He didn’t know it at the time, but Tim Ghianni’s love affair with Nashville and its musical artists began on a steamy night in 1972, when the twenty-year-old author had unsolicited help from honky-tonkin’ legends Bobby Bare and Shel Silverstein during an after-midnight “salvation” of the city. It was the beginning of a lifelong urban romance that Ghianni would pursue during a career as a journalist in Middle Tennessee, interviewing Nashville’s biggest stars and developing friendships with ...

Billy Joe Shaver wrote nine of the ten songs included on Waylon Jennings’s landmark album Honky Tonk Heroes and played a dominant role in the origins and development of the Outlaw Country movement of the 1970s. He has been named by Ray Wylie Hubbard, alongside Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, as a member of the “holy trinity” of Texas songwriters. He has exerted a Texas-sized influence on Texas music and especially Texas singer-songwriters, and is cited as a chief inspiration by at...

Randy Bachman has been rolling out chart-topping songs his whole life—“You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,” “These Eyes,” “American Woman,” “Takin’ Care of Business”—and, since 2005, treating fans to a lifetime of rock ’n’ roll stories on his hit CBC Radio show, Vinyl Tap.His approach is always fresh—even the most hardcore music fans will be surprised by what they can learn from Bachman. Whether he is touring with Ringo Starr, jamming with Little Richard, or recording with Neil Yo...

The definitive account of Whitney Houston’s astonishing life, ground-breaking career and tragic death – complete with never-before-seen photographs – from the only one who truly knows the story behind the headlines: her mother, Cissy Houston.Cissy has said little publicly about Whitney’s heart-breaking death. Now, for the first time, she opens up and shares the unbelievable story of her daughter’s life, as well as her own, and addresses Whitney’s brightest and darkest moments....

New York Times bestsellerFrom celebrated sports writer Jeff Pearlman, author of The Bad Guys Won, a rollicking, completely unabashed account of the glory days of the legendary Dallas Cowboys 1990s dynasty.They were called America's Team. Led by Emmitt Smith, the charismatic Deion "Prime Time" Sanders, Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin—and lorded over by swashbuckling, power-hungry owner Jerry Jones and his two h...

From a legendary music journalist with four decades of unprecedented access, an insider's behind-the-scenes look at the major personalities of rock and roll.Lisa Robinson has interviewed the biggest names in music--including Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, John Lennon, Patti Smith, U2, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Jay Z and Kanye West. She visited the teenage Michael Jackson many times at his Encino home. She spent hours talking to John Lennon at his Dakota apartment--and ...

Five decades in the music industry, 100 albums, 10 Grammys, the Kennedy Center Honors, and the Country Music Hall of Fame. Add high-profile activism for the legalisation of marijuana, the foundation of a ground-breaking philanthropic organisation, and a much-publicised personal life - Willie Nelson's is a story like no other.Born during the great depression in 1933 and raised by his grandparents, he began singing in dance halls and Honky Tonks at the age of 13, as an escape from wo...

A New York Times Best seller!One Way Out is the powerful biography of The Allman Brothers Band, an oral history written with the band's participation and filled with original, never-before-published interviews as well as personal letters and correspondence. This is the most in-depth look at a legendary American rock band that has meant so much to so many for so long.For twenty-five years, Alan Paul has covered and written about The Allman Brothers Band, cond...

In 1967, when Jerry Kramer was a thirty-one-year-old Green Bay Packers offensive lineman, in his tenth year with the team, he decided to keep a diary of the season. “Perhaps, by setting down my daily thoughts and observations,” he wrote, “I’ll be able to understand precisely what it is that draws me back to professional football.” Working with the renowned journalist Dick Schaap, Kramer recorded his day-to-day experiences as a player with perception, honesty, humor, and startling sensitivi...

The moment I walked out of that tunnel that first time I was in the NFL and saw that 70,000 people, I said, "This is me, this is mine, this is what I was meant to do." Some people get scared that first time. Me? Scared my ass. I was loving it.NFL superstar Chad Ochocinco is one of the most feared weapons in football, having amassed six consecutive 1,000-yard receiving seasons and made it to five straight Pro Bowls. And he does things his way–always big, always fun, always ...

'This could be heaven or this could be hell...'So sings Don Henley on their biggest hit, 'Hotel California', and it is true that the Eagles story was one that blurred the ultimate Hollywood highs and subterranean LA lows beyond recognition.The band that embodied the American dream with globe-straddling success, impossibly luxurious lives, almost supernatural talent also descended into nightmare with bloodletting betrayal, hate-filled hubris, the skeletons...

From feared NHL sniper to ship captain and bellhop — with hockey’s greatest ‘stacheOnly 20 men in NHL history have scored 60 or more goals in a single season: Gretzky, Lemieux, and Hull all hit the magical mark. And so did an undersized, take-no-prisoners centre named Dennis Maruk. When Maruk found the back of the net 60 times in 1981–82, he was the toast of Washington — he even dined with the president. A few short years later, he was out of the game. Maruk not on...