Download or read book Please Please Me written by Gordon Thompson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-09-10 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Who, and numerous other groups put Britain at the center of the modern musical map. Please Please Me offers an insider's view of the British pop-music recording industry during the seminal period of 1956 to 1968, based on personal recollections, contemporary accounts, and all relevant data that situate this scene in the economic, political, and social context of postwar Britain. Author Gordon Thompson weaves issues of class, age, professional status, gender, and ethnicity into his narrative, beginning with the rise of British beat groups and the emergence of teenagers as consumers in postwar Britain, and moving into the competition between performers and the recording industry for control over the music. He interviews musicians, songwriters, music directors, and producers and engineers who worked with the best-known performers of the era. Drawing his interpretation of the processes at work during this musical revolution into a wider context, Thompson unravels the musical change and innovation of the time with an eye on understanding what traces individuals leave in the musical and recording process.
Download or read book I Hate New Music written by Dave Thompson and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2008 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a comparative look at the classic rockers of yesteryear, such as Led Zepplin and the Doors, in relation to modern bands to demonstrate what influence the original masters had on their work today and the errors they are making by straying from the true rock-and-roll format.
Download or read book Still the Greatest written by Andrew Grant Jackson and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2012-07-20 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As recommended by USA Today and excerpted on Rolling Stone.com! More than forty years after breaking up, The Beatles remain the biggest-selling and most influential group in the history of popular music. Fans endlessly replay their songs, craving more, while thousands of cover versions of their songs have been recorded and performed. Band biographies, pop music histories, song books, and academic titles on the Fab Four clutter shelves. But never has there been a definitive guide to the finest songs of The Beatles after they called it quits. Still the Greatest is a love song to the songwriting and recording achievements of Paul, John, George, and Ringo after each struck out on his own. In this creative history, Jackson selects the best songs in each solo career and organizes them into fantasy albums they might have formed had the legendary group stayed together. This romp through the post–Beatles history of each artist delves into the circumstances behind the composition, recording, and reception of each work, offering a refreshing take on how spectacular much of The Beatles’ second act truly is. Jackson assesses the more than seventy albums and nine hundred songs the four collectively released, selecting the crème de la crème of their output. Still the Greatest brims with facts (release dates, writing and performing credits, and information about production techniques) and insightful analyses of the music and lyrics. In telling the stories behind the songs, Jackson recounts the remarkable influence the Post Fab Four continued to have long after the big split. Both a handy reference and an engrossing cover-to-cover read, Still the Greatest is an invaluable companion for those who thought it all ended with the 1970 album Let It Be.
Download or read book I Am Also a You written by Jay Thompson and published by Crown. This book was released on 1971 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collection of photographs and quotations on themes such as peace and truth.
Download or read book George Harrison written by Graeme Thomson and published by Omnibus Press. This book was released on 2016-12-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "magisterial biography" (Chicago Tribune) of the most enigmatic Beatle, now in a paperback edition.
Download or read book Mo Meta Blues written by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2013-06-18 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "You have to bear in mind that [Questlove] is one of the smartest motherf*****s on the planet. His musical knowledge, for all practical purposes, is limitless." --Robert Christgau A punch-drunk memoir in which Everyone's Favorite Questlove tells his own story while tackling some of the lates, the greats, the fakes, the philosophers, the heavyweights, and the true originals of the music world. He digs deep into the album cuts of his life and unearths some pivotal moments in black art, hip hop, and pop culture. Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson is many things: virtuoso drummer, producer, arranger, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon bandleader, DJ, composer, and tireless Tweeter. He is one of our most ubiquitous cultural tastemakers, and in this, his first book, he reveals his own formative experiences--from growing up in 1970s West Philly as the son of a 1950s doo-wop singer, to finding his own way through the music world and ultimately co-founding and rising up with the Roots, a.k.a., the last hip hop band on Earth. Mo' Meta Blues also has some (many) random (or not) musings about the state of hip hop, the state of music criticism, the state of statements, as well as a plethora of run-ins with celebrities, idols, and fellow artists, from Stevie Wonder to KISS to D'Angelo to Jay-Z to Dave Chappelle to...you ever seen Prince roller-skate?!? But Mo' Meta Blues isn't just a memoir. It's a dialogue about the nature of memory and the idea of a post-modern black man saddled with some post-modern blues. It's a book that questions what a book like Mo' Meta Bluesreally is. It's the side wind of a one-of-a-kind mind. It's a rare gift that gives as well as takes. It's a record that keeps going around and around.
