behind-the-scenes look at his encounters with the Beatles, look elsewhere. Dylan describes the sensation of hearing the group's "Do You Want to Know a Secret" on the radio, but devotes far more ink to a Louisiana shopkeeper named Sun Pie, who tells him, "I think all the good in the world might already been done" and sells him a World's Greatest Grandpa bumper sticker. Dylan certainly sticks to his own agenda--a newspaper article about journeymen heavyweights Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis and soul singer Joe Tex's appearance on The Tonight Show inspire heartfelt musings, and yet the 1963 assassination of John Kennedy prompts nary a word from the era's greatest protest singer.
For all the small revelations (it turns out he's been a big fan of Barry Goldwater, Mickey Rourke, and Ice-T), there are eye-opening disclosures, including his confession that a large portion of his recorded output was designed to alienate his audience and free him from the burden of being a "the voice of a generation."
Off the beaten path as it is, Chronicles is nevertheless an astonishing achievement. As revelatory in its own way as Blonde on Blonde or Highway 61 Revisited, it provides ephemeral insights into the mind one of the most significant artistic voices of the 20th century while creating a completely new set of mysteries. --Steven Stolder [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Complete Beatles Chronicle'
Marking the thirtieth anniversary of the break-up of the greatest group in the history of pop music, a new paperback edition of what has come to be regarded as the most authoritative document about the bank ever written, will be available. This much-acclaimed chronicle covers every working day of the Beatles' career, and author Mark Lewisohn, who is recognized as the world's leading authority on the subject, also includes track-by-track details of every Beatles recording session. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Creators/a History of Heroes of the Imagination'
Historian Daniel J. Boorstin brings his customary depth and range to this compelling book on Western art, taking on everything from European megaliths (Stonehenge, for example) to Benjamin Franklin's autobiography ("the first American addition to world literature"). Boorstin does not aim at being comprehensive--he much prefers to linger over certain "heroes of the imagination" as he surveys human accomplishment in the fields of architecture, music, painting, sculpting, and writing--yet The Creators certainly feels comprehensive, as Boorstin carefully places everything he describes within a grand tradition of aesthetic achievement.
Boorstin knows that good history demands good writing, and his prose makes this big book easy to absorb. "This is a story," he writes, "of how creators in all the arts have enlarged, embellished, fantasized, and filigreed our experience"--an apt description of the role art plays in our life and an equally apt description of the way Boorstin interprets it for readers. (The Creators also is the second volume of a trilogy that starts with The Discoverers and concludes with The Seekers, although none of these books requires any knowledge of the others.) --John J. Miller [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Development of Western Music: A History'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Development of Western Music'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Development of Western Music: An Anthology'
An abridged version of a text which presents the history of music in the western world. The text emphasizes the most important styles, composers and works. Features include: timelines; maps; anthologies; recordings; and "insights" which offer sidelights on topics ranging from Europe's National beginnings, to the Theremin and Ondes Martenot. The text is intended for music students, and is written in a clear and accessible style. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Folksongs of Britain and Ireland'
Edited by Peter Kennedy. Contains 360 songs from field recordings. In English, Manx, Lowland Scots, Scottish and Irish Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish, Channel Islands French, Romany and Tinker's Cants. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Freedom Principle: Jazz After 1958'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gyorgy Ligeti'
The Hungarian Gyorgy Ligeti (b. 1923) is one of the most highly regarded and influential of living composers. Having survived persecution as a Jew during World War II, he fled to West Germany during the Hungarian Revolution, where his early musical development was shaped by his work in the Cologne electronic studios and by the influence of Stockhausen. Rather than becoming too closely identified with any single school or movement, Ligeti's music has drawn on a divers range of sources, from the folk music of his native Hungary to African and South American World music. In works such as his Requiem, used in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, he has proved that contemporary classical music can be accessible to a wide audience. This stimulating biography discusses Ligeti within the context of the political and cultural history of postwar Europe, and places him firmly at the forefront of musical change and innovation over the past four decades. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hindemith, Hartmann and Henze'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The History of the Blues: The Roots, the Music, the People'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hymnal Companion to the Lutheran Book of Worship'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Igor Stravinsky, an Autobiography'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Igor Stravinsky'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In the Country of Country : People and Places in American Music'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Incompleat Folksinger'
Decades of work and travel have made him famous but he remains forever in tune with the folk. He describes his friends and inspirations, his conflicts with the bosses and the government, his favorite songs, stories, and instruments, and the kind of learning that comes from listening carefully. "Any fool can get complicated," he writes. "We are born in simplicity but die of complications."
