Play This Book Loud
More than at any time in human history, our daily lives are scored and imprinted by music. We listen while bicycling, while taking walks, on the train to and from work, and at home on stereos or streaming. We're immersed in music and music making virtually 24/7. Why is music such an essential part of the way we live, and how does it enrich and fasten itself to our very beings? Play This Book Loud tunes in to many voices, from mainstream bands to obscure artists, from Lydia Loveless singing her heart out and DJ Shadow/Cut Chemist endlessly crate digging, from the Detroit Cobras playing for a few dozen to Green Day filling stadiums, from Riot Grrrl punk to the traditional styles of Connie Francis, from the Stooges' messiness and psychedelic rock to the careful orchestration of anonymous session players and 1960s commercial jingles. In this compelling and exuberant book, song by song, Joe Bonomo moves between zones of listening, turned on while wearing headphones or watching a band in a club. With the heart of a fan and a generous ear, he enthusiastically explores the reasons music, and those who devote themselves to it, matters so deeply. Play This Book Loud explores our urge for sonic existence.
My Black Country
Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author presents "a celebration of all things country music" (Ken Burns) as she reflects on her search for the first family of Black country music. Country music had brought Alice Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to cowrite a number one country hit, Trisha Yearwood's "XXX's and OOO's (An American Girl)". Randall found inspiration and comfort in the sounds and history of the first family of Black country music: DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Ray Charles, Charley Pride, and Herb Jeffries who, together, made up a community of Black Americans rising through hard times to create simple beauty, true joy, and sometimes profound eccentricity. What emerges in My Black Country is "a delightful, inspirational story of persistence, resistance, and sheer love" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) of this most American of music genres and the radical joy in realizing the power of Black influence on American culture. As country music goes through a fresh renaissance today, with a new wave of Black artists enjoying success, My Black Country is the perfect gift for longtime country fans and a vibrant introduction to a new generation of listeners who previously were not invited to give the genre a chance.
Custom Made Woman
Alice Gerrard, an award-winning and storied folk and bluegrass musician for over 50 years, is one of the notable few women in a heavily male genre. Custom Made Woman tells Gerrard's story through the music, the folk festivals, the kids, and the relationships--both personal and professional--that defined her storied life and career. Her collaborations with Appalachian singer Hazel Dickens during the 1960s and 1970s were pivotal recordings during the decades after the American folk music boom of the midcentury; the duo produced four albums that have recently been rereleased by Rounder Records and Smithsonian Folkways. In addition to Dickens, Gerrard has worked with folks like Tommy Jarrell, Enoch Rutherford, Otis Burris, Luther Davis, and Matokie Slaughter, and founded The Old-Time Herald, based in Durham, North Carolina, serving as its editor-in-chief from 1987 until 2003.She's also a lifelong documentarian of the folkways scene, and this book features nearly 100 rare photos--many never before seen--of key musicians, including Doc Watson, Bill Monroe, Hazel Dickens, Elizabeth Cotten, Mike Seeger, and more. In telling the story of her time as a player of traditional music, Gerrard gives us a deeply personal way to understand and appreciate a quintessentially American genre that has a long history and thrives to this day.
Norton: Microstyles Collection for Piano
(BH Piano). The Microstyles Collection contains stunning solo keyboard music for beginner to intermediate-level players. Forty-eight original progressive piano pieces capture the characteristic qualities of popular music styles, including Latin, reggae, jazz, pop, rock, and many others. Listen to the composer's vibrant performances or play along to the accompaniment tracks online.
