The music, performances, and cultural impact of some of the most enduring figures in popular music are explored in Rock Music Icons: Musical and Cultural Impacts. This collection investigates authenticity, identity, and the power of the voices and images of widely circulated and shared artists that have become the soundtrack of our lives.

Distillation of Sound focuses on the original music of Jamaica and how, through dub reggae, Jamaican culture was expanded and shifted. It will further the discussion on dub music, its importance to Jamaican culture, and its influence on the rest of the world.Dub music in Jamaica started in the early 1970s and by the end of the decade had influenced an entire population. The music began to use the rhythm track of a song as a song itself and spread quickly throughout the sou...

A vibrant biography of one of the greatest rock 'n' rollers, the America that made him, and the America he made.Smart and incisive, this unique book takes us through Bruce Springsteen’s life by tracing the cultural, political, and personal forces that shaped his music. Beyond his constant stylistic adaptations, Springsteen developed over the decades from expressing the voice of a guy from working-class New Jersey to writing about the larger issues facing the country, including war,...

The first major account of the history of reggae, black music journalist Lloyd Bradley describes its origins and development in Jamaica, from ska to rock-steady to dub and then to reggae itself, a local music which conquered the world. There are many extraordinary stories about characters like Prince Buster, King Tubby and Bob Marley. But this is more than a book of music history: it relates the story of reggae to the whole history of Jamaica, from colonial island to troubled independence,...

In the vein of Sound Man and The Soundtrack of My Life, a lyrical memoir from the founder of one of the greatest music labels of all time, Island Records, about his astonishing life and career helping to bring reggae music to the world stage and working with Bob Marley, U2, Grace Jones, Cat Stevens, and many other icons.Since its founding in 1959, Island Records has been home to legendary artists representing wildly divergent musical styles, yet w...

The evolution of the record producer from organizer to auteur, from Phil Spector and George Martin to the rise of hip-hop and remixing.In the 1960s, rock and pop music recording questioned the convention that recordings should recreate the illusion of a concert hall setting. The Wall of Sound that Phil Spector built behind various artists and the intricate eclecticism of George Martin's recordings of the Beatles did not resemble live performances—in the Albert Hall...

Aimed at the casual fan and completist collector alike, Bob Marley Uncensored On the Record is the ultimate critical guide to the life and music of reggae musics first, and greatest, international superstar. Album by album, hit by hit, Marleys twenty-year career is placed under the microscope, guiding listeners through his best and his most significant recordings, simultaneously documenting the events, both triumphant and tragic, which shaped the music he was making.

For more than three decades, Bruce Springsteen’s ability to express in words and music the deepest hopes, fears, loves, and sorrows of average Americans has made him a hero to his millions of devoted fans. Racing in the Street is the first comprehensive collection of writings about Springsteen, featuring the most insightful, revealing, famous, and infamous articles, interviews, reviews, and other writings. This nostalgic journey through the career of a rock-’n’-roll legend...

This full-blooded story of The Wailers puts the life, music and death of the legendary Bob Marley into a razor-sharp new perspective.The Wailers played with Marley on all of the hit singles and albums that made him a legend, yet their story since his death is a little-known saga of betrayal, greed and murder that is told here in its entirety for the first time.Written in collaboration with Aston 'Family Man' Barrett and other surviving band members, the book explores Marley...

As one-third of the Wailers, icons of reggae music, the late Winston Hubert McIntosh, better known as Peter Tosh, continues to gain many fans all over the world. By way of his hugely successful solo career, many people knew Tosh to be a hard-hitting, unapologetic and controversial artiste, who spoke the truth in his lyrics and brought attention to the plight of the poor and downtrodden, both at home and abroad. However, not many people saw the private side of Peter Tosh, a man who is descr...

Throughout Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, and America, Bob Marley represents far more than just the musician who translated spiritual and political beliefs into hypnotic, hard-hitting songs such as "Get Up, Stand Up," "No Woman, No Cry," and "Jammin'." Marley was born in rural Jamaica and reared in the mean streets of Kingston's Trenchtown; his ascent to worldwide acclaim, first with The Wailers--Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingstone--and later as a solo artist, is a riveting story of the spiri...

This collection of illuminating essays highlight the "globalization" of reggae - its global dispersal and adaptation in diverse local contexts of consumption and transformation.