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› Find signed collectible books: 'An Incomplete History of the Art of the Funerary Violin'
Tells the story of a music that emerged during the Protestant revolution in Europe, condemned by the Catholic Church for political and theological reasons, and of the Guild of Funerary Violinists. This work discusses the evolution of European culture, musical form, politics, changing attitudes to mortality, and the emotional effects of music. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'It Came from Memphis'
Perhaps no other city in America has provided more grist for the music sociology mill than Memphis, Tennessee. While Memphis has been the muse for some truly classic books (Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music, to name just one), the rhetoric surrounding "The Birthplace of Rock & Roll"--also "The Home of the Blues"--can be as daunting as a walk down the ravenously gentrified blues theme park that is Beale Street.
Enter Robert Gordon, a Memphis native and keen chronicler of the city's secret history. Gordon's It Came from Memphis all but ignores the Bluff City's oft-cited musical hierarchy--B.B. King, Elvis, Al Green et al.--in favor of its great unheralded eccentrics. You might not be familiar with the Insect Trust or Mudboy and the Neutrons, but Gordon argues--with empathy and wit--that you should be.
But music is only part of the story here. Whether it's Memphis's wrestling legend Sputnik Monroe, or the city's esoteric patron saint, artist-professor John McIntire, Gordon's shrewd eye sees the mojo in them all. In a way, Gordon's book is even more vital than the classic volumes on Memphis music that predate it. Where Guralnick interprets a musical tradition that is already firmly embedded in the American psyche, Gordon gives voice to a clandestine tradition that otherwise might go forgotten. --Matt Hanks [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'It Was Twenty Years Ago Today'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Jazz: A History of America's Music'
First off, let's get the kudos down: Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns deserve far more than simple gratitude for bringing jazz to the limelight with this lavishly illustrated volume. The book features among its 500-plus pictures many of the previously unseen shots of musicians and venues glimpsed in Burns's 10-part documentary, Jazz. (See our Ken Burns Jazz Store for the lowdown on the series.) Jazz: An Illustrated History follows the film episode by episode, and it's filled with rich historical detail in the early chapters. Like the series, however, the book trails off after a certain point in chronicling jazz's history. It gives background aplenty on early New Orleans music, the migration of jazz up the Mississippi to major urban centers, and the developments of swing and bebop. After bebop, the history gets a bit perfunctory. Dozens of major figures get mere sidebar coverage. Little is said of substance on Latin or Brazilian jazz, European contributions to the music, fusion, or umpteen smaller deviations from the mainstream. There are wonderful essays that highlight elements of jazz culture, particularly Gerald Early's consideration of race and white musicians in jazz and Gary Giddins's five-page essay on avant jazz. And there are fine sidebars as well. But developments during and after the 1960s are dealt with primarily in impressionistic guest essays rather than detail-oriented historical narrative. It is, of course, difficult to capture all jazz history in any single volume. So perhaps this ought to have been called Jazz: A Historical Appreciation, since the hundreds of images certainly create an intense sense of the music's milieu. --Andrew Bartlett [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Johannes Brahms: A Biography'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and the Culture of the Night'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and the Culture of the Night'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Life and Works of Beethoven'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lorenzo da Ponte'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Magnificence: Onstage at the Met Twenty Great Opera Productions'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-On Collision of Rock and Commerce'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Marrying Mozart'
Mannheim, 1777. The four Weber sisters, daughters of a musical family, share a crowded, artistic life in a ramshackle house. Their father scrapes by as a music copyist; their mother keeps a book of prospective suitors hidden in the kitchen. The sisters struggle with these marriage prospects as well as their musical futures-until one evening at their home, when 21-year- old Wolfgang Mozart walks into their lives.
