Up close, back stage, tiny gigs, pre-famous - Led Zep to Bowie as you've never seen them. Released to coincide with an exhibition at Proud Central, London (8th December - 28 January), this huge rock treasure chest contains over 250 previously unpublished premium images from the epicentre of London's exploding music scene, from the mid-sixties to the early seventies. Lavishly produced to create a fitting showcase for Alec's extraordinarily rich, until now hidden, private collection, London Rock is a stunning experience.
London's rock 'n' roll history is in many ways the world's rock 'n' roll history. It has given birth to some of the most influential rock bands ever -- The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Elton John, The Sex Pistols -- and many popular movements -- psychedelia, mod, punk, ska, and Brit-pop. This meticulously researched and entertaining guide explores London's long and occasionally sordid rock history from the 1950s to the present day, providing the casual traveler with a neighborhood-by-neighborhood look at the venues, clubs, pubs, people, studios, stores, and events that rocked the world. Where was David Bowie brought up? Where did the Beatles play their last gig? Where did Keith Moon spend his last night? Each chapter/neighborhood is accompanied by locator maps and detailed street directions, and is filled to the brim with stunning photographs, ephemera, and rock trivia.
It all started in London. More than fifty years ago, a generation of teens created something that would change the face of music forever. London, Reign Over Me immerses us in the backroom clubs, basement record shops, and late-night faint radio signals of 1960s Britain, where young hopefuls like Peter Frampton, Dave Davies, and Mick Jagger built off American blues and jazz to form a whole new sound. Author Stephen Tow weaves together original interviews with over ninety musicians and movers-and-shakers of the time to uncover the uniquely British story of classic rock’s birth. Capturing the stark contrast of bursting artistic energy with the blitzkrieg landscape leftover from World War II, London, Reign Over Me reveals why classic rock ‘n’ roll could only have been born in London. A new sound from a new generation, this music helped spark the most important cultural transformation of the twentieth century. Key interviews include: •Jon Anderson (Yes) •Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) •Rod Argent (The Zombies) •Chris Barber (Chris Barber Jazz Band) •Joe Boyd (Producer/manager) •Arthur Brown (Crazy World of Arthur Brown) •David Cousins (The Strawbs) •Dave Davies (The Kinks) •Spencer Davis (Spencer Davis Group) •Judy Dyble (Fairport Convention) •Ramblin’ Jack Elliott (Solo folk/blues artist) •Peter Frampton (Humble Pie, solo artist) •Roger Glover (Deep Purple) •Steve Howe (Yes) •Neil Innes (Bonzo Dog Band; Monty Python) •Kenney Jones (The Small Faces; The Who) •Greg Lake (King Crimson; Emerson, Lake & Palmer) •Manfred Mann (Manfred Mann) •Terry Marshall (Marshall Amplification) •Dave Mason (Traffic) •Phil May (The Pretty Things) •John Mayall (The Bluesbreakers) •Jim McCarty (The Yardbirds) •Ian McLagan (The Small Faces) •Jacqui McShee (The Pentangle) •Peter Noone (Herman’s Hermits) •Carl Palmer (Atomic Rooster; Emerson, Lake & Palmer) •Jan Roberts (Eel Pie Island Documentary Project) •Paul Rodgers (Free) •Peggy Seeger (Solo folk artist) •Hylda Sims (Club owner) •Keith Skues (DJ: Radio Caroline, Radio London, Radio One) •Jeremy Spencer (Fleetwood Mac) •John Steel (The Animals) •Al Stewart (Solo folk artist) •Dick Taylor (The Pretty Things) •Ray Thomas (The Moody Blues) •Richard Thompson (Fairport Convention) •Rick Wakeman (The Strawbs, Yes) •Barrie Wentzell (Photographer: Melody Maker)
'A must have for Dylan enthusiasts, lovers of London, and anyone with even a passing interest in the history of music. I devoured it in two sittings - and I loved it!' Conor McPherson, playwright, Girl from the North Country This is both a guide and history on the impact of London on Dylan, and the lasting legacy of Bob Dylan on the London music scene. Bob Dylan in London celebrates this journey, and allows readers to experience his London and follow in his footsteps to places such as the King and Queen pub (the first venue that Dylan performed at in London), the Savoy hotel and Camden Town. This book explores the key London places and times that helped to create one of the greatest of all popular musicians, Bob Dylan.
Take a look at the drinking dive under a teashop where the original Rolling Stones were recruited, visit the places where skiffle was born, The Beatles played their last gig, and Paula Yates died. Rock Music Landmarks Of London is both a practical guidebook and an entertaining catalogue of stories featuring the rock stars who made parts of London famous simply by being there. All these London rock landmarks have their own stories, every one is on the London Tube system, each has a full address and a reference photograph.
