Composers and songwriters Books

O Praise the Lord with One Consent was composed in 1718 while Handel was residing in Cannons Park. Like the other Chandos Anthems, it was comissioned by the Earl of Carnarvon James Brydges, subsequently named First Duke of Chandos. The anthem was first...

Angels of the Night falls into three parts. From the Jazz explosion ignited by Black Musicians in the early years of the 1900s, in the Reliious context of Gospel Music and in the Secular context of the Blues.

The first-ever biography of the pianist Solomon begins in London's East End, where he was born. The author presents an absorbing picture of one of the most astonishing prodigies in recent musical history. This includes three detailed appendices: A...

"With a string of smash hits - Nova Heart, Tell No Lies, Old Emotions, Romantic Traffic - the Spoons redefined the musical landscape and captured the hearts of fans everywhere. The Spoons toured extensively, playing sold-out shows with an array of fellow...

This is the story of a beautiful young girl from Melbourne with an outstanding voice who is invited to tour Australia as a support act for Frank Sinatra in 1959. At the age of eighteen she flew alone to the USA, where her childhood dreams of stardom came...

The first ever 'authorised' biography of this most inscrutable of bands - now updated.Together music writer Mick Middles and Fall leader Mark E. Smith have written an exhausting biography of the Fall. Spanning their years on the fringe of the Manchester...

Sex, drugs, egos, money, fans, music, god and who we love and hate... the rock stars have their say. Featuring over 2,000 words of wisdom and stupidity from all your favourite rock stars and five decades of rock'n'roll. Quotes include: 'Don't interpret...

The Beatles Off The Record is the most comprehensive oral history of The Beatles ever published - an 'as it happened' story of the greatest pop group of them all. Featuring a wealth of quotes from the Sixties by John, Paul, George and Ringo themselves...

From The Beatles' patronage of his 1968 debut album to his Grammy awards for Hourglass, James Taylor has remained a universally acclaimed songwriter of effortless eloquence and power. In this major biography, the late Timothy White explores the...

The Wild American is the story of Kristofferson's triumphant pursuit of a career that took an even more unlikely turn when he broke into movies and became famous all over again.Kris Kristofferson is one of country music's most illustrious...

Soul icon James Brown died on Christmas Day, 2006, fifty years after his recording debut. Despite a career slump in the seventies and only intermittent success during his eighties and nineties revival, James Brown had more hits than any other black...

The Spice Girls phenomenon was a genuine pop music landmark. No group since The Beatles had commanded as much media attention. Ginger, Baby, Posh, Sporty and Scary became international stars and, whether they were adored or ridiculed, they became the...

The Dolls, peddling trans-gender posturing and incendiary rock 'n' roll, were dumped by the record business after making just two albums. But their influence lived on when Malcolm McLaren injected the last of The Dolls' life blood into the Sex Pistols...

In this volume, following the "cembalo concertato" technique, the organist's library is enriched with a beautiful page by Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): the Concerto in D Hob. XVIII n °11 (originally composed for keyboard and orchestra).The technique...

Don't Knock the Rock tells many stories about the colorful experiences of growing up in New Orleans. From Mardi Gras to fishing and hunting in Louisiana, nowhere else in the world compares to south Louisiana. Known as the sportsman's paradise, anyone can...

The music of the Big Bands helped to define an era in music. From the mid-1930s throughout the 1940s swing was the thing. The music helped to create a diversion from the painful realities of the Great Depression and a world at war.It was compelling music...

Described as one of Franck's "tightest and most finished works", the Variations symphoniques of 1885 nevertheless got off to a slow start. The premiere, given in Paris on May 1, 1886 with the famous pianist Louis Diémer as soloist and the composer at the...

This work was once credited to Mozart but later discounted as being by him and attributed instead to the composer Jan Zach (1699-1773). Rcent Zach scholarship has largely discredited the idea of Zach being the composer. In any case, this work has...

Haydn's "Grosses Te Deum" was probably composed in 1800 for a performance given at Eisenstadt in the fall of that year. Scored with a full orchestral accompaniment, it was first published in 1802 by Breitkopf und Hartel. The score here is a...

Borodin started work on his second symphony soon after the 1869 premiere of his first. He worked on it off and on until 1876, putting it aside for another project - misplacing his orchestral scores of the first and last movements in the process. When a...

The final work in the revolutionary series of thirteen tone poems Liszt composed for orchestra, Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe (From the Cradle to the Grave) was composed in 1881-82 - late in the composer's life. The three movement work, dedicated to Count...

This is the HARDBACK version. "This book brings back so many lovely and amusing memories of a sadlymissed friend. She was unique and irreplaceable in so many ways. Joel hasbeen thorough in his research, and his love and respect for Karen shinethrough...

206 pages, 348 black & white illustrations, size 8.25 x 11 inches (210 x 279 mm).While most books that have been written about the 1960’s Liverpool groups tend to focus on the individual members and while this book is obviously the Notions...

Widowed after 50 years, but happy and hearty and newly wed at age 78, Wichern looks back on a life of business, agriculture and musical adventures in and around his Ringling Brothers Circus hometown of Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Papa Benny is a grandfather that loves to spend time with his grandchildren. The grandchildren enjoy riding around in "Big Red", playing outside, completing homework, while listening to their grandfather's wisdom and knowledge. He makes friends with...

During the 1940s, country music was rapidly evolving from traditional songs and string band styles to honky-tonk, western swing, and bluegrass, via radio, records, and film. The Blue Sky Boys, brothers Bill (1917-2008) and Earl (1919-1998) Bolick,...

In the last decade of his life, starting when he was a sixty-two-year old curmudgeon in a backwater Slavic country, Czech composer Leoš Janáček produced operas and chamber music that would stun the music world, one masterpiece on top of another.In...

This memoir chronicles Erich Graf's life as a musician, flutist and musicians' advocate. His career has comprised a combination of 10 years as a student and free-lance flutist in New York City (seven years as member of the Aeolian Chamber Players), 35...

As the turbulent 60's began to fade into the calmer 70's, a coterie of young singers, songwriters, musicians, artists, and poets began to congregate, musically on the stage of The New Bijou Theater - the Springfield, Missouri nightclub that would become...

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A notable book in European nineteenth-century intellectual history, this was an account of the relationship between the young Mendelssohn and the aged Goethe, supported by a collection of nearly 40 Mendelssohn letters providing a first-hand account of...

This volume contains a detailed biography of Elgar, and is part of the 'Master Musicians' series written by W. H. Reed. In writing this biography, Reed was aided by Elgar's daughter who helped him piece together the various incidents in Edward Elgar's...