Showing results by publisher "audible originals" in Biographies & Memoirs

Launching during the 30th anniversary year of Doggystyle, Snoop Dogg’s installment of Words + Music reflects on his coming-of-age journey from the streets of Long Beach to around the world and his decision to pursue love and life over death and destruction.

This is the story of how a nerdy, homeschooled kid in the church choir named John Stephens became the Grammy-winning, platinum-selling, genre-pushing pop star we know as John Legend. For a long time, he led a double life—excelling as a star student while his home life was in shambles, working in corporate America as a financial consultant while moonlighting as a musician in nightclubs, always straddling a line between the person he was and the person he wanted to be. These are his Words + Music.

Best-selling author Bryan Burrough recently made a shocking discovery: The small town of Temple, Texas, where he had grown up, had harbored a dark secret. One of his high school classmates, Danny Corwin, was a vicious serial killer. In this chilling tale, Burrough raises important questions of whether serial killers can be recognized before they kill or rehabilitated after they do. It is also a story of Texas politics and power that led the good citizens of the town of Temple to enable a demon who was their worst nightmare.

Soaring ambition. Unwavering integrity. Billie Joe Armstrong isn’t the first punk to negotiate mainstream success, but he might be its most undisguised example. In Welcome to my Panic, Green Day’s iconic front man holds nothing back as he tracks listeners though his deeply personal and artistic journey in raw detail. Matching his emotional storytelling with new, exclusive, recordings of Green Day’s biggest hits, Armstrong chronicles the seminal moments in his life: the trauma and triumphs that have come to define him.

Rock and roll in the BC (Before Cooper) era was a tamer, milder world. In Who I Really Am, Cooper’s latest addition to Audible’s Words + Music series, we learn how the boa-wearing (not the feathered kind) maestro arrived at a show and sound - let’s call it AC for After Cooper - that has entertained millions of kids while terrifying parents in equal measure. Cooper drew inspiration from Saturday matinee horror movies, applied a "no such thing as too much" attitude, and hitched it to a kick-ass rock and roll band.

Gorgeous music, riveting stories, and the open road ahead. Don’t miss your chance to join Rufus Wainwright, the inimitable singer, songwriter, and composer, as he tracks his fascinating journey as an artist and man over the course of his deeply familiar car ride between the storied home of his youth (Saint-Sauveur, Quebec) and New York City, the birthplace of his musical rise. Part of Audible’s Words + Music series, Road Trip Elegies features more than 20 songs performed by Rufus and a tight-knit band (including family and friends) at a recent set of performances out West.

Brandy has influenced the last quarter century of pop music and helped define the R&B legacy of the ‘90s and ‘00s with seven rich, innovative albums. She’s an esteemed vocalist who along the way had to manage the pressures of teenage fame, young superstardom, and self-doubt. These are her Words + Music.

The Art of Confessing is an intimate diary entry from Jazmine Sullivan, a Grammy-winning vocal powerhouse blessed with the unique gift of emotional storytelling. R&B is a space for Black women to create their own language around love, sexuality, and heartache. Within that space, Jazmine Sullivan has built a strong, powerful sisterhood through her music.

A leading light on the alternative and indie music scene for nearly 40 years, Jeff Tweedy is a master of the art in the artifice of songwriting. In this volume, Tweedy introduces listeners to the people, occasions, and frames of mind that have inspired but don’t necessarily populate the iconic songbooks of bands Wilco, Uncle Tupelo, and Tweedy.

"I’m James Taylor and I’m a professional autobiographer", says the celebrated folk singer at the start of this tender audio memoir. Through decades of music by one of the best-selling musicians of all time, who created classics like "Fire and Rain" and "Carolina in My Mind", James Taylor has doled out his history in the poetry of his work. Taylor says his early life is, "the source of many of my songs", and Break Shot is a tour of his first 21 years in rich, new detail.

When celebrated writer Joan Didion’s life was altered forever, she wrote a new chapter. In this adaptation of her iconic memoir, Didion transforms the story of the shattering loss of her husband and their daughter into a one-woman play performed by Tony Award winner Vanessa Redgrave, who originated the role on Broadway in 2007.

What’s it like to parent a child in transition? Inspired by the acclaimed podcast How to Be a Girl, this is a highly personal and beautifully narrated memoir by Marlo Mack recounting the journey she’s been on since her three-year-old declared he should have been born a girl. And Mack agrees to the child’s request to be a girl.

Ben Timberlake has spent a lifetime in pursuit of the ultimate rush. This is an account of his near-execution in wartime Yugoslavia, his time in the SAS, combat in Iraq, encounters with a gambling-obsessed 9/11 hijacker, veterans blissed out on MDMA, as well as exploring hook-ups in the world of extreme sex and battling a heroin habit on a remote Scottish island. In this pilgrimage on the road of excess Ben looks at the social, biological, religious and personal factors that drive people to the edge and has a whole lot of fun along the way.

Carlos Santana’s Light, Spirit, and Soul is a rhythmic journey into the places, spaces, artists, and music that have inspired and informed one of popular music’s most successful artists by any measurable standard. He’s not an entertainer. He’s a communicator of a language that speaks directly to the molecules of listeners across space and time. These are his Words + Music.

In his W+M installment, A Dynamic Career in Communications, yasiin bey treats listeners to a rich and immersive experience that goes beyond the surface. It's a captivating journey that explores his roots, beliefs, and creative process. Through his words and music, yasiin bey offers a unique and powerful perspective on life, art, and the role of communication in shaping the world we live in.

Legendary Grammy Award-winning producer and towering musical icon T Bone Burnett speaks plainly, which is all the more reason why his stunning new Words + Music, The Confederacy: Truth and Reconciliation, lands with such force. And his songs, delivered straight from the heart, carry with them the weight of unvarnished truth and the wisdom he’s gathered from a lifetime.

Rhiannon Giddens possesses the power to express herself and the human experience like few others. Journey with the inimitable folk musician and MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipient as the celebrated artist examines the multitude of influences and identities that have led her to a life "nestled in the nexus” - defined and further made whole by the sum of her parts.

How did a once faceless bureaucrat, a man whose own wife said he was born under the sign of the vampire, become the idealized face of Russian manhood and its authoritarian leader? Deputy Mayor Putin examines the man behind the myth. We will explore how Putin’s formative years shaped and drove him and how the supporting cast of characters he gathered along the way helped him get to the Kremlin’s inner sanctum.

The decline and fall of Rudy Giuliani, from “America’s Mayor” to public spectacle, has all the makings of a modern Shakespearean tragedy. Those who know Giuliani, whose tough leadership and even tougher politics helped revitalize New York City in the 1990s and lead the country through 9/11, have stood by and watched with incredulity as he put himself at the heart of impeachment charges against the President.

A down-to-earth global pop star. A deeply spiritual, cerebral powerhouse. A famously outspoken introvert. For her millions of fans, and the few unacquainted, defining rock luminary Alanis Morissette is an exercise in dichotomies and nuance. And though her most formidable traits are seemingly at odds with one another, they are, oddly enough, completely emblematic of all of us: complex, conflicting, and, most importantly, ever evolving. With her striking command of language and profound emotional fluency, the 46-year-old covers an enormous amount of personal ground with listeners.