This comprehensive volume is an indispensable resource for researchers as well as general readers interested in the geography, history, and culture of London, examining all aspects of life in the United Kingdom's capital city. London is one of the largest cultural and financial centers in the world. How did it become the capital city of the United Kingdom, and what is life like in this global city today? Narrative chapters cover a wide range of topics in this volume, examining such themes as location, people, history, politics, economy, environment and sustainability, local crime and violence, security issues, natural hazards and emergency management, culture and lifestyle, London in pop culture, and London's future. Inset boxes entitled "Life in the City" include personal memoirs from people who are from or have lived in London, allowing readers a glimpse into daily life in the city. Sidebars, a chronology, and a bibliography round out the text. This volume is ideal for students and general readers who are interested in learning about life in this global city.
Rock music of all varieties has been influenced by classical music and vice versa, both in the form of direct quotes and in the form of borrowings of style, composition, and instrumentation. The average listener may be unaware of the many links between rock music and the classics. One might remember a few examples, such as Walter Murphy's chart-topping "A Fifth of Beethoven" or Eric Carmen's "All by Myself," but pass them off as interesting anomalies. However, the influence of the classics on rock music is pervasive and grows from a long line of precedents. This second supplement to Janell R. Duxbury's original 1985 discography, Rockin' the Classics and Classicizin' the Rock, brings the earlier work and first supplement up-to-date with hundreds of new entries documenting recently released or newly discovered examples of the interconnection between these musical genres. Duxbury details nearly 700 new examples of recorded rock instrumentals and songs that borrow musical themes from the classics. Variations range from contemporary renditions of complete classical works to brief classical quotes or phrases subtly incorporated into rock compositions. Duxbury also gives additional examples of recorded orchestral versions of songs originally composed and/or written by rock artists. In these examples, the musical style varies from strict classical interpretations to pop-style orchestral renditions. The second supplement then expands Duxbury's original compilation of sound recordings and live performances of rock groups performing with established orchestras and choruses, selected samples of recorded rock music that simulate baroque or classical sound/structure, examples of the manifest influence of rock on classical music, and instances of rock artists and classical artists switching roles. Lastly, this discography updates the 1985 version and the first supplement with new information, expanded details, and minor corrections to the earlier works. An extended list of selected non-rock background examples is included in several new appendixes. The Preface is updated. A general index includes the names of classical composers, rock artists and groups, orchestras, choruses, orchestra conductors, sound recording producers, and song or instrumental titles. With its incomparable scope and content, this supplement, together with Duxbury's previous discography, and its first supplement will be appreciated by students, researchers, record collectors, trivia buffs, music industry employees, and fans of rock music and the classics.
This title was first published in 2003.This highly original and accessible book draws on the author’s personal experience as a musician, producer and teacher of popular music to discuss the ways in which audio technology and musical creativity in pop music are inextricably bound together. This relationship, the book argues, is exemplified by the work of Trevor Horn, who is widely acknowledged as the most important, innovative and successful British pop record producer of the early 1980s. In the first part of the book, Timothy Warner presents a definition of pop as distinct from rock music, and goes on to consider the ways technological developments, such as the transition from analogue to digital, transform working practices and, as a result, impact on the creative process of producing pop.
British Rock Modernism, 1967-1977 explains how the definitive British rock performers of this epoch aimed, not at the youthful rebellion for which they are legendary, but at a highly self-conscious project of commenting on the business in which they were engaged. They did so by ironically appropriating the traditional forms of Victorian music hall. Faulk focuses on the mid to late 1960s, when British rock bands who had already achieved commercial prominence began to aspire to aesthetic distinction. The book discusses recordings such as the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour album, the Kinks' The Village Green Preservation Society, and the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, and television films such as the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour and the Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus that defined rock's early high art moment. Faulk argues that these 'texts' disclose the primary strategies by which British rock groups, mostly comprised of young working and lower middle-class men, made their bid for aesthetic merit by sampling music hall sounds. The result was a symbolically charged form whose main purpose was to unsettle the hierarchy that set traditional popular culture above the new medium. Rock groups engaged with the music of the past in order both to demonstrate the comparative vitality of the new form and signify rock's new art status, compared to earlier British pop music. The book historicizes punk rock as a later development of earlier British rock, rather than a rupture. Unlike earlier groups, the Sex Pistols did not appropriate music hall form in an ironic way, but the band and their manager Malcolm McLaren were obsessed with the meaning of the past for the present in a distinctly modernist fashion. British Rock Modernism also sets the notion of authenticity in a broader context as well, encompassing in this case the revival of the traditional male artist-hero celebrated by British modernist literature. Situating rock in the more extensive history of modern British musical production offers insight into the gendered division of labour that still frames the reception of British popular music. As demonstrated in the opening chapter, focusing on key women singers of the 1960s, the music hall legacy is partly responsible for both privileging male rock groups with the mantle of artist, and with burdening women with stereotypes that relegated women performers to the status of mere 'entertainers'.
