Composers and songwriters Books

With six consecutive number one singles and the smash hit "Merry Xmas Everybody," Slade were unstoppable. Now, the man whose outlandish costumes and unmistakable hairstyle made Slade one of the definitive acts of the Glam Rock era tells his story.If...

I can't wait to read this book and figure out how he does it all! Keep going, David! Brian 'Head' Welch (KoRN)In this follow-up to his 2013 memoir My Life With Deth, Megadeth bassist and co-founder David Ellefson carries on where he left off, charting...

How have a group conceived as a shortlived commodity outlived so many of their contemporaries? Why are The Monkees still important, and what does this tell us about their music, their TV show, and our understanding of popular culture today?Despite being...

'The closest we'll ever get to a straight up Bowie autobiography - but who'd ever want anything straight-up from Bowie?' Rolling StoneIn 2002, David Bowie and Mick Rock created Moonage Daydream, the defining document of the life and times of Ziggy...

In this book, I wanted to include items from my personal archive that have played a part in my career over 60 years, to give the detail behind the detail. - Jimmy PageFrom his early days as a young session musician, through his years on the...

'This is a way of putting my life out there, because if I were to write a memoir, there'd be five volumes before I got to The Beatles. So I'm going at it this way, through photographs and quotes. And this is, I feel, a better way for me to do it.' -...

The biggest edition yet with 35,000 words of new material!Critically acclaimed in its previous editions, The Complete David Bowie is widely recognized as the foremost source of analysis and information on every facet of Bowie's career...

Little Girl Blue is an intimate profile of Karen Carpenter, a girl from a modest Connecticut upbringing who became a Southern California superstar. Karen was the instantly recognizable lead singer of the Carpenters. The top-selling American musical act...

'Songs That Saved Your Life - The Art of The Smiths 1982 -87' reveals the stories behind every track (including unreleased out-takes), catalogues all the group's UK television, radio and concert appearances and features interviews with original band...

Leonard Bernstein (19181990) was one of twentieth-century music's most successful and recognisable figures. In a career spanning five decades he conducted many of the world's leading orchestras, and composed scores for landmark musicals such as Candide...

A guide to the music and multifaceted career of Canadian artists and songwriters Tegan and Sara.Through interviews with Tegan and Sara, their collaborators, journalists, and fans, this book explores the multifaceted career of one of music's most...

A powerful, intimate look at the life of a beloved folk icon and activist.Folk hero. Songwriter icon. Living legend. Buffy Sainte-Marie is all of these things and more. In this, Sainte-Marie's first and only authorized biography, music critic Andrea...

Disability, death and divorce are part of a string of losses that leave this award-winning musician fundamentally changed as she learns to navigate her grief and find a way forward.Christa Couture lost a piece of herself-in more ways than one. She lost a...

Django Reinhardt is a legend. But Django -which may have meant "He who wakens"- was twice born. A first time in the snow, during the winter of 1910 in a nomadic gypsy family stationed in Liberchies, Belgium. The second in Saint-Ouen, near Paris, in the...

When the Rolling Stones hit the scene in the 60s it was to play Rhythm & Blues, nothing more. They were far from imagining that they are not just going to change music but also become the mouthpiece of a changing world. Sticking their tongue out at...

Celebrate your favorite songs, performances, and music video moments with this official Britney Spears coloring book. From "...Baby One More Time" to the Las Vegas stage, there's no shortage of iconic Britney Spears moments. Now, color your way through...

Rock-and-roll icon and three-time bestselling author Nikki Sixx tells hisorigin story: how Frank Feranna becameNikki Sixx, chronicling his fascinatingjourney from irrepressible Idaho farmboy to the man who formed the revolutionary rock group Mtley Cre...

In Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, John Corabi recounts his life from the mean streets of Philadelphia to the Sunset Strip. Take a look behind the scenes at Corabi's time fronting Mtley Cre, Union, and The Dead Daisies, as well as his time playing rhythm...

Frank Bello, bassist with the legendary New York thrash metal band Anthrax since 1984, has sold over ten million albums, travelled the globe more times than he cares to count, and enthralled audiences from the world's biggest stages. His long-awaited...

In Double Talkin' Jive legendary drummer Matt Sorum takes music lovers behind the scenes of a remarkable life in rock. Sorum, whose albums have sold tens of millions of copies around the world, provides an honest, engaging account of the highs and lows...

If you're looking for the events that inspired the lyrics to all my songs? Those stories are in this book. If you're looking for what I did when I was younger? That's in here. What changed me, made me stop hating and hurting? It's all here. This is my...

Corey Taylor from Slipknot wrote the introductionJason Christopher plays Corey Taylor's solo band, and they tour all over the world together regularlyBooks will be promoted on their tourJason Christopher self-published a book called Rogue to Nowhere and...

"Womack and Kruppa present a thorough history of Harrison and Clapton's songmaking and recording sessions." -BooklistNewly revised and expanded, this paperback edition featuresexclusive material from the Malcolm Frederick Evans archives and draws on rare...

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were going to be a one-time act for a friend's album release party.Forty years later the funk rock band is arguably one of the best known and the longest running in the United States.Everything that happened in 1983 set the...

