Download or read book A Shirt Box Full of Songs written by Barbara Dickson and published by Headline. This book was released on 2012-05-24 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From singing to the postman when she was two years old to her annual sell-out tours in the 2000s, Barbara Dickson has been captivating her fans for the best part of sixty years. In her autobiography she describes the joys of growing up in Fife with her talented brother and loving parents, of moving to Edinburgh to find her place in the world and the stresses and strains of trying to make a living on the Scottish folk scene. Not content to have just a successful singing career, she turned to another: acting. A regular on prime-time television, Barbara also took to musicals and was the original lead role in Spend, Spend, Spend. Her hugely successful time onstage earned her many acting accolades but her pursuit of perfection led to complete exhaustion from which she fought hard to recover. Barbara writes beautifully about the close relationships she cultivated over these years with people such as Willy Russell, Elaine Paige and Billy Connolly. The result is a warm, fascinating story encompassing the best of British music, stage and television.

Download or read book Dire Straits on Track written by Andrew Wild and published by Sonicbond Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2022-08-11 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1979 was an amazing time for post-punk pop. At the end of March, a fresh new sound entered the UK top 20. It was ‘Sultans of Swing’, a very wordy song with lots of driving guitar, a tight rhythm section and some killer musicianship. Dire Straits, unlikely pop stars led by a 29-year-old Geordie who could play guitar brilliantly, had finally arrived. Six years later, they were, for a time, the biggest band in the world. Brothers in Arms sold by the truckload, one of the first massive sellers on CD. Since then, however, their star has fallen. Over exposure as the safe, boring champions of the CD age has resulted in Dire Straits becoming, to many, the embodiment of a certain sort of benign, homogenised music. Mark Knopfler, their singer, guitarist, producer and songwriter, became a caricature of the middle-aged rocker in the minds of many. Their music remains stubbornly unfashionable but retains its huge fanbase. Dire Straits On Track revisits, re-evaluates and contextualises the band’s six studio albums and two live albums, as well as EPs and archive releases. Seven ex-members of Dire Straits have been interviewed for this book, providing fresh perspective and insight. The band made a huge amount of good music; it’s time it was reappraised. Andrew Wild is a music collector and experienced writer with several books to his name, including Crosby, Stills & Nash (Sonicbond, 2020), The Solo Beatles (Sonicbond 2020) and Queen On Track (Sonicbond 2018). He's been a fan of Dire Straits since seeing them perform the forgotten single 'Skateaway' on the kids’ Saturday morning TV show Multi-Coloured Swap Shop in spring 1981. He lives in Rainow, Cheshire, UK.

Download or read book Joel Whitburn s Pop Annual 1955 1999 written by Joel Whitburn and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 942 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A must for every music enthusiast's bookshelf, our new Pop Annual 1955-1999 is a year-by-year ranking, in numerical order according to the highest chart position reached, of the 23,070 singles that peaked on Billboard's pop singles charts ("Hot 100," "Best Sellers in Stores," "Most Played by Jockeys," "Most Played in Juke Boxes" and "Top 100") from January, 1955 through December, 1999. Features comprehensive, essential chart data and more arranged for fast, easy reference. All new features include: the names of the songwriters for every title that ever made the "Hot 100" or any of Billboard's other pop charts since 1955! All titles from Billboard's "Hot 100 Airplay" and "Hot 100 Sales" charts that did not make the "Hot 100" are now included in a special year-end wrap-up at the end of the yearly rankings. The special bonus section also features: Top 500 artists ranking * charted Christmas singles section * Academy Award and Grammy Award-winning songs and records * complete alphabetical song title list * other artist, songwriter and record achievements.

Download or read book Gerry Rafferty written by W Connolly and published by Blurb. This book was released on 2021-06-04 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gerald 'Gerry' Rafferty, born on 16th April 1947, Underwood Lane, Ferguslie Park, Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, UK was a musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. His solo hits of the late '70s included Baker Street, Right Down the Line and Night Owl, following another with the band Stealers Wheel during 1973, 'Stuck in the Middle with You'. Gerry's mum taught him Irish and Scottish folk songs when he was growing up, later being influenced by The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Rafferty joined the folk-pop group The Humblebums in 1969 then recorded his 1st solo album, Can I Have My Money Back? after they folded during 1971. Gerry formed the group Stealers Wheel with Joe Egan the following year, having several hits, including Stuck in the Middle with You and Star. Rafferty recorded his 2nd solo L.P, City to City in 1978, which produced Baker Street, his biggest hit.