Download or read book Kay Thompson written by Sam Irvin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a tribute to the Hollywood entertainer-turned-author. Covers her close friendship with Judy Garland, contributions as a celebrity trainer, and creation of the mischievous six-year-old Plaza mascot, Eloise.
Download or read book Dreaming the Beatles written by Rob Sheffield and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An NPR Best Book of the Year • Winner of the Virgil Thomson Award for Outstanding Music Criticism “This is the best book about the Beatles ever written” —Mashable Rob Sheffield, the Rolling Stone columnist and bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape offers an entertaining, unconventional look at the most popular band in history, the Beatles, exploring what they mean today and why they still matter so intensely to a generation that has never known a world without them. Dreaming the Beatles is not another biography of the Beatles, or a song-by-song analysis of the best of John and Paul. It isn’t another exposé about how they broke up. It isn’t a history of their gigs or their gear. It is a collection of essays telling the story of what this ubiquitous band means to a generation who grew up with the Beatles music on their parents’ stereos and their faces on T-shirts. What do the Beatles mean today? Why are they more famous and beloved now than ever? And why do they still matter so much to us, nearly fifty years after they broke up? As he did in his previous books, Love is a Mix Tape, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, and Turn Around Bright Eyes, Sheffield focuses on the emotional connections we make to music. This time, he focuses on the biggest pop culture phenomenon of all time—The Beatles. In his singular voice, he explores what the Beatles mean today, to fans who have learned to love them on their own terms and not just for the sake of nostalgia. Dreaming the Beatles tells the story of how four lads from Liverpool became the world’s biggest pop group, then broke up—but then somehow just kept getting bigger. At this point, their music doesn’t belong to the past—it belongs to right now. This book is a celebration of that music, showing why the Beatles remain the world’s favorite thing—and how they invented the future we’re all living in today.
Download or read book Who Was Helen Keller written by Gare Thompson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2003-08-25 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At age two, Helen Keller became deaf and blind. She lived in a world of silence and darkness and she spent the rest of her life struggling to break through it. But with the help of teacher Annie Sullivan, Helen learned to read, write, and do many amazing things. This inspiring illustrated biography is perfect for young middle-grade readers. Black-and-white line drawings throughout, sidebars on related topics such as Louis Braille, a timeline, and a bibliography enhance readers' understanding of the subject.
Download or read book George Harrison Living in the Material World written by Olivia Harrison and published by Harry N. Abrams. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A companion release to Martin Scorsese's documentary by the same name presents an illustrated tribute to the late Beatle that draws on his personal records to trace his guitar-obsessed youth through his years as an independent musician.
Download or read book Beatles 66 written by Steve Turner and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting look at the transformative year in the lives and careers of the legendary group whose groundbreaking legacy would forever change music and popular culture. They started off as hysteria-inducing pop stars playing to audiences of screaming teenage fans and ended up as musical sages considered responsible for ushering in a new era. The year that changed everything for the Beatles was 1966—the year of their last concert and their first album, Revolver, that was created to be listened to rather than performed. This was the year the Beatles risked their popularity by retiring from live performances, recording songs that explored alternative states of consciousness, experimenting with avant-garde ideas, and speaking their minds on issues of politics, war, and religion. It was the year their records were burned in America after John’s explosive claim that the group was "more popular than Jesus," the year they were hounded out of the Philippines for "snubbing" its First Lady, the year John met Yoko Ono, and the year Paul conceived the idea for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. On the fiftieth anniversary of this seminal year, music journalist and Beatles expert Steve Turner slows down the action to investigate in detail the enormous changes that took place in the Beatles’ lives and work during 1966. He looks at the historical events that had an impact on the group, the music they made that in turn profoundly affected the culture around them, and the vision that allowed four young men from Liverpool to transform popular music and serve as pioneers for artists from Coldplay to David Bowie, Jay-Z to U2. By talking to those close to the group and by drawing on his past interviews with key figures such as George Martin, Timothy Leary, and Ravi Shankar—and the Beatles themselves—Turner gives us the compelling, definitive account of the twelve months that contained everything the Beatles had been and anticipated everything they would still become.
