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Showing 81 - 100 of 1883 items
By Robert M. Scotto. 2007
Biography of musician Moondog, Louis Thomas Hardin Jr. (1916-1999), who was blinded at age sixteen. Discusses his rise from being…
a Viking-garbed, homeless street musician in New York City in the 1960s to becoming a Columbia Records pop-music sensation and master composer for European orchestras. 2007By Brad Tolinski. 2021
Get a completely new look at guitar legend Eddie Van Halen with this groundbreaking oral history, composed of more than…
fifty hours of interviews with Eddie himself as well as his family, friends, and colleagues. When rock legend Eddie Van Halen died of cancer on October 6, 2020, the entire world seemed to stop and grieve. Since his band Van Halen burst onto the scene with their self-titled debut album in 1978, Eddie had been hailed as an icon not only to fans of rock music and heavy metal, but to performers across all genres and around the world. Van Halen's debut sounded unlike anything that listeners had heard before and remains a quintessential rock album of the era. Over the course of more than four decades, Eddie gained renown for his innovative guitar playing, and particularly for popularizing the tapping guitar solo technique. Unfortunately for Eddie and his legions of fans, he died before he was ever able to put his life down to paper in his own words, and much of his compelling backstory has remained elusive—until now. In Eruption, music journalists Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill share with fans, new and old alike, a candid, compulsively readable, and definitive oral history of the most influential rock guitarist since Jimi Hendrix. It is based on more than 50+ hours of unreleased interviews they recorded with Eddie Van Halen over the years, most of them conducted at the legendary 5150 studios at Ed's home in Los Angeles. The heart of Eruption is drawn from these intimate and wide-ranging talks, as well as conversations with family, friends, and colleagues. In addition to discussing his greatest triumphs as a groundbreaking musician, including an unprecedented dive into Van Halen's masterpiece 1984 , the book also takes an unflinching look at Edward's early struggles as young Dutch immigrant unable to speak the English language, which resulted in lifelong issues with social anxiety and substance abuse. Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen also examines his brilliance as an inventor who changed the face of guitar manufacturing. As entertaining as it is revealing, Eruption is the closest readers will ever get to hearing Eddie's side of the story when it comes to his extraordinary lifeAward-winning music critic celebrates the sounds, people, and events of the years 1936 through 1938, as America emerged from the…
Great Depression. In a series of brief narratives, Orgill chronicles Amelia Earhart's around-the-world flight attempts, Joe Louis's triumph over German boxer Max Schmeling, and the rise of big bands. 2008By Mark Ribowsky. 2010
Portrait of the legendary blind Motown musician (born 1950) from his impoverished childhood to his sixtieth year. Traces his musical…
development; his long relationship with Motown Records, which began when he was eleven; and his political activism, womanizing, and descents into depression. Some strong language. 2010By Barry Cooper. 2008
This chronological narrative integrates events from the private life of German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) with study of his…
devotion to music. Discusses the effects of Beethoven's increasing deafness on his social interactions and composition. 2000By George Jellinek. 2007
Autobiography of George Jellinek (1919-2010), who hosted a weekly syndicated radio show, The Vocal Scene, in New York City from…
1969-2004. Reminisces about his Hungarian childhood before the onset of World War II, fleeing to America, and serving in the U.S. Army. Discusses his career in the opera world. 2007By Julian Rushton. 2006
A concise biography of Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) with analysis of his masterpieces. Covers his genius in all…
musical genres--chamber, church, orchestral, and theatrical--his prolific output, European tours, and early death at age thirty-six. 2006By Mary Gabriel. 2023
In this riveting biography, award-winning author Mary Gabriel chronicles the meteoric rise and enduring influence of the greatest female pop…
icon of the modern era: Madonna. With her arrival on the music scene in the early 1980s, Madonna generated nothing short of an explosion—as great as that of Elvis or the Beatles—taking the nation by storm with her liberated politics and breathtaking talent. Within two years of her 1983 debut album, a flagship Macy's store in Manhattan held a Madonna lookalike contest featuring Andy Warhol as a judge, and opened a department called "Madonna-land." But Madonna was more than just a pop star. Everywhere, fans gravitated to her as an emblem of a new age, one in which feminism could shed the buttoned-down demeanor of the 1970s and feel relevant to a new generation. Amid the scourge of AIDS, she brought queer identities into the mainstream, fiercely defending a person's right to love whomever—and be whoever—they wanted. Despite fierce criticism, she never separated her music from her political activism. And, as an artist, she never stopped experimenting. Madonna existed to push past boundaries by creating provocative, visionary music, videos, films, and live performances that changed culture globally. Deftly tracing Madonna's story from her Michigan roots to her rise to super-stardom, master biographer Mary Gabriel captures the dramatic life and achievements of one of the greatest artists of our timeBy Malcolm Boyd. 2006
