Download or read book Fire and Rain written by David Browne and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2012-07-24 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set against a backdrop of world-changing historical and political events, Fire and Rain tells the extraordinary story of one pivotal year in the lives and music of four legendary artists, and reveals how these artists and their songs both shaped and reflected their times. Drawing on interviews, rare recordings, and newly discovered documents, acclaimed journalist David Browne “allows us to see—and to hear—the elusive moment when the '60s became the '70s in a completely fresh way” (Mark Harris, author of Pictures at a Revolution).

Download or read book More Songwriters on Songwriting written by Paul Zollo and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The long-awaited sequel to Songwriters on Songwriting, often called "the songwriter's bible," More Songwriters on Songwriting goes to the heart of the creative process with in-depth interviews with many of the world's greatest songwriters. Covering every genre of popular music from folk, rock 'n' roll, Broadway, jazz, pop, and modern rock, this is a remarkable journey through some sixty years of popular songwriting: from Leiber & Stoller's genius rock 'n' roll collaborations and Richard Sherman's Disney songs to Kenny Gamble's Philly Sound; Norman Whitfield's Motown classics; Loretta Lynn's country standards; expansive folk music from Peter, Paul, and Mary; folk-rock from Stephen Stills; confessional gems from James Taylor; poetic excursions form Patti Smith; Beatles magic from Ringo Starr; expansive brilliance from Paul Simon; complex melodic greatness from Brian Wilson; the most untrustworthy narrator alive in Randy Newman; the dark rock theater of both Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie; the sophisticated breadth of Elvis Costello; the legendary jazz of Herbie Hancock; the soulful swagger of of Chrissie Hynde; the funny-poignant beauty of John Prine; the ancient wisdom fused with hip-hop and reggae of Matisyahu; and much more. In all of it is the collective wisdom of those who have written songs for decades, songs that have impacted our culture forever.

Download or read book Girls Against God written by Jenny Hval and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A genre-warping, time-travelling horror novel-slash-feminist manifesto for fans of Clarice Lispector and Jeanette Winterson. Welcome to 1990s Norway. White picket fences run in neat rows and Christian conservatism runs deep. But as the Artist considers her work, things start stirring themselves up. In a corner of Oslo a coven of witches begin cooking up some curses. A time-travelling Edvard Munch arrives in town to join a death metal band, closely pursued by the teenaged subject of his painting Puberty, who has murder on her mind. Meanwhile, out deep in the forest, a group of school girls get very lost and things get very strange. And awful things happen in aspic. Jenny Hval's latest novel is a radical fusion of queer feminist theory and experimental horror, and a unique treatise on magic, writing and art. "Strange and lyrical. Hval’s writing is surreal and rich with the grotesque banalities of human existence." —Publishers Weekly "The themes of alienation, queerness, and the unsettling nature of desire align Hval with modern mainstays like Chris Kraus, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Maggie Nelson." —Pitchfork

Download or read book When We Get to Surf City written by Bob Greene and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-05-13 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a dazzling and exhilarating display of narrative on-the-road reporting, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Bob Greene takes readers on an unforgettable American journey of music, memories, and universal longing. Running away to join the circus is a dream we're told to put away once we're no longer young. But, as Bob Greene writes, "just when in our lives we give up on capturing the freedom and bright mornings of our world when it was new, sometimes something happens to keep the sun high in the sky a while longer. Sometimes we find something we weren't even aware we were looking for." For fifteen years beginning in the 1990s, Greene stepped into a universe that, out in the country every summer night, is hiding in plain sight: the touring world of the great early rock bands who gave America the car-radio and jukebox music it still loves best. Singing backup with the legendary Jan and Dean as they endlessly crisscross the nation, Greene takes us to football stadiums and minor-league ballparks, to no-name ice cream stands and midnight diners, to back roads and carnival midways as he tells a riveting story of great fame and lingering sorrow, of unexpected friendship and lasting dreams, of the things that keep us going in the face of all the things that threaten to stop us. Striking chords of recognition and yearning, When We Get to Surf City glistens with cameos by the men and women with whom Greene traveled the United States on his deliriously unlikely journey, including Chuck Berry, Martha and the Vandellas, the Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Beach Boys, the Monkees, the Kingsmen, James Brown, Lesley Gore, the Drifters, Little Eva, and the Coasters. All of them—not just the people on the stage, but the people in the audiences, too—are seeking their private versions of the mythical destination Jan and Dean came up with all those years ago: Surf City as the perfect, cloudless place we all believe is out there, if only we can find it. Hilarious and heartbreaking, moving and brilliant, this is the trip of a lifetime, a travelogue of the heart, accompanied by a thundering guitar chorus of Fender Stratocasters. It is a story destined to touch readers not just today, but for generations to come, as long as the music itself echoes.