Download or read book Cider With Roadies written by Stuart Maconie and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cider with Roadies is the true story of a boy's obsessive relationship with pop. A life lived through music from Stuart's audience with the Beatles (aged 3); his confessions as a pubescent prog rocker; a youthful gymnastic dalliance with northern soul; the radical effects of punk on his politics, homework and trouser dimensions; playing in crap bands and failing to impress girls; writing for the NME by accident; living the sex, drugs (chiefly lager in a plastic glass) and rock and roll lifestyle; discovering the tawdry truth behind the glamour and knowing when to ditch it all for what really matters. From Stuart's four minutes in a leisure centre with MC Hammer to four days in a small van with Napalm Death it's a life-affirming journey through the land where ordinary life and pop come together to make music.

Download or read book The Song Remains the Same written by Andrew Ford and published by La Trobe University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-02 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illuminating history of the song for every kind of music lover Often today, the word ‘song’ is used to describe all music. A free-jazz improvisation, a Hindustani raga, a movement from a Beethoven symphony: apparently, they’re all songs. But they’re not. From Sia to Springsteen, Archie Roach to Amy Winehouse, a song is a specific musical form. It’s not so much that they all have verses and choruses – though most of them do – but that they are all relatively short and self-contained; they have beginnings, middles and ends; they often have a single point of view, message or story; and, crucially, they unite words and music. Thus, a Schubert song has more in common with a track by Joni Mitchell or Rihanna than with one of Schubert’s own symphonies. The Song Remains the Same traces these connections through seventy-five songs from different cultures and times: love songs, anthems, protest songs, lullabies, folk songs, jazz standards, lieder and pop hits; ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ to ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘Jerusalem’ to ‘Jolene’. Unpicking their inner workings makes familiar songs strange again, explaining and restoring the wonder, joy (or possibly loathing) the reader experienced on first hearing. ‘As much about singing, musicianship and recording as it is about songwriting, this eclectic ride through a unique choice of songs (everyone will argue for alternatives) is cleverly curated and littered with intriguing details about the creators and their times, filled with loving cross-references to other songs and deft musical analysis. I defy anyone not to leap online to listen to the unfamiliar, or re-listen to old favourites in light of new detail. One of the best games in this book is figuring out why one song follows the other: there’s always an intelligent, often very funny, link.’ —Robyn Archer

Download or read book The Yacht Rock Book written by Greg Prato and published by Jawbone Press. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘It’s amazing that this style came to be. Can you imagine being a struggling musician back then? It must take an incredible amount of restraint to play that gently.’ —Actor/comedian Fred Armisen, from his foreword to this book Just what is ‘yacht rock,’ you ask? Perhaps the easiest description is music that would not sound out of place being played while carousing aboard a yacht back in the good old days. But these songs were also some of the top pop gems of the 1970s and '80s. And while some associate yacht rock’s biggest songs with one-hit wonder artists, several of rock’s most renowned artists fall under this category, too - including Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Steely Dan, Hall & Oates, The Doobie Brothers, Toto, and more. Yacht rock seemed to have become extinct by the early twenty-first century … until a comedic video series, simply titled Yacht Rock, went viral and introduced captain’s hats and blazers to a whole new generation - as well as the emergence of a popular cover band, the Yacht Rock Revue, and of course, Jimmy Fallon’s on-air admiration of all things yacht rock. Now, yacht rock is one of the most celebrated ‘yesteryear’ styles of pop music, and has resonated with a new generation of musicians (including the Fred Armisen/Bill Hader-led Blue Jean Committee and soul/funk/electronica crossover act Thundercat). But despite all the hoopla, there has never been a book that told the entire story of the genre. Until now. Featuring interviews with many of the heavy hitters of the genre, including John Oates, Kenny Loggins, and Don Felder, The Yacht Rock Book leaves no sail unturned. This is the definitive story of the yacht rock’s creation, rise, chart-smashing success, fall, and stunning rebirth.

Download or read book The Story of Music written by Howard Goodall and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did prehistoric people start making music? What does every postwar pop song have in common? A “masterful” tour of music through the ages (Booklist, starred review). Music is an intrinsic part of everyday life, and yet the history of its development from single notes to multi-layered orchestration can seem bewilderingly specialized and complex. In his dynamic tour through 40,000 years of music, from prehistoric instruments to modern-day pop, Howard Goodall does away with stuffy biographies, unhelpful labels, and tired terminology. Instead, he leads us through the story of music as it happened, idea by idea, so that each musical innovation—harmony, notation, sung theater, the orchestra, dance music, recording, broadcasting—strikes us with its original force. He focuses on what changed when and why, picking out the discoveries that revolutionized man-made sound and bringing to life musical visionaries from the little-known Pérotin to the colossus of Wagner. Along the way, he also gives refreshingly clear descriptions of what music is and how it works: what scales are all about, why some chords sound discordant, and what all post-war pop songs have in common. The story of music is the story of our urge to invent, connect, rebel—and entertain. Howard Goodall's beautifully clear and compelling account is both a hymn to human endeavor and a groundbreaking map of our musical journey.