No longer a prodigy and struggling to find his own place in the music world, Mozart is enthralled with the Weber sisters: Aloysias beauty and talent captivates him; Josefas rich voice inspires him; Sophie becomes his confidante; and Constanze comes to play a surprising role in his life.
Eighteenth-century Europe comes alive with unforgiving winters and yawning princes; scheming parents and the enduring passions of young talent. Set in Mannheim, Munich, Salzburg and Vienna, Marrying Mozart is the richly textured love story of a remarkable historical figure-and four young women who engaged his passion, his music, and his heart. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Met: One Hundred Years of Grand Opera'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Guide to the World of Opera'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Minimalists'
"Many do not consider minimalism to be an entirely respectable field of academic pursuit," admits author K. Robert Schwartz in his "Acknowledgments" in The Minimalists, a volume in the Phaidon Press Limited 20th Century Composers series. Minimalism, with its emphasis on seemingly endless repetition, can be physically damaging to those who attempt to perform it either vocally or instrumentally, and is terminally boring to those unable to tune into its subtle charms. On the other hand, it's tremendously popular, and has won new audiences to the concert hall and opera house. Schwartz explores the lives and work of America's two leading minimalists, Steve Reich and Philip Glass, in depth, and looks at seven other practitioners--La Monte Young, Terry Riley, John Adams, Meredith Monk, Michael Nyman, Louis Andriessen, and Arvo Part--more lightly. There are some amusing side trips here (Philip Glass refuses to acknowledge any intellectual debts to his predecessors; his predecessors object to his attitude), and a wealth of detail on these composers, their foibles, and what they're trying to achieve with their music. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Music in Renaissance Ferrara, 1400-1505'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Music through the Renaissance'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Musical Instruments from the Renaissance to the 19th Century'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'New Directions in Music'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan'
Robert Shelton, a critic for the New York Times in 1961, caught an early Bob Dylan gig at Folk City in Greenwich Village and wrote an effusive review for the newspaper. The coverage in the Times was a huge boost to the career of the then-struggling folksinger, and Shelton and Dylan became friends, seeing each other frequently around the Village folk scene. When Shelton, in the 1980s, finally got around to finishing his full-length biography of Dylan, he could draw upon a wealth of insider stories from the early days. The book is naturally strongest when describing Dylan's early career, from his coffeehouse gigs as a Woody Guthrie disciple to the insanely high artistic peaks of the mid-'60s. A particularly engaging passage concerns a freeform interview Shelton conducted with Dylan as they flew high above the Midwest in early 1966; Shelton's memories of Dylan are essential reading for fans. Shelton saw much less of the notoriously private Dylan as the years passed, and the book loses momentum as he becomes less of an eyewitness and more of a distant observer, though Dylan's story is credibly told up through the mid-1980s. --Robert McNamara [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Npr Classical Music Companion: An Essential Guide for Enlightened Listening'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Polish Renaissance'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Race against Time: The Diaries of F.S. Kelly'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rave on: The Biography of Buddy Holly'
Though only 22 years old when he died, Buddy Holly has become a legend in rock-and-roll history. In Rave On, writer Philip Norman proposes that Holly was even more influential in the genre's development than previously credited. Though popular in the United States, his subtle style and earnest charm were overshadowed by the more flamboyant Elvis Presley. Holly's aura of mystery was much more suited to England, which was still recovering from post-war depression, and his reception there was unprecedented. His music played a major role in igniting English youth, and his low-key approach to energized rhythms and rebellion influenced many groups--including the Beatles--to play rock-and-roll. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century'
In 1983, Rolling Stone Press introduced its first Rock & Roll Encyclopedia. Almost two decades later, it has become the premier guide to the history of rock & roll, and has been selected by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame & Museum as its official source of information. Giving full coverage to all aspects of the rock scene, it tells the story of rock & roll in a clear and easy reference format, including complete discographies, personnel changes for every band, and backstage information like date and place of birth, from Elvis Presley to Eminem.