Download or read book Lou Reed written by Anthony DeCurtis and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essential biography of one of music's most influential icons: Lou Reed. As lead singer and songwriter for the Velvet Underground and a renowned solo artist, Lou Reed invented alternative rock. His music, at once a source of transcendent beauty and coruscating noise, violated all definitions of genre while speaking to millions of fans and inspiring generations of musicians. But while his iconic status may be fixed, the man himself was anything but. Lou Reed's life was a transformer's odyssey. Eternally restless and endlessly hungry for new experiences, Reed reinvented his persona, his sound, even his sexuality time and again. A man of contradictions and extremes, he was fiercely independent yet afraid of being alone, artistically fearless yet deeply paranoid, eager for commercial success yet disdainful of his own triumphs. Channeling his jagged energy and literary sensibility into classic songs - like "Walk on the Wild Side" and "Sweet Jane" - and radically experimental albums alike, Reed remained desperately true to his artistic vision, wherever it led him. Now, just a few years after Reed's death, Rolling Stone writer Anthony DeCurtis, who knew Reed and interviewed him extensively, tells the provocative story of his complex and chameleonic life. With unparalleled access to dozens of Reed's friends, family, and collaborators, DeCurtis tracks Reed's five-decade career through the accounts of those who knew him and through Reed's most revealing testimony, his music. We travel deep into his defiantly subterranean world, enter the studio as the Velvet Underground record their groundbreaking work, and revel in Reed's relationships with such legendary figures as Andy Warhol, David Bowie, and Laurie Anderson. Gritty, intimate, and unflinching, Lou Reed is an illuminating tribute to one of the most incendiary artists of our time.

Download or read book No Rules written by Sharon Dukett and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this coming-of-age memoir, Sharon takes you with her on a nail-biting adventure through the early 1970s after leaving her sheltered home life at sixteen years old to join the hippies. Yearning for freedom, she lands in an adult world for which she is unprepared, and must learn quickly in order to survive. As Sharon navigates the US and Canada—whether by hitchhiking, bicycle, or the back of a motorcycle—she experiences love and heartbreak, discovers whom she can and cannot trust, and awakens to the growing women’s liberation movement while living in a rural off-grid commune. In this colorful memoir, she reflects upon the changes that reshaped her during that decade, and how the ways in which she and her peers threw off the rules meant to keep women in their place has transformed and empowered the lives of girls and women today.

Download or read book Dust Grooves written by Eilon Paz and published by Ten Speed Press. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A photographic look into the world of vinyl record collectors—including Questlove—in the most intimate of environments—their record rooms. Compelling photographic essays from photographer Eilon Paz are paired with in-depth and insightful interviews to illustrate what motivates these collectors to keep digging for more records. The reader gets an up close and personal look at a variety of well-known vinyl champions, including Gilles Peterson and King Britt, as well as a glimpse into the collections of known and unknown DJs, producers, record dealers, and everyday enthusiasts. Driven by his love for vinyl records, Paz takes us on a five-year journey unearthing the very soul of the vinyl community.