Fahrenheit-182
***The Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller!***A smart, funny, and refreshing memoir from Mark Hoppus, the vocalist, bassist, and founding member of pop-punk band blink-182.This is the story of an angst-filled kid from the desert, navigating the chaos of his parents' bitter divorce and searching for his place in the world. Each move across the country was a chance to reinvent himself, switching identities from dork to goth to skate punk, and eventually meeting his best friend who just so happens to be his musical soulmate.With sharp humor and raw honesty, Fahrenheit-182 takes readers through Mark's formative years as a latchkey kid in the 1980s, hooked on punk rock, skateboards, and MTV. Along the way, Mark reflects on his lifelong battle with anxiety, his celebrated career with blink-182, and his public fight with cancer, in a voice that's both relatable and unmistakably his own.Threaded with heartfelt grit, Fahrenheit-182 is more than just a memoir for blink-182 fans. It's a funny, smart, and deeply human story for anyone who's struggled, reinvented themselves, wanted to quit but kept going.
Gospel International - January 2025
Gospel International Magazine profiles Los Angeles-based Bishop Susie Jones on the cover. Her feature article, Women In The Pulpit, is the first of many for Gospel International. Included in this issue is the popular Good Gospel Gossip; New Music; VIP Profiles and articles on Finance, Mental Health Insights, Music and the Kingdom, a Crossword Puzzle, and more!
Beethoven - Symphony No.1 in C Major Op. 21 - Creation, Origins and Reception History
Values That Pay
A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Today, Morocco's hip hop artists are vital to their country's reputation as diverse, creative, and modern. But in the 1990s and 2000s, teenage amateurs shaped their craft and ideals together as the profound socioeconomic changes of neoliberalization swept through their neighborhoods. Values That Pay traces Moroccan hip hop's trajectory from sidewalk cyphers and bedroom studios to royal commendations and international festivals. Kendra Salois draws from more than ten years of research into her interlocutors' music and moral reasoning to explore the constitutive tensions of institutionalization, hip hop aesthetics, and neoliberal life. Entrepreneurial artists respond to their unavoidable complicity with an extractive state through aesthetic and interpersonal sincerity, educating their fans on the risks and responsibilities of contemporary citizenship. Salois argues that over the past forty years, Moroccan hip hop practitioners have transformed not only themselves but also what it means to be an ethical citizen in a deeply unequal nation.
Welsh Vocal Music
Singing has long been an integral component of Wales's culture, identity, and international reputation; alongside the deep traditions of Welsh folksong, the country's composers have produced a rich body of art music. Welsh Vocal Music: A Guide to Lyric Diction and Repertoire introduces readers to the vast vocal repertoire of Wales and provides them with the tools to accurately and confidently sing in the Welsh language.The first section of the book offers an introduction to Welsh lyric diction, including sounds, spellings, pronunciation rules, and dialects, while the second section provides a guide to notable vocal composers of Wales and their works. A biographical and stylistic overview is provided for each composer, along with a catalogue of and commentary on their important works, including art songs, folk song arrangements, choral music, and opera. IPA transliterations and translations, along with online recordings, provide additional guidance for accurate diction and expression.Offering a comprehensive description of Welsh lyric diction and uniting author biographies and style guides, Welsh Vocal Music: A Guide to Lyric Diction and Repertoire is an ideal resource for professional singers, vocal coaches, conductors, and advanced students looking to perform Welsh music. Providing key contextual information about Wales's history, language, and traditions, the book invites musicians to explore and celebrate the beauty, variety, and power of the country's repertoire.
Bangkok After Dark
From the 1930s to the 1950s, jazz pianist Maurice Rocco was a mainstay in Hollywood and American nightlife scenes. As rock and roll surpassed jazz as America's most popular music in the 1950s, the queer Black pianist's fortunes faded and he was forced to go abroad for new opportunities. In 1964 Rocco ultimately settled in Bangkok, where he thrived and enjoyed a relatively privileged life until he was murdered by two young male sex workers in 1976. In Bangkok after Dark, Benjamin Tausig uses Rocco's intriguing story to trace the history of transnational nightlife encounters between Thais and Americans during the long Vietnam War. Tausig shows how these encounters, which included musical collaborations, romantic and sexual relationships, and new labor, identity, and geopolitical configurations, remade Thailand in crucial and enduring ways. As Tausig demonstrates, Rocco's Blackness, queerness, and musical life in Thailand illuminates how Thai-American relationships complicated neat distinctions between the two countries. In teasing out these relationships through the figure of Rocco, Tausig challenges conventional understandings of the global Cold War on individual and transnational scales.