Download or read book Goldmine s Essential Guide to Record Collecting written by Dave Thompson and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring individual artists, the hottest genres, rarities, tips for buying and selling, not to mention the critical differences between modern reissues vs. early pressings, this exciting new title is the perfect how-to guide for a new generation of vinyl record music lovers and collectors. Vinyl records are Back in Black. And this how-to guide is the perfect reference for the millions of young vinyl enthusiasts--as well as an older crowd returning to their vinyl roots. You will find chapters on collecting individual artists and genres (Beatles, Elvis, the Rolling Stones, Psych, Punk, Surf, Northern Soul and many others taking you through the advent of vinyl to today. Author Dave Thompson will discuss the greatest rarities on the market, grading, artwork, the keys to successful buying and selling, coloured vinyl, picture discs and a host of other cool topics sure to light the fire to those new (and old) to the vinyl party. AUTHOR: Dave Thompson is one of the leading authorities on all things music. He is the editor and vinyl record market analyst for Standard Catalog of American Records, Goldmine Album Price Guide and Goldmine Jazz Album Price Guide. Thompson has published more than 100 books--including 1000 Songs That Rock Your World--and is a regular contributor to Goldmine magazine, as well as Rolling Stone. A prodigious writer, Thompson was ranked as one of the Top 5 biographers by Mojo magazine. His biographies have included works on David Bowie, Deep Purple, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Cure, KISS and many, many more. SELLING POINTS: * A handy, compact how-to guide for collecting vinyl records that includes the greatest rarities on the market in collectible genres such as Rock, Punk, Surf, Psychedelic, Northern Soul and more. * Play it or stash it - shows readers what's valuable and what's simply fun. * Includes a Grading Guide - so you don't get screwed by the unrighteous. * For the 7th straight year, more vinyl albums were sold than in any other year since Nielsen started tracking music sales in 1991.
Download or read book This Bird Has Flown written by John Kruth and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Book). The Beatles' sixth studio album, Rubber Soul , was a game changer. By December 1965, when the album was released, the Beatles had played the first arena rock show at Shea Stadium for 55,000 delirious fans, been awarded MBE (Member of British Empire) medals, and were indisputably the greatest musical phenomenon since Elvis Presley. With their first film, A Hard Day's Night , John, Paul, George, and Ringo laid down the blueprint for everyone who ever wanted to form a group. The movie, entertaining as it was, became an instruction manual for aspiring pop stars of the day on how to play, dress, and act. Richard Lester's 1964 comedy turned out to be the touchstone for every music video that followed. Then, with the release of Rubber Soul , the Beatles created an artistic benchmark to which their peers measured their craft and creativity. Touring the world over two years, the band had grown up fast. Both musically and lyrically their new album represented a major leap. Upon hearing Rubber Soul , Bob Dylan allegedly remarked, "I get it, you're not cute anymore." Newsweek hailed the Beatles as "the Bards of Pop," while critic Greil Marcus claimed Rubber Soul was "the best album they would ever make." For Traffic's Steve Winwood, the album "broke everything open. It crossed music into a whole new dimension and was responsible for kicking off the sixties rock era." In This Bird Has Flown , John Kruth not only analyzes the songs and making of Rubber Soul , putting the album in context of the turbulent times in which it was created, but captures the spirit of musical innovation and poetry that makes the record a standout in the Beatle's canon.
