Rock Art

Craig Childs bears witness to rock art of the Colorado Plateau—bighorn sheep pecked behind boulders, tiny spirals in stone, human figures with upraised arms shifting with the desert light, each one a portal to the open mouth of time. With a spirit of generosity, humility, and love of the arid, intricate landscapes of the desert Southwest, Childs sets these ancient communications in context, inviting listeners to look and listen deeply.

Ed Ward covers the first half of the history of rock & roll in this sweeping and definitive narrative - from the 1920s, when the music of rambling medicine shows mingled with the songs of vaudeville and minstrel acts to create the very early sounds of country and rhythm and blues, to the rise of the first independent record labels post-World War II, and concluding in December 1963, just as an immense change in the airwaves took hold and the Beatles prepared for their first American tour.

Shout It Out Loud is a serious examination of the circumstance and serendipity that fused the creation of the band's seminal work, Destroyer - including the band's arduous ascent to the unexpected smash hit Alive!, the ensuing lawsuits between its management and its label, the pursuit of the hot, young producer, a grueling musical "boot camp", the wildly creative studio abandon, the origins behind an iconic cover, the era's most outlandish tour, and the unlikely string of hit singles.

A history of Saturday Night Live that finally reveals what really went on backstage, on the set, in the writers' offices, and on the town. Dozens of stars, writers, and guest hosts recall the backstage gossip, feuds, foibles, drugs, sex, struggles, and calamities of the show that changed television.

Steve Parish was never one to walk the straight-and-narrow, even during his childhood growing up in Flushing Meadow, Queens. Busted as a teenager for selling acid in the summer of 1968, Parish landed in Riker's Island. The experience changed him, and after getting out, he did his best to stay out of trouble, securing a job moving music equipment at the New York State Pavilion. The first show he worked was a Grateful Dead concert in July of 1969, and Parish was captivated by the music. A life seemingly headed nowhere had suddenly found its calling.

Laurel Canyon was the neighborhood perched above the clubs and record companies of Sunset Strip where Joni Mitchell, Jim Morrison, Graham Nash, Cass Elliot, Carole King, Don Henley, and Peter Tork, just to name a few, lived and collaborated to make an indelible mark on our music and our culture.

It's February 1964 and The Beatles just landed in New York City, where the NYPD, swarms of fans, and a crowd of two hundred journalists await their first American press conference. It begins with the question on everyone's mind: "Are you going to get a haircut in America?" and ends with a reporter tugging Paul McCartney's hair in an attempt to remove his nonexistent wig. This is where The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 2 kicks off.

His journey is meticulously documented through detailed accounts of his time secluded behind the doors of the recording studio as well as his days on tour. With unprecedented access to the musicians, singers, and studio engineers who knew Prince best, including members of the Revolution and the Time, Duane Tudahl weaves an intimate saga of an eccentric genius and the people and events who helped shape the groundbreaking music he created. From Sunset Sound Studios' daily recording logs and the Warner Bros. vault of information, Tudahl uncovers hidden truths and reveals details about Prince's unreleased outtakes.

Acclaimed journalist Peter Doggett recounts the previously untold story of the dramatic final chapter in the lives, loves, and legal battles of John, Paul, George, and Ringo - a.k.a. The Beatles - from their breakup in 1969 to the present day. Called "refreshingly straightforward and highly readable" by the Daily Telegraph (London), You Never Give Me Your Money is the dramatic and intimate story of the breakup and aftermath of The Fab Four as it's never been told before.

John Glatt tells the story of the Fillmores through the lives of Bill Graham, Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Carlos Santana, and an all-star supporting cast. Chronicling the East and West Coast cultures of the late 1960s and early 1970s-New York City with its speed, heroin, and the Velvet Underground versus San Francisco with the LSD-drenched Summer of Love - Glatt reveals how Graham made it all possible. But why did Graham shutter both Fillmores within weeks of each other in 1971, during the height of their popularity?

