Music Is My Life
Author: Daniel Stein
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 2012-05-03
Total Pages: 360
ISBN-13: 0472051806
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA groundbreaking study of Louis Armstrong’s autobiographical practices
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Pop Song
Author: Larissa Pham
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2021-05-04
Total Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 1646220277
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"A warm and expansive portrait of a woman’s mind that feels at once singular and universal," this collection of essays interweaves commentary on modern life, feminism, art, and sex with the author's own experiences of obsession, heartbreak, and vulnerability (BuzzFeed). Like a song that feels written just for you, Larissa Pham's debut work of nonfiction captures the imagination and refuses to let go. Pop Song is a book about love and about falling in love—with a place, or a painting, or a person—and the joy and terror inherent in the experience of that love. Plumbing the well of culture for clues and patterns about love and loss—from Agnes Martin's abstract paintings to James Turrell's transcendent light works, and Anne Carson's Eros the Bittersweet to Frank Ocean's Blonde—Pham writes of her youthful attempts to find meaning in travel, sex, drugs, and art, before sensing that she might need to turn her gaze upon herself. Pop Song is also a book about distances, near and far. As she travels from Taos, New Mexico, to Shanghai, China and beyond, Pham meditates on the miles we are willing to cover to get away from ourselves, or those who hurt us, and the impossible gaps that can exist between two people sharing a bed. Pop Song is a book about all the routes by which we might escape our own needs before finally finding a way home. There is heartache in these pages, but Pham's electric ways of seeing create a perfectly fractured portrait of modern intimacy that is triumphant in both its vulnerability and restlessness. "Each of the essays in this debut collection reads like a mini-memoir . . . in which the author reflects on her experiences of young love, trauma, and transcendence through discussions of art and music . . . with an intimacy that is at once tender and expansive." —New York magazine
Did They Mention the Music?
Author: Henry Mancini
Publisher: Cooper Square Press
Published: 2001-12-17
Total Pages: 310
ISBN-13: 1461732115
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBest known for the "dead-ant" theme to the Pink Panther films, Henry Mancini also composed the music to Peter Gunn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, and the Academy Award winning soundtracks to Victor/Victoria and The Days of Wine and Roses. In a career that lasted over thirty years, Mancini amassed twenty Grammy awards and more nominations than any other composer. In his memoir, written with jazz expert Lees, Mancini discusses his close friendships with Blake Edwards, Julie Andrews, and Paul Newman, his professional collaborations with Johnny Mercer, Luciano Pavarotti, and James Galway, and his achievements as a husband, father, and grandfather. A great memoir loaded with equal parts Hollywood glitz and Italian gusto.
No One Here Gets Out Alive
Author: Jerry Hopkins
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2029-03-06
Total Pages: 427
ISBN-13: 1538714795
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHere is Jim Morrison in all his complexity-singer, philosopher, poet, delinquent-the brilliant, charismatic, and obsessed seeker who rejected authority in any form, the explorer who probed "the bounds of reality to see what would happen..." Seven years in the writing, this definitive biography is the work of two men whose empathy and experience with Jim Morrison uniquely prepared them to recount this modern tragedy: Jerry Hopkins, whose famous Presley biography, Elvis, was inspired by Morrison's suggestion, and Danny Sugerman, confidant of and aide to the Doors. With an afterword by Michael McClure.
Over the Top and Back
Author: Sir Tom Jones
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2015-11-24
Total Pages: 433
ISBN-13: 0698409302
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe long-awaited autobiography of legendary singer Tom Jones, following six decades of unparalleled experiences in the spotlight to coincide with his 75th birthday. Across six decades, Sir Tom Jones has maintained a vital career in a risky, unstable business notorious for the short lives of its artists. With a drive that comes from nothing but the love for what he does, he breaks through and then wrestles with the vagaries of the music industry, the nature of success and its inevitable consequences. Having recorded an expansive body of work and performed with fellow artists from across the spectrum and across every popular music genre, from rock, pop and dance to country, blues and soul, the one constant throughout has been his unique musical gifts and unmistakable voice. But how did a boy from a Welsh coal-mining family attain success across the globe? And how has he survived the twists and turns of fame and fortune to not only stay exciting, but actually become more credible and interesting with age? In this, his first ever autobiography, Tom revisits his past and tells the tale of his journey from wartime Pontypridd to LA and beyond. He reveals the stories behind the ups and downs of his fascinating and remarkable life, from the early heydays to the subsequent fallow years to his later period of artistic renaissance. It's the story nobody else knows or understands, told by the man who lived it, and written the only way he knows how: simply and from the heart. Raw, honest, funny and powerful, this is a memoir like no other from one of the world's greatest ever singing talents. This is Tom Jones and Over the Top and Back is his story.
