This title is a must read for anyone interested in the music of the 1960s and is packed with information, stories, trivia, and photos relating to the pop music of the '60s and very early '70s. (Music)
A Behind-the-Scenes Look At NASA’s incredible Journey to the Moon Space journalist and insider Nancy Atkinson weaves together the riveting story of NASA’s mission to complete “the greatest adventure on which humankind ever embarked.” This incredible account is a keepsake celebrating some of the most important and dramatic events in modern history. Told through over 60 personal interviews and oral histories, as well as personal photographs, this tribute to the men and women who made the Apollo 11 mission a reality chronicles the highs and lows that accompanied the race to the Moon: the devastating flash fire that killed the crew of Apollo 1; the awe of those who saw their years-in-the-making contributions to space exploration blast off from Cape Canaveral; the knuckle-biting descent of Apollo 11 to the lunar surface; a near-catastrophic event on the crew’s flight home; the infectious excitement and jubilation across the world after the astronauts returned safely to Earth. These little-known stories of the dedicated engineers, mathematicians and scientists in the 1960s reveal the “hows” of the Apollo missions and bring to life the wonder and excitement of humanity’s first steps on the Moon.
In Incredible Stories from Space, veteran space journalist Nancy Atkinson shares compelling insights from over 35 NASA scientists and engineers, taking readers behind the scenes of the unmanned missions that are transforming our understanding of the solar system and beyond. Weaving together one-on-one interviews along with the extraordinary sagas of the spacecraft themselves, this book chronicles the struggles and triumphs of nine current space missions and captures the true spirit of exploration and discovery.
Waylon Jennings relates the story of his life as a country music star. His beginnings were poor but he became Buddy Holly's protege before sinking into drug abuse and 3 failed marriages. His success came when he met his present wife, Jessi Colter.
Acclaimed national security columnist and noted cultural critic Fred Kaplan looks past the 1960s to the year that really changed America While conventional accounts focus on the sixties as the era of pivotal change that swept the nation, Fred Kaplan argues that it was 1959 that ushered in the wave of tremendous cultural, political, and scientific shifts that would play out in the decades that followed. Pop culture exploded in upheaval with the rise of artists like Jasper Johns, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, and Miles Davis. Court rulings unshackled previously banned books. Political power broadened with the onset of Civil Rights laws and protests. The sexual and feminist revolutions took their first steps with the birth control pill. America entered the war in Vietnam, and a new style in superpower diplomacy took hold. The invention of the microchip and the Space Race put a new twist on the frontier myth. Vividly chronicles 1959 as a vital, overlooked year that set the world as we know it in motion, spearheading immense political, scientific, and cultural change Strong critical acclaim: "Energetic and engaging" (Washington Post); "Immensely enjoyable . . . a first-rate book" (New Yorker); "Lively and filled with often funny anecdotes" (Publishers Weekly) Draws fascinating parallels between the country in 1959 and today Drawing fascinating parallels between the country in 1959 and today, Kaplan offers a smart, cogent, and deeply researched take on a vital, overlooked period in American history.
Buddy Holly was killed at 22 when the plane he was travelling in crashed on 3 February 1959. Although this was less than two years after Holly's first hit record, Don McLean described this as 'the day the music died.' But Sonny Curtis, Holly's friend and musical colleague, told us that the music didn't die, because 'Buddy Holly lives every time you play rock'n'roll.' Fifty years after Holly's death, his lasting influence is clear; a musical based on his life seems set to run for longer than his lifetime and artists as diverse as Blink 182 and Bob Dylan call him an inspiration.The Beatles chose That'll Be the Day by Buddy's group The Crickets as their first attempt at recording, as well as taking the idea for their name. Clearly, the music didn't die!John Gribbin, an ardent fan since he was twelve, presents this labour of love written in the spirit of Sonny Curtis' lyric, as a celebration of Holly's all too brief life, and as an introduction,for all those not around in 1959, to the man and his astonishing musical legacy. "Not Fade Away" also includes - uniquely - a full and detailed account of every Holly recording session, which any Buddy fan will devour.
Originally published in 1985, One Chord Wonders was the first full-length study of the glory years of British punk rock. The book argues that one of punk’s most significant political achievements was to expose the operations of power in the British entertainment industries as they were thrown into confusion by the sound and the fury of musicians and fans. Through a detailed examination of the conditions under which punk emerged and then declined, Dave Laing develops a view of the music as both complex and contradictory. Special attention is paid to the relationship between punk and the music industry of the late 1970s, in particular the political economy of the independent record companies through which much of punk was distributed. The rise of punk is also linked to the febrile political atmosphere of Britain in the mid-1970s. Using examples from a wide range of bands, individual chapters use the techniques of semiology to consider the radical approach to naming in punk (from Johnny Rotten to Poly Styrene), the instrumental and vocal sound of the music, and its visual images. Another section analyses the influence of British punk in Europe prior to the music’s division into “real punk” and “post-punk” genres. The concluding chapter critically examines various theoretical explanations of the punk phenomenon, including the class origins of its protagonists and the influential view that punk represented the latest in a line of British youth “subcultures.” There is also a chronology of the punk era, plus discographies and a bibliography.
Take a Walk on the Dark Side is the ultimate book for today's rock and roll fan: a fascinating compendium of facts, fictions, prophecies, premonitions, coincidences, hoaxes, doomsday scenarios, and other urban legends about some of the world's most beloved and mysterious pop icons. Updating, revising, and expanding on material from his cult classic Hellhounds on Their Trail, Patterson offers up a delectable feast of strange and occasionally frightening rock and roll tales, featuring the ironies associated with the tragic deaths of many rock icons, unsolved murders, and other tales from the "fell clutch of circumstance." Beginning with the fateful place where it all started -- a deserted country crossroads just outside Clarksdale, Mississippi, where Robert Johnson made his deal with the devil -- through the Buddy Holly curse (rock and roll's first great tragedy) and beyond, this incredible volume uncovers some of rock and roll's most celebrated murders, twists of fate, and decades-long streaks of bad luck that defy rational explanation. Inside you'll find: Facts about Jimmy Page and the Zeppelin Curse. Chilling quirks of fate in the fatalities in the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Facts about Jimmy Page and the Zeppelin curse Chilling quirks of fate surrounding the deaths of musicians in the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd A provocative look at "The Club," membership in which requires an untimely death at age twenty-seven and whose inductees include Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin Cryptic messages in song lyrics that have proved eerily prophetic Carefully researched, wildly enjoyable, and often harrowing, Take a Walk on the Dark Side takes the reader on a mysterious ride through rock and roll history.
'An extraordinary book by an extraordinary man' Ken Loach Tony Garnett's story begins in working-class, war-torn Birmingham where he movingly describes the trauma of his mother's death following a back-street abortion. Nineteen days later, stricken with grief, Tony's father committed suicide and Tony was sent to live with other family members. He eventually moved to London and was part of the counterculture scene in the 1960s. Tony takes us behind the scenes of a selection of his more famous productions, offering secrets and anecdotes, some moving, some amusing. He gives accounts of angry clashes with the BBC and movie executives as he battles to make films that are thought too controversial. Year after year he fought the BBC and movie bosses to bring to the public films about police corruption and psychiatrists' cruelty; films advocating abortion law reform and the abolition of the death penalty; films about the homeless and the waste of young people in poor schools.