Phil Spector, born in the Bronx in 1940, grew up an outsider despised by his peers. But he formed a band, and had a number-one hit with "To Know Him Is to Love Him". He quickly became the top producer of early rock and roll and the originator of such girl groups as the Ronettes. Hit followed hit, and for all of them he used a new recording style called the "wall of sound". But the reign of the boy-man who owned pop music was doomed, and Spector spiraled into paranoid isolation and peculiar behavior.

Matt Pinfield is the ultimate music fan. He's the guy who knows every song, artist, and musical riff ever recorded, down to the most obscure band's B-side single on its vinyl-only EP import. As a child, music helped Pinfield make sense of the world. Later he would approach his music idols after concerts and explain why he loved their music. As an adult, rock music inspired his career, fueled relationships, and, at times, became a life raft.

It began with a handful of East Berlin teens who heard the Sex Pistols on a British military radio broadcast to troops in West Berlin, and it ended with the collapse of the East German dictatorship. Punk rock was a life-changing discovery. The buzz-saw guitars, the messed-up clothing and hair, the rejection of society and the DIY approach to building a new one: In their gray surroundings, where everyone's future was preordained by some communist apparatchik, punk represented a revolutionary philosophy - quite literally, as it turned out.

In Tearing Down the Orange Curtain, journalists Nate Jackson and Daniel Kohn explore the trajectory of punk and ska from their humble beginnings to their peak popularity years, where their cultural impact could be felt in music around the world. Delving deep into the personal and professional lives of bands like Social Distortion, The Adolescents, The Offspring, and their ska counterparts No Doubt, Sublime, Reel Big Fish, Save Ferris, and more, this book gives listeners a deeper look into the very human stories of these musicians.

The Story of Rock and Roll an epic tale with a cast of thousands (if you count the crowd at Woodstock), spanning more than a century. It’s also an American story (at least until the Beatles arrived) about music created by individuals clinging to the lowest rung of the social ladder who, nevertheless, invented a musical idea that engulfed the entire world, influencing all aspects of culture, and drawing every other kind of music into its orbit. It’s a story that has everything: scandal, betrayal, big money, murder, tragedy and triumph, long successful careers, and lives unexpectedly cut short.

In Corporate Rock Sucks, music journalist Jim Ruland relays the unvarnished story of SST Records, from its remarkable rise in notoriety to its infamous downfall. With records by Black Flag, Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Bad Brains, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Screaming Trees, Soundgarden, and scores of obscure yet influential bands, SST was the most popular indie label by the mid-80s - until a tsunami of legal jeopardy, financial peril, and dysfunctional management brought the empire tumbling down. This investigative deep-dive leads listeners through SST’s tumultuous history.

Without Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen might not be who he is today. The natural follow-up to Springsteen’s hugely successful album The River should have been the hit-packed Born in the U.S.A. But instead, in 1982, he came out with an album consisting of a series of dark songs he had recorded by himself, for himself. But more than forty years later, Nebraska is arguably Springsteen’s most important record—the lasting clue to understanding not just his career as an artist and the vision behind it, but also the man himself.

If you want to know how it feels to be the DJ, to share the music you love with other people, to receive the adulation of packed dancefloors night after night, this audiobook will show you exactly what to do to get there. Whether you're brand-new to this, a DJ who wants to finally break out of the bedroom, or you just want to improve your game, the five-step formula in "Rock The Dancefloor!" will help you to become a truly great DJ.

The members of Led Zeppelin are major deities in the pantheon of rock gods. The first and heaviest of the heavy metal monsters, they violently shook the foundations of rock music and took no prisoners on the road. Their tours were legendary, their lives were exalted, and their music transcendent. No band ever flew as high as Led Zeppelin or suffered so disastrous a fall. And only some of them lived to tell the tale. Originally published in 1985, and last updated in 2008, Hammer of the Gods is considered the ultimate word on Led Zeppelin.

We have entered an age where we now have instant, unlimited, free access to the history of recorded music. We have the ability to listen across genres and eras. This is a world-wide phenomenon. This book is a guide to taking advantage of this astonishing new power. This book is also a way to appreciate one of our great cultural legacies; one that is very alive today. It is about American popular song and the body of work referred to as the Great American Songbook. These tunes are appreciated and treasured by listeners all over the world. This book is an effort to introduce you to the songs,...