Fearless Vampire Killers
FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS uniquely features almost every single Glen E. Friedman photograph of the Bad Brains, considered by many music fans to be the greatest and most influential American punk rock band of all time. The photographs are from 1981 and 1982, when the band was at its most fiery musical heights. The book also includes an introduction by Friedman, a preface by HR (singer of Bad Brains), and an afterword by Zack de la Rocha (singer of Rage Against the Machine).Some of these photographs will be recognized as iconic shots that have graced album, book, and magazine covers, while most of them have never been seen before. In his introduction to the volume, Friedman writes, "They were outsiders in the scenes they infiltrated and soon thereafter influenced . . . The Bad Brains were all Black! They showed other punk musicians that in fact you could be an incredible musician and be PUNK at the same time."Indeed, many bands beyond the realm of punk cite the Bad Brains as a seminal influence, including Beastie Boys, Living Colour, Jane's Addiction, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, to name just a few. The artistry of Friedman's Bad Brains photographs is unparalleled, and music lovers the world over will feast on Fearless Vampire Killers.
Bangkok After Dark
From the 1930s to the 1950s, jazz pianist Maurice Rocco was a mainstay in Hollywood and American nightlife scenes. As rock and roll surpassed jazz as America's most popular music in the 1950s, the queer Black pianist's fortunes faded and he was forced to go abroad for new opportunities. In 1964 Rocco ultimately settled in Bangkok, where he thrived and enjoyed a relatively privileged life until he was murdered by two young male sex workers in 1976. In Bangkok after Dark, Benjamin Tausig uses Rocco's intriguing story to trace the history of transnational nightlife encounters between Thais and Americans during the long Vietnam War. Tausig shows how these encounters, which included musical collaborations, romantic and sexual relationships, and new labor, identity, and geopolitical configurations, remade Thailand in crucial and enduring ways. As Tausig demonstrates, Rocco's Blackness, queerness, and musical life in Thailand illuminates how Thai-American relationships complicated neat distinctions between the two countries. In teasing out these relationships through the figure of Rocco, Tausig challenges conventional understandings of the global Cold War on individual and transnational scales.
Liszt and Virtuosity
CO-WINNER: The Triennial Alan Walker Book Award, sponsored by the American Liszt Society 2023 A new and wide-ranging collection of essays by leading international scholars, exploring the concept and practices of virtuosity in Franz Liszt and his contemporaries. In the annals of music history, few figures have dominated the discussion of virtuosity as much as Franz Liszt. A flamboyant performer whose hair-raising technical feats at the piano created a sense of awe-inspiring excitement andan icon whose star power radiated far beyond the realm of music, Liszt was, along with his early model, Paganini, among the first major performer-composers to define himself principally by virtuosity. Featuring new essays by an international group of preeminent scholars, Liszt and Virtuosity offers a reevaluation of the concept and practices of virtuosity as shaped and defined in Liszt's multifaceted oeuvre, as well as a reconsiderationof Liszt's relation to other major and lesser-known musical figures, including Czerny, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, and Marie Ja禱ll. Set in the context of larger trends within the fields of music history, musicanalysis, intellectual history, and performance studies, these capacious explorations demonstrate that Liszt's uniqueness and significance resided in his ability to transform virtuosity into a revolutionary musical force, pushingthe piano aesthetic to the limits of sound and poetic meaning.
Medieval Song
Originally published in 1972, Medieval Song assembles the whole tradition of early European poetry, from the writings of the late Roman Empire to the time of the Hundred Years War. It covers a vast range of languages and cultures, beginning with the Latin of pagan song and ending with the Middle English ballads of Chaucer's time.