Download or read book She Come By It Natural written by Sarah Smarsh and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this Time Top 100 Book of the Year, the National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Heartland “analyzes how Dolly Parton’s songs—and success—have embodied feminism for working-class women” (People). Growing up amid Kansas wheat fields and airplane factories, Sarah Smarsh witnessed firsthand the particular vulnerabilities—and strengths—of women in working poverty. Meanwhile, country songs by female artists played in the background, telling powerful stories about life, men, hard times, and surviving. In her family, she writes, “country music was foremost a language among women. It’s how we talked to each other in a place where feelings aren’t discussed.” And no one provided that language better than Dolly Parton. In this “tribute to the woman who continues to demonstrate that feminism comes in coats of many colors,” Smarsh tells readers how Parton’s songs have validated women who go unheard: the poor woman, the pregnant teenager, the struggling mother disparaged as “trailer trash.” Parton’s broader career—from singing on the front porch of her family’s cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains to achieving stardom in Nashville and Hollywood, from “girl singer” managed by powerful men to self-made mogul of business and philanthropy—offers a springboard to examining the intersections of gender, class, and culture. Infused with Smarsh’s trademark insight, intelligence, and humanity, this is “an ambitious book” (The New Republic) about the icon Dolly Parton and an “in-depth examination into gender and class and what it means to be a woman and a working-class hero that feels particularly important right now” (Refinery29).

Download or read book Paul Simon written by Marc Eliot and published by John Wiley & Sons Incorporated. This book was released on 2010-10-19 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the life of the famous musician and songwriter, including his early years as a doo-wop singer, his tumultuous partnership with Art Garfunkel, and his failed 1998 musical "The Capeman."

Download or read book With My Hands written by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “From birdhouses to shadow puppets, the variety of projects included are delightful . . . An effective medley of concept, poetry, and artwork.”—School Library Journal For young makers and artists, brief, lively poems illustrated by a New York Times bestselling duo celebrate the pleasures of working with your hands. Building, baking, folding, drawing, shaping . . . making something with your own hands is a special, personal experience. Taking an idea from your imagination and turning it into something real is satisfying and makes the maker proud. With My Hands is an inspiring invitation to tap into creativity and enjoy the hands-on energy that comes from making things. “Poetry sparks an irresistible, primal urge to twist, cut, paint, draw, glue, carve, whittle, daub, tie, hammer, to simply make.”—Kirkus Reviews “A cheery reminder of the pride of creating something and the many forms art can take.”—Publishers Weekly “Whether invoking cooking, sewing, tying knots, or other undertakings, this provides an enjoyable springboard for aspiring makers.”—Booklist

Download or read book The Place You Love Is Gone Progress Hits Home written by Melissa Holbrook Pierson and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2006 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every day brings evidence of dramatic change upon the landscape. It's called progress. Melissa Holbrook Pierson, with unalloyed insight, elucidates how it feels to lose that landscape of home.

Download or read book Why Evolution is True written by Jerry A. Coyne and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-01-14 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For all the discussion in the media about creationism and 'Intelligent Design', virtually nothing has been said about the evidence in question - the evidence for evolution by natural selection. Yet, as this succinct and important book shows, that evidence is vast, varied, and magnificent, and drawn from many disparate fields of science. The very latest research is uncovering a stream of evidence revealing evolution in action - from the actual observation of a species splitting into two, to new fossil discoveries, to the deciphering of the evidence stored in our genome. Why Evolution is True weaves together the many threads of modern work in genetics, palaeontology, geology, molecular biology, anatomy, and development to demonstrate the 'indelible stamp' of the processes first proposed by Darwin. It is a crisp, lucid, and accessible statement that will leave no one with an open mind in any doubt about the truth of evolution.

Download or read book Out With It written by Katherine Preston and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh, engaging account of a young woman's journey, first to find a cure for a lifelong struggle with stuttering, and ultimately to embrace the voice that has defined her character. It offers a fresh perspective on the obsession with physical perfection.

Download or read book The Steal Like an Artist Journal written by Austin Kleon and published by Workman Publishing. This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work! comes an interactive journal and all-in-one logbook to get your creative juices flowing, and keep a record of your ideas and discoveries. The Steal Like an Artist Journal is the next step in your artistic journey. It combines Austin Kleon’s unique and compelling ideas with the physical quality that makes journals like Moleskines so enormously popular. Page after page of ideas, prompts, quotes, and exercises are like a daily course in creativity. There are lists to fill in—Ten Things I Want to Learn, Ten Things I Probably Think About More Than the Average Person. Challenges to take. Illustrated creative exercises—Make a Mixtape (for someone who doesn’t know you) and Fill in the Speech Balloons. Pro and con charts—What Excites You?/What Drains You? The journal has an elastic band for place-marking and a special pocket in the back—a “swipe file” to store bits and pieces of inspiration. Because if you want to steal like an artist, you need a place to keep your loot.