Since the last edition, the music scene has exploded in every area, from boy-bands to hip-hop, electronica to indie rock. Here, the Encyclopedia explores them all -- 'NSync, Notorious B.I.G., Ricky Martin, Radiohead, Britney Spears, Blink-182, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Portishead, Fatboy Slim, Fiona Apple, Lil' Kim, Limp Bizkit, Oasis, Outkast, Yo La Tengo, TLC, and many, many more. The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Third Edition includes all the facts, phenomena, and flukes that make up the history of rock. Accompanying the biographical and discographical information on the nearly 2,000 artists included in this edition are incisive essays that reveal the performers' musical influences, first breaks, and critical and commercial hits and misses, as well as evaluations of their place in rock history. Filled with hundreds of historical photos, The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia is more than just a reference book, it is the bible of rock & roll. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll: The Definitive History of the Most Important Artists and Their Music'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rolling With the Stones'
Of his own choosing, Bill Wyman's career as a founding member of the Rolling Stones has achieved a perspective that his legendary bandmates don't yet enjoy: a beginning, middle, and end. Indeed, the musicians once hailed as the greatest rock & roll band in the world have become more like the band that wouldn't die. But history can't be denied, and the man born William Perks of Lower Sydenham, London, has lovingly assembled this over-500-page book, equal parts memoir and lavishly illustrated coffee-table tome, with a winning mix of clear-eyed reportage (based on his own voluminous diaries) and an eye for colorful detail and ephemera worthy of a proud family scrapbook. Which, in many ways, Rolling with the Stones most resembles: family--and musical--trees are acknowledged, career moves dissected, deaths mourned, and triumphs and foibles alike are dispensed with equal candor. Wyman deflates the myth of the Stones as rock's preternatural bad boys (a conservative, sensationalist press made it all too easy to live down to expectations) yet allows the tragic legend of band founder Brian Jones to assume its proper perspective. A half-decade older than his bandmates, the retired Stone has few illusions about the band's true cultural impact and creative arc, devoting nearly three-quarters of the book to the Stones' first, turbulent decade. What is more gratifying is that he avoids the myopic constraints of the similarly sized Beatles Anthology, generously weaving the recollections of band members, associates, family, reporters, and even fan letters into a narrative whose outline is epic, but whose viewpoint has a decidedly human scale. --Jerry McCulley [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Romantic Generation'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rough Mix: An Unapologetic Look at the Music Business and How It Got That Way-A Lifetime in the World of Rock, Pop, and Country As Told by One of the Industry's'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Shostakovich: A Life Remembered'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Singer of Tales'
This 40th anniversary edition of Albert Lord's classic work includes a unique enhancement: a CD containing the original audio recordings of all the passages of heroic songs quoted in the book; a video publication of the kinescopic filming of the most valued of the singers; and selected photographs taken during Milman Parry's collecting trips in the Balkans.
Parry began recording and studying a live tradition of oral narrative poetry in order to find an answer to the age-old Homeric Question: How had the author of the Iliad and Odyssey composed these two monumental epic poems at the very start of Europe's literary tradition? Parry's, and with him Lord's, enduring contribution--set forth in Lord's The Singer of Tales--was to demonstrate the process by which oral poets compose.
Now reissued with a new Introduction and an invaluable audio and visual record, this widely influential book is newly enriched to better serve everyone interested in the art and craft of oral literature.
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