Download or read book Princess Victoria Melita written by Van der Kiste and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-10-21 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Princess Victoria Melita played a colourful role from her birth in 1876. The second daughter of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, she made a brief and unhappy marriage at the age of 17 to her cousin, Ernest, Grand Duke of Hesse. In the face of strong opposition from her family she divorced him seven years later and married another cousin, Grand Duke Cyril of Russia, resulting in three years of exile. When revolution toppled the empire in 1917, the Grand Duke and Duchess and their children escaped to Finland, living in danger for three long years. Following the atrocities of the Bolsheviks at the time, including the murder of most of the Romanov family, the Grand Duke believed he was the senior surviving member of the imperial house, and proclaimed himself Tsar. However, they were never able to return to their homeland, and the Grand Duchess died in exile in 1936. Using previously unpublished correspondence from the Royal Archives and Astor papers, this is a portrait of the Princess, set against the imperial courst of the turn of the 20th century and inter-war Europe.

Download or read book The Tracks of My Years written by Ken Bruce and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-09-04 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From his childhood in 1950s Glasgow, when he was affectionately known to his older brothers as ‘the wee bastard’, to his wildnerness years as an accountant when he longed to achieve his dream and join the BBC, Tracks of My Years tells the story of Ken Bruce's remarkable career. Starting work for Radio Scotland in 1977, he was soon interviewing legends like Sean Connery, Billy Connolly and Peter Ustinov, and in the eighties was lured to Radio 2 to take over Terry Wogan’s spot. He has been with the station ever since. Ken writes with insight into the world of radio and delivers lots of brilliant anecdotes from his interviews with celebrities as diverse as Rod Stewart, Keane and Burt Bacharach, who came out with the immortal line (edited out of the final version) “Phil Spector never put a foot wrong,” before adding thoughtfully, “until he shot that girl, of course.” He also writes about bringing up his autistic son and – unusually – the happiness it brings him and his wife and the many positives of what is so often portrayed as a heartbreaking situation.

Download or read book Rock Doc written by Neil Ratner and published by . This book was released on 2020-11-25 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ROCK DOC will take you from backstage at a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon concert in the early seventies, where Neil's production company, Circus Talents, Ltd. was providing production services, to the office operating rooms of elite New York surgeons where Neil Ratner MD was Director of Anesthesia.As a teenager, Neil was an aspiring rock n' roll drummer but ended up on the other side of the business working as both a tour manager for Emerson, Lake, & Palmer and providing production for the Pink Floyd. After a bad attack of kidney stones and a stint in the hospital, Neil had an epiphany and decided to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a doctor. He finished college, learnt Spanish, spent four years at a medical school in Mexico, completed two years of surgical training and an anesthesia residency, and helped create the new specialty of office-based anesthesia in Manhattan. In doing so, Dr. Ratner became an expert in the use of the new drug, Propofol, a drug that would play a significant role in Neil's future.Although Dr. Ratner encountered many celebrities in his anesthesia practice, one would change his life... Michael Jackson. Eight years after establishing his anesthesia practice, Michael Jackson walked into an office in which Neil was the Director of Anesthesia. Neil became a trusted friend of Michael's from 1994 to 2002, periodically going on tour and spending time with Michael at Neverland. Read in ROCK DOC how their relationship profoundly affected both...Rock Doc is Neil's remarkable journey about Rock & Roll and Michael Jackson, Nelson Mandela, a prison sentence with very unexpected results and how helping the poorest of the poor became a key part of his life.

