One of the greatest songwriters of all time finally shares his story in this "absorbing" autobiography ( Rolling Stone).From his tumultuous marriages and the tragic loss of his daughter to his collaborations with Dionne Warwick and the surprising stories behind the songs that generations have come to know and love, Burt Bacharach offers a frank, moving account of an unparalleled life.Over six decades, Burt Bacharach's legendary songwriting touched mi...

The definitive biography of Ahmet Ertegun—founder of Atlantic Records and the man behind stars from Ray Charles to the Rolling Stones.Brilliant, cultured, brash, and irreverent, Ahmet Ertegun was a legend in the music world. Blessed with great taste and sharp business acumen, he founded Atlantic Records and brought rock ’n’ roll into the mainstream. He quickly became as renowned for his incredible sense of style and nonstop A-list social life as for his pioneering ...

For more than thirty years, Jerry Garcia was the musical and spiritual center of the Grateful Dead, one of the most popular rock bands of all time.In Dark Star, the first biography of Garcia published after his death, Garcia is remembered by those who knew him best.Together the voices in this oral biography explore his remarkable life: his childhood in San Francisco; the formation of his musical identity; the Dead's unconventional road to rock star...

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A revelatory biography of the world-famous playwright and actor Sam Shepard, whose work was matched by his equally dramatic life, including collaborations with the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan as well as tumultuous relationships with Patti Smith, Joni Mitchell, and Jessica Lange“What [True West] achieves in its finest pages is placing the artist in his time. . . . I was filled with excitement, envy and reve...

John Perry Barlow’s wild ride with the Grateful Dead was just part of a Zelig-like life that took him from a childhood as ranching royalty in Wyoming to membership in the Internet Hall of Fame as a digital free speech advocate.Mother American Night is the wild, funny, heartbreaking, and often unbelievable (yet completely true) story of an American icon. Born into a powerful Wyoming political family, John Perry Barlow wrote the lyrics for thirty Grateful De...

The Fascinating Life of Owsley Stanley III: LSD Pioneer, Grateful Dead Soundman, and Counterculture IconBear is the definitive biography of Augustus Owsley Stanley III, better known as "Bear," one of the most iconic figures in the cultural revolution that transformed America and the world during the 1960s. As the creator of the famous dancing bear logo and the designer of the Wall of Sound for the Grateful Dead, Owsley left an indelible mark on th...

"The best book ever written about the Stones, if not music in general." — Independent"One of the greatest rock books ever written." —GQThirty years ago, the Rolling Stones swept America, taking "Exile on Main Street" to Main Streets across the nation. Everyone held their breath to see what would happen; the Stones' previous U.S. tour had been a chaotic circus culminating in the infamous death of a fan at Altamont. ...

For ten days in March 1971, the Rolling Stones traveled by train and bus to play two shows a night in many of the small theaters and town halls where their careers began. No backstage passes. No security. No sound checks or rehearsals. And only one journalist allowed. That journalist now delivers a full-length account of this landmark event, which marked the end of the first chapter of the Stones' extraordinary career.Ain't It Time We Said Goodbye is also the story of two a...

A Day in the Life is the story of how the ideal marriage between two young and extraordinarily beautiful members of the English upper class fell apart as the psychedelic dreams of the sixties gave way to the harsh, hard-rock reality of the seventies. A tender, moving, and often harrowing look at the moment in time when the counterculture collided with the international jet set, A Day in the Life captures the spirit of that era and the people who lived through it with unerring accu...

If you’re going to write a book about the Rolling Stones at this point in their history, you damn well better have something unique to say.Because if you search “The Rolling Stones” on Amazon.com under “Books,” it brings back I’m not kidding 17,812 results. There are many duplicates, of course, and a lot of books that only mention the Stones, but still!Oh, and in my humble opinion, after Keith Richards wrote his own memoir, “Life,” I believed you could pretty much set aside almost everythi...

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A revelatory biography of the world-famous playwright and actor Sam Shepard, whose work was matched by his equally dramatic life, including collaborations with the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan as well as tumultuous relationships with Patti Smith, Joni Mitchell, and Jessica Lange“What [True West] achieves in its finest pages is placing the artist in his time. . . . I was filled with excitement, envy and reve...

To a generation in full revolt against any form of authority, "Tune in, turn on, drop out" became a mantra and its popularizer, Dr. Timothy Leary, a guru. In the handsome, charismatic Leary, the youth of the 1960s found someone who promised it all: self-liberation, hedonistic satisfaction, and spiritual fulfillment.While in Mexico in 1960, Leary, then a lecturer and brilliant psychologist at Harvard, tried magic mushrooms for the first time. He became first intrigued and then obses...