Showing titles in Music

Biography of Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, the world's most recorded drummer. Bernard Pretty Purdie is arguably the most recorded drummer in the world. He hit the New York music scene in the early 1960 s, and landed his first hit with Mickey and Sylvia the beginning of a stellar career. This led to his 25-year association with Aretha Franklin. Purdie has been a regular guest in the studios of the stars of Jazz, Soul and Rock, working together with Lonnie Youngblood, King Curtis, Les Cooper, Paul Butterfield, Larry Coryell, Miles Davis, Hall & Oates, Al Kooper, Herbie Mann, Todd Rundgren and Cat ...

"Pa-dum-pum-pa-dum-pum - PUM!" Super Mario Bros. for the NES contains some of the most recognizable tunes in popular culture, and yet it’s safe to say that only a handful of people have thought beyond the music’s entertaining surface. After all, what could possibly be art-worthy about an early Mario score? Or any early game sound for that matter? In search of answers to these questions, Andrew Schartmann takes us on a journey from the primitive "pongs" of arcade machines to the complex musical fabrics woven by composers of the NES era.

If you thought music theory was dull, think again! With the right guidance, it can be woven into every practice – and you'll see astounding results straight away. Playing by ear will get you a long way – it certainly worked for Jimi Hendrix. But the world will only ever know one Hendrix… and for every inspirational story you’ve heard about a famous guitarist who knows nothing of music theory, there’s a whole host of other stories about musicians who do – they’re just not the ones who make the headlines.

London. Wham! Pop, glitz and glamour. Two girls with stars in their eyes. Our friendship began one windy day in 1982, outside Finsbury Park tube. It was an instant like at first sight. We were on our way to a Wham! rehearsal. Pepsi was the new girl in the band and over a car stereo, a cassette tape and that journey to Bushey we bonded. We had no idea that we were on the first of many journeys together and that soon we'd be travelling all over the world. What we didn't know was that we were saying yes to a lifetime of connection that has endured whatever we've done, wherever we've been.

Listening to music can bring a lot of benefits, but learning to play an instrument is even more beneficial. It can build your confidence, provide an escape to work or other life commitments and it’s also a great way to express yourself. And regardless of whether you become a musician in the future or play it off as a hobby, mastering this skill can bring a lot of opportunities.

The Police have sold more than 50 million albums, made Rolling Stone's Greatest Artists of All Time list, and finished a triumphant world reunion tour in 2008. Now British journalist Chris Campion draws on extensive research and new interviews to trace the inside saga of this iconic group, including the unorthodox business strategies employed by manager Miles Copeland that took them to the top and the intense rivalry that drove Sting, Andy Summers, and Stewart Copeland to split at the height of their success in the 1980s.

Why do you sing at church? It's a question we almost never ask out loud. Yet, this is a question that is central to the lives of Christians who regularly gather together for worship. Do you sing to God? Or do you "address one another in hymns and spiritual songs", as the scripture says? Do you close your eyes? What is your posture in worship? This book is designed with these questions in mind.

Tras darse a conocer al mundo el 13 de junio de 2013, BTS celebra el 10.º aniversario de su debut en junio de 2023. Sus integrantes se han situado en lo más alto como artistas icónicos globales y, aprovechando este importante hito, repasan su trayectoria en su primer libro oficial. De este modo, BTS afianza su potencial para construir un futuro aún más brillante y da un paso más en un camino que nadie ha transitado antes.

Since his death ten years ago, Lou Reed’s living presence has only grown. The great rock-poet presided over the marriage of Brill Building pop and the European avant-garde, and left American culture transfigured. In Lou Reed: The King of New York, Will Hermes offers the definitive narrative of Reed’s life and legacy, dramatizing his long, brilliant, and contentious dialogue with fans, critics, fellow artists, and assorted habitués of the demimonde.