Welcome to the Club
Featuring a foreword from Annie Mac An inspiring memoir-manifesto from one of the UK's leading DJs. In Welcome to the club, Manchester legend DJ Paulette shares the highs, lows and lessons of her thirty-year music career, with insights from some famous friends. As one of the Ha癟ienda's pioneering female DJs, Paulette has reached the pinnacle of the music industry, performing for crowds of thousands worldwide. She offers a remarkable perspective from a Black woman's viewpoint, arguing that despite dance music's core values of peace, love, unity and respect, it remains a world rife with exclusion, misogyny, racism and classism. Yet, as Paulette reveals, it is also a space teeming with powerful women. Part personal memoir, part call to action, Welcome to the club exposes the exclusivity of the music industry while honouring the often invisible women who keep the rhythm alive.
The Theatrical Orchestra
The Theatrical Orchestra analyses experimental performances by British music ensembles in the twenty-first century. Orchestras are reconceiving how concerts are programmed and presented, how musicians perform, where performance can occur, and the role of the audience in the co-creation of the live event. They are embracing theatricality, thereby realising music more fully as a multi-sensory performance art. This book explains how and why orchestras are thinking theatrically about performance, and uses the work of British music ensembles as exemplars. It analyses performances by Aurora Orchestra, London Contemporary Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Manchester Collective, Multi-Story Orchestra, Paraorchestra, Scottish Ensemble, and Southbank Sinfonia. The book bridges musicology and theatre studies to analyse the theatrical orchestra on the concert stage and beyond, addressing such topics as visuality, storytelling, physical performance, site-engaged performance, and immersive performance.
A Fabulous Disaster
Prolific guitarist and Exodus songwriter Gary Holt presents an entertaining, personal memoir detailing his "destruction-laden" life and the origins of the Thrash Metal scene from the Bay Area to its world dominance. Since exploding out of the Bay Area heavy metal scene in the 1980s, thrash metal has made its way to every corner of the globe, conquering worldwide charts year after year. As the guitarist and primary songwriter of Exodus, and an originator of the subgenre and one of its fiercest proponents, Gary Holt watched as his peers--Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax--soared to superstardom. As his fellow artists amassed millions of fans and record sales, Exodus's albums received critical recognition and inspired generations of listeners but struggled to reach the same heights of success, as the band was plagued by years of bad management, bad luck, and bad decision-making. In A FABULOUS DISASTER, Holt shares a deeply personal account of what it was like to "live fast, play fast, and crash hard" as thrash metal dominated the globe. Readers witness his highest of highs and lowest of lows as Holt and his bandmates juggle major label contracts, MTV-sponsored tours and festivals, growing addictions to alcohol and meth, and the departures of original members. In the throes of addiction, Holt's own fall from grace is swift: one year he's playing on the MTV Headbanger's Ball Tour with Anthrax and Helloween, and the next he's struggling to find minimum wage jobs as he battles drugs, divorce, and the impending collapse of his music career. Ultimately, after the tragic death of one of his closest friends and former bandmates--Holt realizes the only one who can save him is himself. An "unadulterated odyssey through decades of insanity," punctuated by Holt's unique insight and knack for storytelling, A FABULOUS DISASTER is a thrill ride from start to finish. His story proves that redemption--even from the pits of rock 'n' roll excess--is always possible.
Debt and Redemption in the Blues
This volume explores concepts of freedom and bondage in the blues and argues that this genre of music explicitly calls for a reckoning while expressing faith in a secular justice to come. Placing blues music within its historical context of the post-Reconstruction South, Jim Crow America, and the civil rights era, Julia Simon finds a deep symbolism in the lyrical representations of romantic and sexual betrayal. The blues calls out and indicts the tangled web of deceit and entrapment constraining the physical, socioeconomic, and political movement of African Americans. Surveying blues music from the 1920s to the early twenty-first century, Simon's analyses focus on economic relations, such as sharecropping, house contract sales, debt peonage, criminal surety, and convict lease. She demonstrates how the music reflects this exploitative economic history and how it is shaped by commodification under racialized capitalism. As Simon assesses the lyrics, technique, and styles of a wide range of blues musicians, including Bessie Smith, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Big Bill Broonzy, Muddy Waters, B. B. King, Albert Collins, and Kirk Fletcher, she argues forcefully that the call for racial justice is at the heart of the blues.A highly sophisticated interpretation of the blues tradition steeped in musicology, social history, and critical-cultural hermeneutics, Debt and Redemption not only clarifies blues as an aesthetic tradition but, more importantly, proves that it advances a theory of social and economic development and change.