Biography of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) depicts the unique connection between his music and the circumstances under which…
it was written. First published in 1983, this third edition, which marks the 250th anniversary of Bach's death, incorporates chronological refinements, other revisions, and an expanded bibliography. 2000By Eric Siblin. 2009
A pop music critic recounts his infatuation with Bach's Cello Suites and search for the original manuscript. Explores the contrasting…
lives of composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and cello virtuoso Pablo Casals (1876-1973), who discovered and recorded the suites. Includes interviews with cellists about the works' performance challenges. 2009By Thomas Quasthoff. 2008
German bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff reminisces about his private and public experiences--such as having thalidomide disabilities, being denied admission to the…
Music Academy, and singing his way from a body cast to a Grammy Award. Discusses jazz, American popular music, classical composers, physical impairments, prestigious competitions, and international performances. 2004By Ann Angel. 2010
Biography of Janis Joplin (1943-1970) chronicles her successful music career and provides insight into her personal life and emotional vulnerabilities.…
Discusses Joplin's drug and alcohol addictions and death of an overdose at age twenty-seven. For junior and senior high and older readers. YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction. 2010By Larry Starr. 2011
Examines the contributions American composer George Gershwin (1898-1937) made to Broadway musicals, analyzing three major shows--Lady Be Good!, Of Thee…
I Sing, and Porgy and Bess--among others. Discusses Gershwin's musical training, concert-hall experience, collaboration with his brother Ira, and popular songs. 2011By Jody Rosen. 2002
When Irving Berlin first conceived the song "White Christmas," he envisioned it as a "throwaway" -- a satirical novelty number…
for a vaudeville-style stage revue. By the time Bing Crosby introduced the tune in the winter of 1942, it had evolved into something far grander: the stately yuletide ballad that would become the world's all-time top-selling and most widely recorded song. In this vividly written narrative, Jody Rosen provides both the fascinating story behind the making of America's favorite Christmas carol and a cultural history of the nation that embraced it. Berlin, the Russian-Jewish immigrant who became his adopted country's greatest pop troubadour, had written his magnum opus -- what one commentator has called a "holiday Moby-Dick" -- a timeless song that resonates with some of the deepest themes in American culture: yearning for a mythic New England past, belief in the magic of the "merry and bright" Christmas season, longing for the havens of home and hearth. Today, the song endures not just as an icon of the national Christmas celebration but as the artistic and commercial peak of the golden age of popular song, a symbol of the values and strivings of the World War II generation, and of the saga of Jewish-American assimilation. With insight and wit, Rosen probes the song's musical roots, uncovering its surprising connections to the radition of blackface minstrelsy and exploring its unique place in popular culture through six decades of recordings by everyone from Bing Crosby to Elvis Presley to *NSYNC. White Christmas chronicles the song's legacy from jaunty ragtime-era Tin Pan Alley to the elegant world of midcentury Broadway and Hollywood, from the hardscrabble streets where Irving Berlin was reared to the battlefields of World War II where American GIs made "White Christmas" their wartime anthem, and from the Victorian American past that the song evokes to the twenty-first-century present where Berlin's masterpiece lives on as a kind of secular hymnBy Tony Bennett. 2012
Winner of seventeen Grammy Awards, singer Bennett (born 1926) reminisces about growing up in New York City, his sixty years…
in the entertainment industry, and his friendships with musicians. Forward by Mitch Albom, author of The Time Keeper (DB 75616). 2012By Cissy Houston. 2013
Grammy Award-winning gospel singer Cissy Houston recalls the life of her daughter, singer/actress Whitney (1963-2012). Discusses Whitney's career and family…
relationships, including her tumultuous marriage to fellow entertainer Bobby Brown. Speculates on Whitney's drug use and the pitfalls of fame. Foreword by Dionne Warwick. 2013By Jonathan Cott. 2013
Rolling Stone magazine editor details his dinner with music virtuoso Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) in November 1989--the last long interview the…
composer gave before his death the following October. Recounts Bernstein's discussions on the state of music performance and contemporary popular personalities such as John Lennon and the Beatles. 2013By David Wild, Brad Paisley. 2012
Grammy-winning country-music star chronicles his development as an entertainer, beginning with the gift of his first guitar from his grandfather.…
Details his personal life and profiles the people--famous and not--who have influenced him, including Buck Owens, Vince Gill, and Steve Wariner. 2011By James Bowen. 2013
London street musician and recovering drug addict Bowen recounts his 2007 discovery of an injured stray cat he named Bob,…
with whom he became inseparable. Describes the ways the companions have helped each other and become known around the world. Bestseller. 2013By Rita Moreno. 2013
Eighty-two-year-old Hispanic recipient of Oscar, Tony, Emmy, and Grammy awards reflects on her life. Describes moving to New York with…
her Puerto Rican single mother and breaking into acting as a teen. Discusses her two great loves--Brando and her husband--and parenthood. Some strong language and some descriptions of sex. 2013