Download or read book The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia written by Michael Gray and published by Continuum. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia is one of the most wide-ranging, informed, entertaining, provocative, and compulsively readable books ever written about popular music. It's the culmination of over thirty years of dedicated research and scholarship by Michael Gray. Inside these pages, you'll find a world of ideas, facts, and opinions. It's a world in which Baudelaire flows on from the Basement Tapes and A.S. Byatt looks out at the Byrds; in which Far from the Madding Crowd follows Ezekiel and Bob Geldof introduces Jean Genet; and in which Hank and William Carlos Williams stand side by side while J.R.R. Tolkien trails the Titanic. Most of all, of course, it's a world in which everyone and everything interconnects, in endlessly fascinating ways, with one of our greatest living artists: Bob Dylan. Click here to read an interview with Michael Gray: http://www.continuumbooks.com/news/details.aspx?NewsID=202&ImprintID=2&CountryID=2&ReturnType=2 "Michael Gray... probably Dylan's single most assiduous critic." - New York Review of Books "Fans of Bob Dylan have a multitude of choices when it comes to biographies and retrospectives, but author Michael Gray outdistances them all with this voluminous collection of all things Dylan. ... Insightful and entertaining, Gray's tome will broaden appreciation of the artist, his influences and his legacy." -Publishers Weekly (starred review) "...has all you need to know, and more" -Richard Corliss, Time "This is no mere catalog of facts, but a work of oceanic immersion. It has wit, opinion, style, and asks to be read, not just consulted." -Village Voice "Deeply impressive...destined to be the most important Dylan book, bar none."-Gerry Smith, The Dylan Daily "Utterly idiosyncratic." -Janet Maslin, New York Times "Amazingly well-researched and surprisingly readable work." -Library Journal (starred review) "Door-stopping detail." -Toronto Star "Magnificent...won't just astonish readers with its detail about Dylan's work...contains so many insights and refutes so many myths about the rock 'n' roll era in general that it's invaluable as both a reference guide and a personality study." -Nashville City Paper "Comprehensive and up-to-date." -Slate

Download or read book The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits 9th Edition written by Joel Whitburn and published by Billboard Books. This book was released on 2010-10-05 with total page 914 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Essential Reference Guide to America’s Most Popular Songs and Artists Spanning More than Fifty Years of Music Beginning with Bill Haley & His Comets’ seminal “Rock Around the Clock” all the way up to Lady Gaga and her glammed-out “Poker face,” this updated and unparalleled resource contains the most complete chart information on every artist and song to hit Billboard’s Top 40 pop singles chart all the way back to 1955. Inside, you’ll find all of the biggest-selling, most-played hits for the past six decades. Each alphabetized artist entry includes biographical info, the date their single reached the Top 40, the song’s highest position, and the number of weeks on the charts, as well as the original record label and catalog number. Other sections—such as “Record Holders,” “Top Artists by Decade,” and “#1 Singles 1955-2009”—make The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits the handiest and most indispensable music reference for record collectors, trivia enthusiasts, industry professionals and pop music fans alike. Did you know? • Beyoncé’s 2003 hit “Crazy in Love” spent 24 weeks in the Top 40 and eight of them in the #1 spot. • Billy Idol has had a total of nine Top 40 hits over his career, the last being “Cradle of Love” in 1990. • Of Madonna’s twelve #1 hits, her 1994 single “Take a Bow” held the spot the longest, for seven weeks—one week longer than her 1984 smash “Like a Virgin.” • Marvin Gaye’s song “Sexual Healing” spent 15 weeks at #3 in 1982, while the same song was #1 on the R&B chart for 10 weeks. • Male vocal group Boyz II Men had three of the biggest chart hits of all time during the 1990s. • The Grateful Dead finally enjoyed a Top 10 single in 1987 after 20 years of touring. • Janet Jackson has scored an impressive 39 Top 40 hits—one more than her megastar brother Michael!

Download or read book Jeff Lynne written by John Van der Kiste and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2017-01-21 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book So You Think You Know Rock and Roll written by Peter E. Meltzer and published by Skyhorse. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rolling Stone magazine recently released its list of the 100 greatest albums in rock music history, a period spanning more than fifty years. Nearly 60 percent of those albums were released in the decade from 1965 to 1975—the golden age of classic rock. This book is a wide-ranging portrait of that transformative and remarkable time, from the dawn of the singer-songwriter era to days before disco. This book is presented in a question-and-answer format, but it is hardly a “trivia” book. It covers such diverse topics as censorship, chart phenomena, album covers, rock groupies, manufactured bands, one-hit wonders, rock festivals, supergroups, novelty songs, and the Beatles. All of the major figures of the ‘60s and ‘70s are here: Cream, CCR, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel, the Who, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, Queen, Neil Young, the Eagles, the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Linda Ronstadt, Pink Floyd, Billy Joel, Marvin Gaye, David Bowie, James Taylor, Carole King, Aretha Franklin, Lou Reed, Carly Simon, Laura Nyro, and many others. Exhaustively researched, So You Think You Know Rock and Roll? is filled with “I never knew that!” moments on every page.

Download or read book Unstrung Heroes written by Pete Braidis and published by Schiffer + ORM. This book was released on 2016-06-28 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interviews with 50 guitar players you've no doubt heard but may not know by name Guitar players from pop to jazz to heavy metal and folk, from the 1960s to the present day An insider's look behind the scenes of some of the greatest music ever recorded

Download or read book The Encyclopedia of Popular Music written by Colin Larkin and published by Omnibus Press. This book was released on 2011-05-27 with total page 4183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text presents a comprehensive and up-to-date reference work on popular music, from the early 20th century to the present day.