Norton: Microjazz Absolute Beginners for Piano
(BH Piano). Christopher Norton's acclaimed Microjazz series has won worldwide popularity with teachers and students alike for its stimulating blend of contemporary genres and classical values. Two beginners' books and five collections of repertoire pieces form seven clearly defined levels of achievement, making Microjazz the ideal basis for progressive learning and teaching. Microjazz Absolute Beginners is the very first book in the series and is suitable for learners of all ages. Using a combination of words, music and illustrations, it takes first-time pianists steadily through the early stages of both the practical and theoreticalaspects of playing. A booklet of accompaniments, suitable for use by a teacher or any intermediate player, is included. The resulting duets can be played on one or two keyboards, and turn even the easiest pupil's tunes into unmistakable Microjazz pieces. Online audio resources containing both backing and full performance tracks are available to enthuse and enhance both your practice and performance.
Prince, Musical Genre, and the Construction of Racial Identity
Throughout his career, the Minneapolis musician Prince was known for fusing different musical genres as well as moving between different identities--sexual lothario, devout man of God, androgynous sprite--qualities that fit the postmodernism of the 1980s. This volume takes a fresh look at Prince's work, arguing that his music was deeply informed by the history and techniques of Black culture, and that his multigenre fluency and changeable image were weapons that he deployed in a career-long fight against the racially segregated structures of the American music industry. Using a methodology that mixes musicology with African American literary theory, queer theory, and gender studies, this book analyzes the ways that Prince mixed and manipulated musical genres that are indexed to racial identities--such as "white" rock or new-wave, and "Black" funk, gospel, or R&B--in order to construct pluralistic identities. Each chapter includes detailed musical analyses and transcriptions of Prince's songs, focusing on his use of rock guitar, new-wave synthesizers, funk drumming, gospel singing, and R&B horns. By tracking Prince's transformations of instrumental and vocal idioms derived from specific musical genres, and considering the historical and cultural values embedded within those genres, Griffin Woodworth explores the ways that Prince musically broke down stereotypes of Black masculinity. With its intersectional approach to musical analysis, this book captures the sounds of American racial politics in the 1980s, 90s, and 2000s as heard through the music of one of the era's most popular artists as he worked to transform and transcend those politics.
Oasis Forever
The perfect book to remember the reunion Show your loyalty to the ultimate Rock 'n' Roll Stars with this Supersonic celebration of the Gallagher brothers. Featuring Liam and Noel's most outrageous quotes and the quizzes and questions you need to prove you deserve to be at the concerts more than anyone else, this is the ultimate celebration of the band that defined an era. Learn: Where Oasis recorded their iconic first albumWhat Noel said about Liam after the band broke up in 2009Which Oasis song is Liam's favouriteAnd more...
The Jam - The Day I Was There
With a foreword by Jam drummer Rick Buckler, The Jam - The Day I Was There tells the story of The Jam in the words of over 400 fans. With memories from the earliest shows at clubs and pubs around Woking and London, and then their UK and American tours before their last ever gig in Brighton on 11 December 1982.Told from the perspective of fans, promoters, studio engineers, photographers and support acts, the book includes personal photographs, memorabilia, anecdotes and stories that have never been published before.Between 1977 and their split in 1982, The Jam released six albums and 18 singles, including four UK numbers 1s. They were the biggest band in Britain.