Download or read book The Art of Gathering written by Priya Parker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Hosts of all kinds, this is a must-read!" --Chris Anderson, owner and curator of TED From the host of the New York Times podcast Together Apart, an exciting new approach to how we gather that will transform the ways we spend our time together—at home, at work, in our communities, and beyond. In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker argues that the gatherings in our lives are lackluster and unproductive--which they don't have to be. We rely too much on routine and the conventions of gatherings when we should focus on distinctiveness and the people involved. At a time when coming together is more important than ever, Parker sets forth a human-centered approach to gathering that will help everyone create meaningful, memorable experiences, large and small, for work and for play. Drawing on her expertise as a facilitator of high-powered gatherings around the world, Parker takes us inside events of all kinds to show what works, what doesn't, and why. She investigates a wide array of gatherings--conferences, meetings, a courtroom, a flash-mob party, an Arab-Israeli summer camp--and explains how simple, specific changes can invigorate any group experience. The result is a book that's both journey and guide, full of exciting ideas with real-world applications. The Art of Gathering will forever alter the way you look at your next meeting, industry conference, dinner party, and backyard barbecue--and how you host and attend them.

Download or read book Tales the Devil Told Me written by Jen Fawkes and published by Press 53. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if Captain Hook gave up marauding and took a gig at the Post Office? How did Hamlet's uncle Claudius become such a rat? What might happen if a plastic surgeon fell for Medusa? If Moby Dick could write a letter, what would he say to Ahab? The answers to these and many other questions can be found in Tales the Devil Told Me by Jen Fawkes-winner of the 2020 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction. These twelve stories examine the possible lives of such classic literary villains as Professor Moriarty, Shere Khan, Rumpelstiltskin, Polyphemus, Mrs. Danvers and others, while illuminating the consumptive nature of love, the crushing weight of isolation, the false promise of beauty, and the power of storytelling itself.

Download or read book What Is It All but Luminous written by Art Garfunkel and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Poetic musings on a life well-lived—one that is still moving forward, always creating, always luminous. This isn't your typical autobiography. Garfunkel's history is told in flowing prose, bounding from present to past, far from a linear rags-to-riches story." —Bookreporter "It's hard to imagine any single word that would accurately describe this book . . . an entertaining volume that's more fun to read than a conventional memoir might have been." —The Wall Street Journal "A charming book of prose and poetry printed in a digitalized version of his handwriting . . . witty, candid, and wildly imaginative . . . A highly intelligent man trying to make sense of his extraordinary life." —Associated Press From the golden-haired, curly-headed half of Simon & Garfunkel, a memoir (of sorts)—moving, lyrical impressions, interspersed throughout a narrative, punctuated by poetry, musings, lists of resonant books loved and admired, revealing a life and the making of a musician, that show us, as well, the evolution of a man, a portrait of a life-long friendship and of a collaboration that became the most successful singing duo in the roiling age that embraced, and was defined by, their pathfinding folk-rock music. In What Is It All but Luminous, Art Garfunkel writes about growing up in the 1940s and ‘50s (son of a traveling salesman, listening as his father played Enrico Caruso records), a middle-class Jewish boy, living in a redbrick semi-attached house on Jewel Avenue in Kew Gardens, Queens. He writes of meeting Paul Simon, the kid who made Art laugh (they met at their graduation play, Alice in Wonderland; Paul was the White Rabbit; Art, the Cheshire Cat). Of their being twelve at the birth of rock’n’roll (“it was rhythm and blues. It was black. I was captured and so was Paul”), of a demo of their song, Hey Schoolgirl for seven dollars and the actual record (with Paul’s father on bass) going to #40 on the charts. He writes about their becoming Simon & Garfunkel, ruling the pop charts from the age of sixteen, about not being a natural performer but more a thinker, an underground man. He writes of the hit songs; touring; about being an actor working with directors Mike Nichols (“the greatest of them all”), about choosing music over a PhD in mathematics. And he writes about his long-unfolding split with Paul, and how and why it evolved, and after; learning to perform on his own . . . and about being a husband, a father and much more.