At last, the authorized biography of Townes Van Zandt (1944-1997), who wrote such unforgettable songs as Pancho & Lefty” and If I Needed You.” Born to a wealthy oil family in Ft. Worth, Texas, hounded by alcoholism and depression, Van Zandt pursued a nomadic existence following his muse, whatever the cost to himself, friends, and relatives. Based on exclusive interviews with those close to Van Zandt, including his best friend Guy Clark and colleagues like Steve Earle and John Prine, ...

After Syd Barrett departed Pink Floyd, the band that he had co-founded and fronted became a rudderless ship, releasing a series of nebulous (though highly inventive) jam albums and taking on touring expenses that nearly bankrupted them. Their eighth album was a make-it-or-break-it proposition, and its timing could not have been better. Released in March of 1973, The Dark Side of the Moon quickly topped the US Billboard charts and took up residence there for over 700 weeks, selling over for...

Two eight-page B&W and color photo inserts

The Beatles' sixth studio album, Rubber Soul, was a game changer. By December 1965, when the album was released, the Beatles had played the first arena rock show at Shea Stadium for 55 000 delirious fans, been awarded MBE (Member of British Empire) medals, and were indisputably the greatest musical phenomenon since Elvis Presley. With their first film, A Hard Day's Night, John, Paul, George, and Ringo laid down the blueprint for everyone who ever wanted to form a group. T...

Hold On World revisits Lennon and Ono's love affair and startling collaborations. John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band was arguably the most emotionally honest album ever made. It wasn't merely another record but more like a sonic exorcism, a spiritual, public bloodletting. Lennon's album drove a stake through the heart of the Beatles' myth while confronting everything else in John's life, from Dylan to God to his glorified status as a "Working Class Hero."Determined to rid himself of pa...

Roy Orbison emerged as an artist alongside his Sun Records contemporaries in the early days of rock 'n' roll. He did not possess the good looks of Elvis Presley or the everyman toughness of Johnny Cash, nor did he conduct wild-child stage antics like Jerry Lee Lewis. But he did possess a magnetic mystique that would captivate fans around the world and inspire countless musicians.A quiet man, who k. d. lang would refer to as "Buddha" Orbison was more interested in building model air...

Born just outside London in 1942, Glyn Johns was sixteen years old at the dawn of rock and roll. His big break as a producer came on the Steve Miller Band's debut album, Children of the Future, and he went on to engineer or produce iconic albums for the best in the business including Abbey Road with the Beatles. Even more impressive, Johns was perhaps the only person on a given day in the studio who was entirely sober, and so he is one of the most reliable and clear-eyed ...

WINNER OF THE RALPH J. GLEASON AWARDINCLUDES FOREWORD BY JOHNNY MARRAward-winning, Sunday Times bestselling author Jon Savage's definitive history of punk, its progenitors, the Sex Pistols, and their time: the late 1970s.A pop-culture classic full of anecdote, insight and exclusive interviews, England's Dreaming tells the sensational story of the meteoric rise and rapid decline of the last great rock 'n' roll band and the cultural moment the...

“Lauterbach’s tribute . . . is welcome and overdue.” —Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post“A well-researched valentine to a lost world of seedy con men, promoters and club owners, the power brokers and hustlers who made the ‘circuitry spark.’ ”—Eddie Dean, Wall Street Journal“Lauterbach spins the tale with enormous vitality and it’s terribly fun to read. He masterfully explains the complex logistics of the entertainment industry, and studs the book with fasci...

How is the Beatles' "Help!" similar to Stravinsky's "Dance of the Adolescents?" How does Radiohead's "Just" relate to the improvisations of Bill Evans? And how do Chopin's works exploit the non-Euclidean geometry of musical chords? In this groundbreaking work, author Dmitri Tymoczko describes a new framework for thinking about music that emphasizes the commonalities among styles from medieval polyphony to contemporary rock. Tymoczko identifies five basic musical features that jointly contr...

Welcome to the 27 Club, also referred to as the Forever 27 Club, Club 27 or the Curse of 27. The 27 Club is so called because of influential musicians and singers who all died at the age of 27. They are generally respected for having lived the "rock and roll" lifestyle.The 27 Club is divided into two groups, the first is a list of seven famous musicians and singers who died at the age of 27, consisting of blues singer and musician Robert Johnson (considered to be the first member o...

Joe Strummer's untimely death at the age of fifty in December 2002 took from us one of the truly unique voices of modern music. The quintessential Rude Boy, punker, rebel musician, artist and activist, Strummer wrote some of the most important and influential music of the last century including "Guns of Brixton," "The Washington Bullets," "Spanish Bombs," "White Man in Hammersmith Palace," "London's Burning," "Lost in the Supermarket," and "Garageland." Effectively melding raw creativity w...