Smile
"Brian Wilson. SMILE: Excellent! The man is my hero. I love him. I weep when I hear his band, I hear him sing. I love him." --Paul McCartneyThe story of the Brian Wilson's legendary SMiLE album from Beach Boys authority David Leaf. The story of SMiLE is a story without precedent, appropriate for music that was and remains groundbreaking.This is the first book to tell the full story of Brian Wilson and SMiLE, including the details of the original SMiLE recording sessions and their increasingly legendary status as well as the final release of the album, the accompanying concerts and film, and its afterlife. With over two dozen new interviews as well as generous excerpts from his extended 2004 interviews with Brian Wilson and SMiLE collaborator Van Dyke Parks, the book tells the story of SMiLE by those who were there in 1966 and from the participants in its 2004 resurrection, including all the members of Brian Wilson's band. It also features fan memories of what it was like to see Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE and what it meant to them.With a foreword by Melinda Wilson and an anthology of essays from SMiLE historians, devotees, and music professors, this book promises to be the definitive word on the subject."If I had to select one living genius of popular music, I would choose Brian Wilson." --George Martin"He's a modern-day Stravinsky, the way he constructs his music." --Questlove"I don't think there is anyone his equal in pop music." --Linda Ronstadt"The only real pop genius in the world..." --Elton John
Analyzing NES Music
Explores a core challenge of early video game composition: how to disguise repetition in music that repeats extensively. It develops a theory of harmony and form for Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) music and uses this theory to analyze five landmark scores: Super Mario Bros., Dragon Warrior, Metroid, Mega Man 2 and Silver Surfer. 170 b&w illus. Read an interview with Andrew Schartmann
Islamic Themes in Us Hip-Hop Culture
Islam has been a part of hip-hop culture since it sprang from New York's street culture in the 1970s. Today hip-hop has evolved into a truly global artform with a diversity of Muslim Islamic discourses expressed. Using tools from the field of social semiotics, this book examines how Islamic themes feature in US hip-hop culture, maintaining a particular awareness that both Muslims as well as non-Muslims participate in their production. The book also argues that there is a historical continuity in the use of Islamic semiotic resources in US musical culture that runs through the entirety of the 20th century and can be observed in gospel, blues and jazz. It is also often connected to African American religious initiatives and African American empowerment politics.
The Beatles
What if The Beatles didn't exist? The film "Yesterday" examined that concept, and in this book, Beatles historians and fans David Bedford and Andrew Phillips do more than just examine that one question. They look at 70 key moments throughout the story of The Beatles and consider if Beatles history could have changed.What if John and Paul had never met? What if The Beatles didn't go to Hamburg? What if Brian Epstein doesn't become their manager? What if Decca Records signs The Beatles and they never work with George Martin? What if Brian Epstein didn't die? For each scenario, the authors look at each event in context and, using what we know, offer their opinion as to how Beatles history could have changed. Would things have stayed the same? Would it have been the end of the road for them? Would they have continued, but with a different outcome? The authors want you to read the book, and then either agree or disagree with the outcome!
A Little Bit of Taylor Swift
Dive into the enchanting world of Taylor Swift with this captivating celebration, filled with inspiring quotes, fascinating facts, and behind-the-scenes trivia for every dedicated fanBringing together inspiring quotes, superfan-level facts and a treasure trove of trivia, this little book is your backstage pass to the enchanting world of Taylor Swift Whether it's the relatable lyrics, the cathartic bridges or the songwriting genius behind it all, there's just something about Taylor's music that has captivated a global fandom. No matter what era you're in, her resilience, determination and unique talent for storytelling will encourage you to stand tall, speak now and define your own reputation. Exploring her extraordinary journey from a small-town girl to one of the most successful and empowered artists of the twenty-first century, A Little Bit of Taylor Swift features: - a powerful dose of fearless words from the woman herself - insights into her personal life and illustrious career - trivia to test even the most avid addict This heartfelt homage to Taylor, her fans and our enduring love story will make the perfect gift for any Swiftie.