Stardust Melodies
Author: Will Friedwald
Publisher: Pantheon
Published: 2009-07-01
Total Pages: 416
ISBN-13: 030755998X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn Stardust Melodies, Will Friedwald takes each of these legendary songs apart and puts it together again, with a staggering wealth of detail and unprecedented understanding. Each chapter gives us an extended history of one song—the circumstances under which it was written and first performed—and then explores its musical and lyric content. Drawing on his vast knowledge of records and the careers of performing artists, Friedwald tells us who was responsible for making these songs famous and discusses in depth the performers who have left their unique marks on them. He writes about variations in performance style, about both classic and obscure versions of the songs, about brilliantly original interpretations and ghastly travesties. And then there’s the completely unexpected, like Stan Freberg’s politically correct “Elderly Man River.” This is a book for all lovers of American song to explore, argue with, and savor.
Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink
Author: Elvis Costello
Publisher:
Published: 2015
Total Pages: 689
ISBN-13: 0399167250
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA personal introspective by the influential pop songwriter and performer traces his Liverpool upbringing, artistic influences, creative pursuit of original punk sounds, and emergence in the MTV world.
It Might as Well be Spring
Author: Margaret Whiting
Publisher: New York : William Morrow and Company
Published: 1987
Total Pages: 392
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKReal Frank Zappa Book
Author: Frank Zappa
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 1989
Total Pages: 356
ISBN-13: 0671705725
DOWNLOAD EBOOKRecounts the career of the rock music performer.
Late, Late at Night
Author: Rick Springfield
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2010-10-12
Total Pages: 422
ISBN-13: 1451628943
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFeatures four bonus videos! Watch Rick discuss the events that have shaped his life; step inside his recording studio to hear him discuss his music, his acting career, coming to America, and his love of dogs; and watch Rick's “What’s Victoria’s Secret?” music video and his unplugged version of “I Get Excited.” In a searingly candid memoir which he authored himself, Grammy Award-winning pop icon Rick Springfield pulls back the curtain on his image as a bright, shiny, happy performer to share the startling story of his rise and fall and rise in music, film, and television and his lifelong battle with depression. In the 1980s, singer-songwriter and actor Rick Springfield seemed to have it all: a megahit single in “Jessie’s Girl,” sold-out concert tours, follow-up hits that sold more than 17 million albums and became the pop soundtrack for an entire generation, and 12 million daily viewers who avidly tuned in to General Hospital to swoon over his portrayal of the handsome Dr. Noah Drake. Yet lurking behind his success as a pop star and soap opera heartthrob and his unstoppable drive was a moody, somber, and dark soul, one filled with depression and insecurity. In Late, Late at Night, the memoir his millions of fans have been waiting for, Rick takes readers inside the highs and lows of his extraordinary life. By turns winningly funny and heartbreakingly sad, every page resonates with Rick’s witty, wry, self-deprecating, brutally honest voice. On one level, he reveals the inside story of his ride to the top of the entertainment world. On a second, deeper level, he recounts with unsparing candor the forces that have driven his life, including his longtime battle with depression and thoughts of suicide, the shattering death of his father, and his decision to drop out at the absolute peak of fame. Having finally found a more stable equilibrium, Rick’s story is ultimately a positive one, deeply informed by his passion for creative expression through his music, a deep love of his wife of twenty-six years and their two sons, and his life-long quest for spiritual peace.