Poet, movie star, revolutionary - Tupac Amaru Shakur was the most popular rapper in the world. No one symbolized the violence at the heart of gangsta rap more than Tupac, and he ultimately fell victim to that violence, gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas at the age of 25. This raw, no-holds-barred account discloses new information about the unsolved murder of Tupac: the failed investigation, the rap wars, the killing of Biggie Smalls, the Bloods-Crips connection, and the many possible motives leading to the murder that rocked the music world.

By the mid-1980s, singer-songwriter John Hiatt had been dropped from three record labels, burned through two marriages, and had fallen deep into substance abuse. It took a stint in rehab and a new marriage to inspire him, a producer, and an A&R man to have a little faith. By February 1987, he was back in the studio on a shoestring budget with a hand-picked supergroup consisting of Ry Cooder on guitar, Nick Lowe on bass, and Jim Keltner on drums, recording what would become his masterpiece, Bring the Family.

Unlikely tales are the most fun to tell. The long, strange trip Eddie DeGarmo has experienced over a half century in the music business is full of such stories. From playing keyboards at 10 years old in his first 1960s Memphis rock and roll band in the shadow of Graceland and Johnny Cash, to his own massive tours filling auditoriums and stadiums around the world with DeGarmo and Key, one of the first Christian rock bands. He successfully transitioned from his pioneering artist career to accomplish music executive cofounding trendsetting Forefront Records.

The "smart and zippy account" (The Wall Street Journal) of how Las Vegas saved Elvis and Elvis saved Las Vegas in the greatest musical comeback of all time. At once "a fascinating history of Vegas as gambling capital, celebrity playground, mob hangout, [and] entertainment Valhalla” (Rolling Stone) and the incredible "tale of how the King got his groove back" (Associated Press), Elvis in Vegas is a classic feel-good story for the ages.

When 12-year-old Jensen Karp got his first taste of rapping for crowds at his friend's bar mitzvah in 1991, little did he know that he was taking his first step on a crazy journey - one that would end with a failed million-dollar recording and publishing deal with Interscope Records when he was only 19. Now, in Kanye West Owes Me $300, Karp finally tells the true story of his wild ride as "Hot Karl", the most famous white rapper you've never heard of.

Janis Ian was catapulted into the spotlight in 1966 at the age of 15, when her soul-wrenching song "Society's Child" became a hit. But this was only the beginning of a long and illustrious career. In Society's Child, Janis Ian provides a relentlessly honest account of the successes and failures - and the hopes and dreams - of an extraordinary life.

This is the never-before-told story of the musical revolution that happened right under the nose of the Reagan '80s - when a small but sprawling network of bands, labels, fanzines, radio stations, and other subversives reenergized American rock with punk rock's do-it-yourself credo and created music that was deeply personal, often brilliant, always challenging, and immensely influential. This sweeping chronicle of music, politics, drugs, fear, loathing, and faith has been recognized as an indie rock classic in its own right.

In Elvis Presley: A Southern Life, one of the most admired Southern historians of our time takes on one of the greatest cultural icons of all time. The result is a masterpiece: a vivid, gripping biography, set against the rich backdrop of Southern society - indeed, American society - in the second half of the 20th century.

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung contains the wild and brilliant writings of Lester Bangs—the most outrageous and popular rock critic of the 1970s—edited and with an introduction by the reigning dean of rock critics, Greil Marcus.

How do you explain Liz Phair? Looking at her career, the word fearless seems the right place to start. In Never Said Nothing, the latest in Audible’s Words + Music series, Phair charts her unlikely journey from making her first record - one that’s now ensconced on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” - to a trial by fire (she’d never set foot on stage before its release), to even more improbably, a second and a third, maybe fourth act, depending on how one counts these things.

Country music had brought Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to cowrite a number one country hit, Trisha Yearwood’s “XXX’s and OOO’s”. Randall found inspiration and comfort in the sounds and history of the first family of Black country music: DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Ray Charles, Charley Pride, and Herb Jeffries who, together, made up a community of Black Americans rising through hard times to create simple beauty, true joy, and sometimes profound eccentricity.