Kenny Chesney New Biography 2025
I was just a kid from Luttrell, Tennessee-dreaming of a life beyond my small-town roots. I never imagined that a simple Christmas gift, a cheap guitar, would set me on a path that would take me to sold-out stadiums, chart-topping hits, and a fan base that became a movement. But music has a way of shaping destiny, and mine was no exception.In Kenny Chesney: New Biography 2025, I take you behind the scenes of my life and career-the struggles, the triumphs, and the lessons I've learned along the way. You'll get an inside look at: ✔ My humble beginnings-from high school football fields to my first guitar and the songs that shaped me✔ The grind of breaking into Nashville-the rejections, the small gigs, and the moment I knew I had a shot✔ The albums that changed everything-the stories behind No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems, When the Sun Goes Down, and the hits that became country anthems✔ Life on the road-how touring became more than a career but a way of life, and the birth of No Shoes Nation✔ Love, loss, and lessons learned-my personal journey through relationships, heartbreak, and finding peace in the islands✔ Giving back and leaving a legacy-how music became a platform for change, and why giving back means more than any awardThis isn't just a biography-it's a first-hand journey through the moments that made me who I am today. Whether you've been part of No Shoes Nation since the beginning or just found my music on a road trip with the windows down, this book will take you deeper into the life, music, and memories we've shared along the way.Are you ready to relive the songs, the stories, and the spirit of No Shoes Nation?
Ink
The product of a hardscrabble childhood, J. Mayo "Ink" Williams parlayed an Ivy League education into unlikely twin careers as a foundational producer of Black music and pioneering Black player in the early NFL. Clifford R. Murphy tells the story of an ambitious, upwardly mobile life affected, but never daunted, by white society's racism or the Black community's class tensions. Williams caroused with Paul Robeson, recorded the likes of Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson, and lined up against Chicago Bears player-coach George Halas. Though resented by the artists he exploited, Williams combined a rock-solid instinct for what would sell with an ear for music that put him at the forefront of finding, recording, and blending blues and jazz. Murphy charts Williams's wide-ranging accomplishments while providing portraits of the cutthroat recording industry and the possibilities, however constrained, of Black life in the 1920s and 1930s. Vivid and engaging, Ink brings to light the extraordinary journey of a Black businessman and athlete.
The Yardbirds
"Stanfield makes one want to step back in time into one of those packed clubs, so hot that, as one writer of the day put it, 'you could have boiled an egg.'"--Wesley Stace, The Wall Street Journal The story of an iconic group, the advent of pop, and the birth of rock music in 1960s Britain. The Yardbirds were trailblazers in the rapid development of pop music in Britain between 1963 and 1968. With members including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page, they helped to set the basic template of what has been known ever since as rock music and gave rise to one of the most commercially successful bands of all time: Led Zeppelin. Peter Stanfield situates the band in the rise of British R&B and the tumult of the psychedelic era. Obsessively detailed about both the band and 1960s pop culture, this is the book fans of the Yardbirds have always needed.
Inside Chinese Theater
In the mid-nineteenth century, Chinese opera theater arrived as one of the significant performing art forms in California. Nancy Yunhwa Rao excavates and contextualizes the important history of Chinese Opera Theater, bringing to light the ways it became woven into the financial, political, social, and family life in California and beyond. Chinese opera theater found brick-and-mortar homes with San Francisco theaters like the Hing Chuen Yuen and the Donn Qui Yuen. But troupes had already followed Chinese immigrants to mining and railroad towns, and across the American West. As Chinese theater became part of California and San Francisco culture, popular Chinese actors advocated for their art alongside appeals for civil rights. Rao draws on personal diaries, newspapers and artifacts to place Chinese theater within the everyday lives of San Francisco. She also examines the costumes, singing, staging, and storytelling that impacted mainstream reception and influenced how Chinese communities saw themselves.Illustrated with seventy photographs, Inside Chinese Theater is an expert and eloquent journey into the early decades of Chinese opera in America.
