Music

Growing up around music, young George was inspired to piece together a makeshift drum set and teach himself to play as he practiced in the dark, dank basement of his run-down New Jersey row house. He soon joined forces with his friends to form a group...

Janey Lee Grace cut her teeth on the mic around the night clubs of Manchester and Birmingham and her first big singing break was with Mari Wilson and the Wilsations. After she was fired from the band for refusing to dye her hair canary yellow she was...

Growing up in Peterborough, voted the ‘worst place to live in England & the UK’, certainly had its challenges. But a love for Nick Cave’s band and a passion for indie music launched the author, Pete Elderkin, on a series of extraordinary events while...

Chilean musician and artist Violeta Parra (1917–1967) is an inspiration to generations of artists and activists across the globe. Her music is synonymous with resistance, and it animated both the Chilean folk revival and the protest music movement Nueva...

'A fully realised portrait of a complex man: spiritual but peevish, brilliantly talented, but for ever shadowed by the Lennon/McCartney axis' The Times, Book of the Year From the author of the million-copy selling Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation...

Dion DiMucci rose to Rock and Roll fame in the late 1950s with three top-forty hits as the lead singer of Dion and the Belmonts, “Runaround Sue,” “The Wanderer,” and “A Teenager in Love.” Later embarking on a solo career, his anthem “Abraham, Martin, and...

New York Times BestsellerThe definitive biography of legendary musician, composer, and performer Leon Russell, a profound influence on countless artists, including George Harrison, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Willie Nelson, Tom Petty,...

Arthel ""Doc"" Watson (1923–2012) is arguably one of the most influential musicians Appalachia has ever produced. A musician's musician, Doc grew up on a subsistence farm in the North Carolina mountains during the Depression, soaking up traditional music...

Soca music, an offspring of older Trinidadian calypso, emerged in the late 1970s and is now recognized as one of the English-speaking Caribbean’s most distinctive styles of popular vocal music. Frankie McIntosh and the Art of the Soca Arranger tells a...

In the first years of the new millennium Russell Watson was at the peak of his success as a much loved classical singer. He had gone from humble beginnings, working in a factory making nuts and bolts in Salford to singing in working men's clubs to...

The final word from one of Canada’s greatest cultural critics and music writers. In the summer of 2020, acclaimed music critic and journalist Peter Goddard began work on a new book that would take readers on a journey back through his fifty-plus years...

Chilean musician and artist Violeta Parra (1917–1967) is an inspiration to generations of artists and activists across the globe. Her music is synonymous with resistance, and it animated both the Chilean folk revival and the protest music movement Nueva...

Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Dave Mason found early success with the band Traffic, establishing himself as a skilled guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter who penned the classic “Feelin’ Alright?”. Departing the band for a solo career, Mason earned three gold...

The Pulitzer Prize–winning American lyricist Ira Gershwin (1896–1983) has been hailed as one of the masters of the Great American Songbook—songs written largely for Broadway and Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1950s. Now, in the first full-length...

Foreword by Martyn Ware Electric Dreams is the definitive history of the hugely influential bands The Human League and Heaven 17, from Sheffield beginnings to world-renowned synth-pop pioneers. The book draws on first-hand interviews with band...

A no-holds-barred rampage through gigs, clubs, boardrooms, drugs and booze, mad scenes, brilliant signings, machine gun quotes and a resilient wild spirit.Music is like no other business.It's about being at the right place at the right time, following...

Soca music, an offspring of older Trinidadian calypso, emerged in the late 1970s and is now recognized as one of the English-speaking Caribbean’s most distinctive styles of popular vocal music. Frankie McIntosh and the Art of the Soca Arranger tells a...

'For years now, I've been taking fugitive snaps of my band, Radiohead. I've tried to catch out my friends with my small black Yashica T4 Super. They are so lost in their own moment of performance that they don't see me with the camera.' Colin...

Celebrate your best Swiftie life with this gorgeously illustrated, all-encompassing fan book on everything there is to know and love about the modern icon that is Taylor Swift.From her first vocal lessons at age nine, to learning the guitar at twelve, to...

Ritchie Blackmore once said, "You can't get any better than Cozy, you know. He's always up there on stage going crazy, he always pushes me on when I look round. He always gives me that incentive to play because Cozy won't let anybody take it easy." He...

A memoir by the 2019 Wellcome Prize winner Will Eaves that looks at the creation of eight piano pieces. What lies behind the creation of a piece of music? Does it spring fully formed from a composer’s mind, or take shape in the recesses of the brain,...

In this intimate and open account – nothing like any rock-and-roll memoir you’ve ever read – Alex Van Halen shares his personal story of family, friendship, music and brotherly love in a remarkable tribute to his beloved brother and band mate. Told...

FOREWORD BY ALAN WARNER'A book that sets new standards for rock biography' GuardianReissued as part of White Rabbit's Deep Cuts series, On Some Faraway Beach is the first and only ever comprehensive and authoritative biography of Brian Eno, featuring...