George Harrison on George Harrison is an authoritative, chronologically arranged anthology of Harrison's most revealing and illuminating interviews, personal correspondence, and writings, spanning the years 1962 to 2001. Though known as the "Quiet...

Prince on Prince gets behind the controversies to tell the Prince story in his own words.Prince is among the most respected and influential entertainers of the twentieth century, breaking sexual, racial, and creative barriers throughout his almost forty...

Cash on Cash offers unprecedented insight into one of the most significant American cultural figures of the twentieth century.As an interviewee, Cash was an exemplary communicator to an astonishingly broad spectrum of people: always open and articulate,...

The life and career of Haitian American musician Jean Beauvoir, a member of the legendary New York City punk band the PlasmaticsJean Beauvoir joined the Plasmatics in 1979, playing bass and keyboards for the most notorious band to emerge out of the New...

The life of rock's most durable troubadour in his own wordsNeil Young on Neil Young: Interviews and Encounters is a revealing anthology of Young's most significant, fascinating, and entertaining discussions, declarations, and dreams, chronicling fifty...

By the mid-1980s, singer-songwriter John Hiatt had been dropped from three record labels, burned through two marriages, and had fallen deep into alcoholism.It took a stint in rehab and a new family to inspire him, then a producer and an A&R man to...

The Beatles Finally Let It Be includes the January 1969 rehearsals and recording sessions; the unreleased "Get Back" albums; "Let It Be" and "Let It Be...Naked;" along with American; British and Canadian perspectives. This volume also includes a detailed...

Ulrich thinks he got the ultimate fan trip-to play, record, and tour with his favourite band, Dead Can Dance. His memoir details the early days, from signing with 4AD, recording their first album, then heading off on tour with the Cocteau Twins. There...

Fierce and funny, this memoir in essay and song is full of wonderful tales of art and protest. Leon Rosselson's Where Are the Elephants? is a rare behind-the-scenes look at the life and times of one of England's foremost songwriters. This clear-eyed...

Lou Gramm rose from humble, working-class roots in Rochester, New York, to become one of rock's most popular and distinctive voices in the 1970s and '80s, singing and cowriting more than a dozen hits with the band Foreigner. Songs such as Cold As...

Think punk was only a boys club? Read about the women who were the punk revolution!Women have been kicking against the pricks of music patriarchy since Sister Rosetta Tharpe first played the guitar riffs that built rock-n-roll. The explosion of punk sent...

Francoise Hardy is best known in Europe for originating the famed "Y-Y" sound in pop music which began a cultural scene in the early 1960s. Her teenage success grew as she became a much-photographed fashion model and actress. Adored for her shy beauty...

John Fahey hovers ghostlike in the sound of almost every acoustic guitarist who came after him, from Leo Kottke to Jimmy Page. In essence, John Fahey is to the solo acoustic guitar what Jimi Hendrix was to the electric: the man whom all subsequent...

Maceo Parker's signature style became the lynchpin of James Brown's band when he and his brother Melvin joined the Hardest Working Man in Show Business in 1964. That style helped define Brown's brand of funk, and the phrase "Maceo, I want you to blow!"...

Get inside the head of one of the most beloved musicians of our time, a longtime country music phenomenon turned titan of industry and cultural icon: Dolly PartonThis collection of quotes has been carefully curated from Parton's numerous public...

Get inside the head of one of the most influential musicians of our time, a pop music phenomenon turned titan of industry and cultural icon: Taylor Swift.This collection of quotes has been carefully curated from Swift's numerous public statements -...

"I was in the car the first time music seemed strange: the instruments less distinct, the vocals less crisp." John Cotter was thirty years old when he first began to notice a ringing in his ears. Soon the ringing became a roar inside his head. Next came...

Like a long, funny letter from an old friend, an album of drawings by the legendary singer and activist for social justice, Joan Baez.Since retiring from active performing, Baez has focused her formidable talents on painting and drawing. This collection...

This man and music asks two central questions: what can literature contribute to the art of composition, and how can music influence the writer? Anthony Burgess, famed novelist, journalist, and composer, answers these questions and many more. As a person...

Throughout the 1990s, Prince feuded with his record label, Warner Bros., over his rights as an independent recording artist--and made some of the most brilliant music of his career. During that time, Jim Walsh covered Prince for the St. Paul Pioneer...

A bullet train of a book, fast-paced, hilarious, rich with action. A harbinger of good things to come in mysterious ways.It all began at a cocktail party at Wallace Stegner's for the Stanford writing class of 1958. Ken Kesey and Ken Babbs became cronies,...

There's no ghost writer for this book. Its just me. - Brian MayWith these words, the author announces the first book ever to be published about the legendary rock band Queen by a member of the band. And certainly the first book of its kind in the world...

Curtis Mayfield was one of the seminal vocalists and most talented guitarists of his era, and his music played a vital role in the civil rights movement: People Get Ready was the black anthem of the time. In Traveling Soul , Todd Mayfield tells his...

The philosophically rich David Bowie is an artist of wide and continuing influence. The theatrical antics of Bowie ushered in a new rock aesthetic, but there is much more to Bowie than mere spectacle. The visual belies the increasing depths of his...