Download or read book Biography Of Peter Cook written by Estate of Harry Thompson and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-11-24 with total page 499 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are those who say - and Peter Cook himself was among them - that most of his humour was autobiographical. Others - and Peter Cook himself was among them -contend that this simply isn't the case. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle. Peter Cook made President Kennedy wait in line to see him and visited Elizabeth Taylor in her dressing room. He befriended tramps and fundraised for CND. He was capable of extraordinary kindnesses and occasional cruelties. He helped define comedy and satire for a generation, but ended his life a recluse. Harry Thompson has produced the first ever comprehensive biography of this influential and fascinating subject who came up with some of the funniest sketches and greatest jokes of all time.
Download or read book Beatles vs Stones written by John McMillian and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1960s an epic battle was waged between the two biggest bands in the world—the clean-cut, mop-topped Beatles and the badboy Rolling Stones. Both groups liked to maintain that they weren’t really “rivals”—that was just a media myth, they politely said—and yet they plainly competed for commercial success and aesthetic credibility. On both sides of the Atlantic, fans often aligned themselves with one group or the other. In Beatles vs. Stones, John McMillian gets to the truth behind the ultimate rock and roll debate. Painting an eye-opening portrait of a generation dragged into an ideological battle between Flower Power and New Left militance, McMillian reveals how the Beatles-Stones rivalry was created by music managers intent on engineering a moneymaking empire. He describes how the Beatles were marketed as cute and amiable, when in fact they came from hardscrabble backgrounds in Liverpool. By contrast, the Stones were cast as an edgy, dangerous group, even though they mostly hailed from the chic London suburbs. For many years, writers and historians have associated the Beatles with the gauzy idealism of the “good” sixties, placing the Stones as representatives of the dangerous and nihilistic “bad” sixties. Beatles vs. Stones explodes that split, ultimately revealing unseen realities about America’s most turbulent decade through its most potent personalities and its most unforgettable music.
Download or read book Beeswing written by Richard Thompson and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Rolling Stone Best Music Book of 2021 “Thompson is a master showman . . . [Beeswing is] everything you’d hope a Richard Thompson autobiography would be . . . It’s both major and minor, dirge and ditty, light on its feet but packing a punch.” —The Wall Street Journal Now Featuring an Interview with Elvis Costello In this moving, immersive, and long-awaited memoir, beloved international music legend Richard Thompson recreates the spirit of his early years, where he found, and then lost, and then found his way again. Considered one of the top twenty guitarists of all time, Thompson also belongs in the songwriting pantheon alongside Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and Randy Newman. Here the British folk musician takes us back to the late 1960s, a period of great change and creativity for both him and the world at large. During the pivotal years of 1967 to 1975, just as he was discovering his passion for music, he formed the band Fairport Convention with some schoolmates and helped establish the genre of British folk rock. It was a thrilling period of massive tours, where Thompson was on the road in both the UK and the US, crossing paths with the likes of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Jimi Hendrix, as well as a time of heady and explosive creativity for Thompson, who wrote some of his most famous songs during this time. But as Thompson reveals, those eight years were also marked by upheaval and tragedy. Honest, moving, and compelling, Beeswing vividly captures the life of a remarkable man and musician during a period of artistic intensity, in a world on the cusp of change. “An absorbing, witty, often deliciously biting read, as all rock memoirs should be.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
Download or read book The Music Lover s Guide to Record Collecting written by Dave Thompson and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2002-09-01 with total page 764 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From tips for evaluating recordings, to lively discussions of bootlegs and piracy, to the history of recording formats, to collectible artists and more, The Music Lover's Guide to Record Collecting covers all the tracks. Designed for anyone who collects records for pleasure or profit, at garage sales or on eBay, this guide is both informative and entertaining. If offers a wealth of detail and informed opinion – unique in a field dominated by stodgy price guides. Engaging entries and essays explore the development of all recording mediums, from 78s to MP3; the distinctive character of imports; “most collected artists ” from The Beatles to Nirvana; collectible labels, such as Sun, Chess and Motown; original packaging that enhances collectability; and much more.
