Bob Dylan is an iconic figure in American musical and cultural history, lauded by Time magazine as one of the hundred most important people of the twentieth century. For nearly fifty years the singer-songwriter has crafted his unique brand of music, from his 1962 self-titled debut album to 2009's #1 hit Together Through Life, appealing to everyone from baby boomers to the twenty-somethings who storm the stage at his concerts.Bob Dylan: Like a Complete Unknown literary scholar and music cri...

"She was like a storm." —Leonard CohenThe remarkable, heart-wrenching story of Joni Mitchell, the influential artist who left an indelible mark on American music.In Reckless Daughter, music critic David Yaffe tells the captivating tale of how a Canadian prairie girl became a superstar of folk music in the 1960s, a key figure in the Laurel Canyon scene of the 1970s, and a songwriter who spoke resonantly to audiences across the count...

How have American writers written about jazz, and how has jazz influenced American literature? In Fascinating Rhythm, David Yaffe explores the relationship and interplay between jazz and literature, looking at jazz musicians and the themes literature has garnered from them by appropriating the style, tones, and innovations of jazz, and demonstrating that the poetics of jazz has both been assimilated into, and deeply affected, the development of twentieth-century American literatur...

Fun, bright, and playful, Power Pop is a sometimes adored, sometimes maligned, often misunderstood genre of music. From its heyday in the '70s and '80s to its resurgence in the '90s and '00s, Power Pop has meant many things to many people. In Go All the Way, today's best and brightest writers go deep on what certain Power Pop bands and songs mean and have meant to them. Whether they love or hate it, Go All the Way is a dive into the Beatles-inspired pop rock of the last f...

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. One of the music world’s pre-eminent critics takes a fresh and much-needed look at the day Dylan “went electric” at the Newport Folk Festival.On the evening of July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan took the stage at Newport Folk Festival, backed by an electric band, and roared into his new rock hit, Like a Rolling Stone. The audience of committed folk purists and political activists who had haile...

Newly updated to include his critically acclaimed post-millennial work, this look at Tom Waits - both the reality and the myriad myths - reveals the man behind the curtain. A tale of how a self-taught, drunken hipster in roach-killers and a dirty beret has influenced a generation of musicians with his sound, warmth, and willingness to take chances, this biography shows how he has moved between sideshow barker and evocative troubadour with ease, recording almost 20 albums that range from ca...

National Bestseller * Named one of Rolling Stone's Best Music Books of 2018 * One of Newsweek's 50 Best Books of 2018 * A Billboard Best of 2018 * A New York Times Book Review "New and Noteworthy" selectionThe author of the critically acclaimed Your Favorite Band is Killing Me offers an eye-opening exploration of the state of classic rock, its past a...

The acclaimed biography—now updated and revised. "Many writers have tried to probe [Dylan's] life, but never has it been done so well, so captivatingly" ( The Boston Globe).Howard Sounes's Down the Highway broke news about Dylan's fiercely guarded personal life and set the standard as the most comprehensive and riveting biography on Bob Dylan. Now this edition continues to document the iconic songwriter's life through new interviews and reporting,...

No Direction Home took 20 years to complete and has received widespread critical acclaim. Robert Shelton met Bob Dylan when the young singer arrived in New York; he became Dylan's friend, champion, and critic, and his book has been hailed as the definitive unauthorised biography of this moody, passionate genius and his world. Of more than a thousand books published about Bob Dylan, it is the only one that has been written with Dylan's active cooperation.

The essential playlist of great writing about the music that rocked America, with fifty landmark pieces on Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, Lez Zepplin, and other rock n’ roll legendsJonathan Lethem and Kevin Dettmar's Shake It Up invites the reader into the tumult and excitement of the rock revolution through fifty landmark pieces by a supergroup of writers on rock in all its variety, from heavy metal to disco, punk to hip-hop. Stanley Booth describes a record...

Dylan's songs sound as if they have been part of the folk music tradition for centuries The Ballad of Bob Dylan examines the influences behind his songs. Through a combination of first hand accounts, reportage and a wealth of interviews with those who have known Dylan for decades The Ballad of Bob Dylan is the fullest picture yet of Dylan's work in the studio. The Ballad of Bob Dylan is a vivid portrait, nuanced and insightful, of the greatest songwriter of the twentieth-century.

Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan's life in music is revisited by his foremost interpreter -- weaving individual moods and moments into a brilliant history of their changing times.The book begins in Berkeley in 1968, and ends with a piece on Dylan's show at the University of Minnesota -- his very first appearance at his alma mater -- on election night 2008. In between are moments of euphoric discovery: From Marcus's liner notes for the 1967 Basement Tapes (pop music's m...