The book serves as a tribute to David Bowie's transformation into the androgynous art figure Ziggy Stardust in the early 1970s, capturing the excitement of his rise as a cult star amidst a wave of polyamorous enthusiasm. Compiled in 2015 with Bowie's involvement, it features the work of Mick Rock, Bowie's personal photographer during the Ziggy era, highlighting the iconic imagery and cultural impact of this pivotal moment in music history.
Spanning multiple decades and moments of music history, and containing
personal reflections as well as recommendations, this is a poignant and
evocative must-read book from one of the UK's foremost music writers.
Spanning Tom Waits' extraordinary 40-year career, from Closing Time to Orphans, Lowside of the Road is Barney Hoskyns' unique take on one of rock's great enigmas. Like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, Waits is a chameleonic survivor who's achieved long-term success while retaining cult credibility and outsider mystique. From his perilous "jazzbo" years in '70s Los Angeles to the multiple-Grammy winner of recent years - by way of such shape-shifting '80s albums as Swordfishtrombones - this exhaustive biography charts Waits' life step-by-step and album-by-album. Affectionate and penetrating, and based on a combination of assiduous research and deep critical insight, this is a outstanding investigation of a notoriously private artist and performer - the definitive account to date of Tom Waits' life and work.
' Present Tense is an anthology to savour . . . giving you as sharp a portrait of this unknowable band as you could hope for . . . Radiohead fans will love it' Classic Rock A Rock's Backpages anthology of Radiohead, the most radical and fascinating rock band in modern music history, edited and introduced by Barney Hoskyns. For over 25 years, Radiohead have been the most radical and fascinating rock band in the world. Fearless in their desire to change and shape-shift, the Oxfordshire quintet has - through the nine studio albums from 1993's Pablo Honey to 2016's A Moon-Shaped Pool - consistently stretched the boundaries of what 'rock' means and does. Anchored in Thom Yorke's soaring voice and elliptical lyrics, and in the compositional genius of guitarist/keyboardist Jonny Greenwood, Radiohead continue to astonish as they approach their fourth decade. Present Tense collects the best writing on this most literate of pop groups, from the earliest local reports about On A Friday - Radiohead's first moniker - through the inspired commentary of Mark Greif and Simon Reynolds to the trenchant profiles of Will Self, John Harris and others. It's an anthology that goes a long way towards explaining what Rock's Backpages editor Barney Hoskyns describes as the band's 'seriousness, emotional grandeur and willingness to stare humanity's dystopian hi-tech future in the face'.
Say It One Time for the Brokenhearted was the first of many titles by renowned UK music journalist Barney Hoskyns. Thirty years after its publication he revisited the modern-day classic for this revised and expanded anniversary edition that marks the book's first publication in the US. Fascinated by the collision of country and soul music in the Southern states, Hoskyns and photographer Muir MacKean set out on a journey through the American South to explore the phenomenon of primarily black singers and primarily white musicians joining forces in the 1960s to create musical magic in an era of racial tension. From Memphis to Muscle Shoals to Nashville, they sat down with dozens of the architects of what's come to be known as Country Soul to capture a story that is as inspiring as it is historically important.
"At its core a creative marriage between Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, Steely Dan are one of the defining and bestselling American rock acts of the last half-century, recording several of the cleverest and best-produced albums of the '70s - from the breathlessly catchy Can't Buy a Thrill to the sleekly sinister Gaucho. In the '90s they returned to remind us of how sorely we had missed their elegance and erudition, subsequently recording Two Against Nature and Everything Must Go during the following decade. They have sold close to forty-five million albums. 'A lot of people think of them as the epitome of boring '70s stuff, ' novelist William Gibson said in 1993, when Becker and Fagen toured for the first time in nineteen years. 'They don't realize this is probably the most subversive material pop has ever thrown up.' Now fully embraced by the 'Yacht Rock' generation - semi-ironic devotees of '70s Southern-California slickness - Steely Dan no longer polarize lo-fi punks and studio geeks in the way they used to. In 2001 they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Any Major Dude Will Tell You collects some of the smartest and wittiest interviews Becker and Fagen have ever given, along with insightful reviews of - and commentary on - their extraordinary songs."--Provided by publisher
Central to this was the power and presence of Albert Grossman - manager for
Dylan, Janis Joplin, Richie Havens, The Band and Todd Rundgren - who turned
Woodstock into his own personal fiefdom.
Joni Mitchell has only visited the U.S. Top 40 singles chart four times in her long recording career - and the Top 20 just once. So much for "stoking the starmaker machinery behind the popular song", as she sang in her 1974 song 'Free Man in Paris'. What Joni has done, on the other hand, is record a handful of masterful albums - Blue, Court And Spark, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns for starters - that prove she is right up there with the big boys: with Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson and Stevie Wonder. Few women can hold a candle to her oeuvre: maybe Aretha Franklin, maybe Kate Bush, Bjork, Joanna Newsom. Airs and graces she may have, but airs and graces backed up by 'Woodstock', 'The Arrangement', 'A Case Of You', 'Help Me', 'Dog Eat Dog' and 'The Magdalene Laundries' are forgivable. Some of Mitchell's songs are great art. Almost all are emotionally complex and musically gripping. Reckless Daughter collects some of the most incisive commentary on Joni's music - and some of the most candid conversations she has had with journalists through her long career. From a review of her first performance at L.A.'s legendary Troubadour in 1968 to a career-sweeping 1998 interview by MOJO's Dave DiMartino, this anthology of almost 60 articles charts every stage of Joni's extraordinary journey as a singer, songwriter and artist.
