Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Music

John Oates was born at the perfect time, paralleling the birth of rock 'n roll. Raised in a small Pennsylvania town, he was exposed to folk, blues, soul, and R&B. Meeting and teaming up with Daryl Hall in the late 1960s, they developed a style of music that was uniquely their own but never abandoned their roots.

The History of Gangster Rap is a deep dive into one of the most fascinating subgenres of any music category to date. Sixteen detailed chapters, organized chronologically, examine the evolution of gangster rap, its main players, and the culture that created this revolutionary music. From still-swirling conspiracy theories about the murders of Biggie and Tupac to the release of the 2015 film Straight Outta Compton, the era of gangster rap is one that fascinates music junkies and remains at the forefront of pop culture.

Beginning with his final departure from Neverland, Untouchable takes listeners through Jackson's final four years, as he shuttled from California to the Middle East, Ireland, Asia, the East Coast, and Las Vegas, planning to recapture his wealth and reputation with a comeback album and a series of 50 mega-concerts, for which he was rehearsing until the day before his death. Sullivan has never-before-reported information about Jackson's business dealings and the pedophilia allegations that irreparably marked his reputation, and he had exclusive access to inner-circle figures.

It was a pretty radical idea - a channel for teenagers, showing nothing but music videos. It was such a radical idea that almost no one thought it would actually succeed, much less become a force in the worlds of music, television, film, fashion, sports, and even politics. But it did work. MTV became more than anyone had ever imagined. I Want My MTV tells the story of the first decade of MTV, the golden era when MTV's programming was all videos, all the time, and kids watched religiously to see their favorite bands, learn about new music, and have something to talk about at parties.

Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon dives deep into the singer’s inner demons, triumphs, and gradual return to faith. Laurie interviews Cash’s family, friends, and business associates to reveal how the singer’s true success came through finding the only Person whose star was bigger than his own.

For the first time, Appetite for Self-Destruction recounts the story of the precipitous rise and fall of the recording industry over the past three decades, when the incredible success of the CD turned the music business into one of the most glamorous, high-profile industries in the world - and the advent of file sharing brought it to its knees.

At this very moment, you are surrounded by sound. Pause for a minute and try to listen to it all: the chatter of a passing conversation, the gentle whoosh of air vents, noise from a nearby street, someone turning the pages of a book, birds chirping in the trees.We rarely pay attention to everything we hear, but every noise in our environment has the ability to change our mood, decrease our productivity, even affect our health. While sound can heal, both emotionally and physically, it can also hurt us.

Zhu Xiao-Mei was three years old when she saw her first piano. Soon after, the child began to play, developing quickly into a prodigy who immersed herself in the work of such classical masters as Bach and Brahms. Her astonishing proficiency earned her a spot at the Beijing Conservatory at the tender age of 11, where she began laying the foundation for a promising career as a concert pianist. But in 1966, with the onset of the Cultural Revolution, life as she knew it ended abruptly.

Discover the man behind the myth in this new biography of one of the most pioneering and influential performers of our time - David Bowie. David Bowie - the iconic superstar of rock, fashion, art, design, and the quintessential sexual liberator - is a living legend. However, for the past five decades, he has managed to retain his Hollywood star mystique. Now, New York Times bestselling author Wendy Leigh reveals the real man behind the mythology.

Today, most of the music fans listen to is streamed via online services and highly compressed. It’s convenient, but, frustratingly, this comes at the cost of quality. Gone are the days when it was technologically necessary to compress music into the smallest possible file size, yet this remains the industry standard. The result is music that is robbed of its original quality - muddy and flat in sound compared to the rich, warm sound artists hear in the studio.

Aretha Franklin: The Queen of Soul documents the beloved singing star’s rocky personal life and internationally acclaimed show business career. An in-depth and frank examination of Aretha, this definitive biography traces her career from her beginnings as a 12-year-old member of a church choir in the early 1950s, recording her first album at the age of 14, a major recording contract at 18, and stardom in her 20s, right up through her headline-grabbing 2010 health scare, to her triumphant return: singing to her cheering Detroit hometown fans in summer 2011.

Anyone who has ever taken a music lesson knows the key to playing well is practice. The same is true for another transformative discipline - meditation - and yet, so often the two fail to harmonize. In Tune helps sync these practices to achieve the kind of mindfulness that opens our ears to the symphony of sound and silence all around.

Beautiful, romantic, and spirited, Pannonica, known as Nica, named after her father’s favorite moth, was born in 1913 to extraordinary, eccentric privilege and a storied history. As a debutante, she was taught to fly by a saxophonist and introduced to jazz by her brother Victor; she married Baron Jules de Koenigswarter, settled in a château in France and had five children. In the early 1950s Nica heard "’Round Midnight" by the jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk and, as if under a powerful spell, abandoned her marriage and moved to New York to find him....

A no-holds-barred memoir of legendary Dead Kennedys and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer D.H. Peligro, Dreadnaught chronicles Peligro from his pre-DK years growing up in a deprived St. Louis ghetto to his years in San Francisco with Jello Biafra, East Bay Ray, and Klaus Flouride - from Los Angeles with the Red Hot Chili Peppers through years of drug and alcohol abuse all over the world amidst a backdrop of some of the most defining periods of late 20th century cultural, social, and music history.

A captivating and fast-paced account of the rise of Ruffhouse Records’ founder Chris Schwartz, the coming of age of hip-hop, and the trials and tribulations of some of its greatest artists. As a homeless musician struggling to catch a break in 1980s Philadelphia, Schwartz navigates the criminally infested, morally bankrupt independent record business to build one of the most successful hip-hop record companies in the world, which dominated the charts and generated global revenues of over one billion dollars.

During the early twentieth century, the American government’s standing expectation was that Native Americans should be adopting Western customs. In the face of that prospect, anthropologist and musicologist Frances Densmore sought to preserve Native American culture—particularly as it was expressed through music. In her extensive writings on Native American lifestyles, music, and history, Densmore opened a window onto American experiences that had been obscured by stereotypes, and encouraged a better appreciation of the varied traditions of tribes nationwide.

Gloria Gaynor’s number-one hit single "I Will Survive" debuted in 1978 to overwhelming success. Shortly thereafter, the single went double platinum. Over three decades later, it still strikes a chord among men and women everywhere. Over the years, the disco legend has received thousands of personal messages from adoring fans whose lives have been transformed by this timeless song. Here, she shares 40 of those inspirational, true stories.

What songs have made up your life's soundtrack? Which have captured your every mood and deepest sentiments? Pop music, like no other form of entertainment or art, is capable of articulating our feelings, desires, joy, and pain. In a few soul-grabbing minutes, artists from every genre - from Little Richard to Lou Reed, Willie Nelson to Wu-Tang Clan, Sly and the Family Stone to the Rolling Stones - can help us understand our place in our own lives.

This is the real story of the Beatles' harrowing rise to fame, focusing on that seven-year stretch from the time the boys met as teenagers in the 1950s to early 1964, when the Fab Four prepared to invade America. From the boys' humble beginnings in Liverpool, to the cellars of Hamburg, When They Were Boys includes stories never before told, including heartbreaks, lucky breaks, and dramatic twists of timing, fate, loyalty, and betrayal.