Roy Harper must be one of Britain’s most undervalued rock musicians and songwriters. For over fifty years, he has produced a series of innovative albums of consistently outstanding quality, putting poetry and social commentary to music in a way that extends the boundaries of rock music. His 22 studio albums and 16 live albums, made up of 250 songs, have created a unique body of work.Roy is a musician’s musician. He is lauded by the likes of Dave Gilmour, Ian Anderson, Jimmy Page, Pe...

We only ever get glimpses of Ian Dury; nothing is as it seems. From irascible rogue to national treasure, pop star to social commentator, cockney geezer to artist, he was a man greater than the sum of his parts. Part teddy boy, part punk, part vaudeville act; he was unique. The music that emanates from this powerful personality echoes the heart and drive of its complex creator.Dury began his career as a frontman with post-punk outfit Kilburn And The High Roads, but had his greatest ...

One of the most pivotal albums in the evolution of rock music, few other recordings have had more impact than the 1965 Bob Dylan classic, Bringing It All Back Home.In the mid-sixties, rock music was about to explode into psychedelia, prog and jazz fusion. Meanwhile, Bob Dylan had made an enormous impact on songwriting with his first four all-acoustic albums. He had created a different way of writing songs, by embracing themes such as civil rights, anti-war protests and social issues...

Arguably the greatest album by the best rock band ever, The Beatles - also known as The White Album – proved to be a watershed recording. This extraordinary double album reflects a remarkable, turbulent time. They were attempting to follow on from the psychedelic masterpiece Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; manager Brian Epstein had died, long-term relationships were coming to an end, and they had become disillusioned with the Maharishi. The album heralded changes in style and marked ...

An enigma, Leonard Norman Cohen was possibly the most improbable bohemian intellectual singer/songwriter in music history. He was the working-class hero, the people’s poet, the suicidal lamenter of doom and a purveyor of popular songs. But the truth is even more complex. Throughout his life, there were juxtapositions of the most unlikely life choices and influences. To have fashioned a mishmash of ideas, styles and influences into a successful, long-lasting musical career is nothing short ...

Captain Beefheart (Don Vliet) was undoubtedly the creator of the most bizarre and wonderful music. A child prodigy sculptor, he applied his artistic approach to music, creating 'aural sculptures'. After befriending Frank Zappa in high school, they collaborated on a teenage rock opera and science fiction/fantasy film entitled Captain Beefheart vs The Grunt People. It was from this film that Don took his name. His Magic Band started out as a blues group in the mid-sixties, but soon, with lys...

Bob Dylan is the magician who sprinkled poetic fairy dust onto the popular music of the early sixties. His songwriting sparked a revolution and changed rock music forever.The diminutive poet/singer claimed he was merely a ‘song and dance man’, but Dylan altered popular music from intellectually bereft teenage rebellion into a serious adult art form worthy of academic study.Dylan headed for the sixties as a Little Richard rock ‘n’ roller but soon turned acoustic folkie. After ...

In the realm of singer-songwriters, few have been as influential as Neil Young, whose music has always been creative and relevant throughout six decades. Neil is a chameleon for whom boundaries of genres do not exist. Throughout a long career that continues to this day, he has delved into folk, country, r&b, rock ‘n’ roll, grunge, hard rock, electronic and pop and made them his own. But the sixties were his launch pad.This book follows his music through that seminal period when he p...

Jimi Hendrix is regarded by many to have been the greatest of all rock guitarists. The 40th anniversary of his death on the 18th October reminded us all that in all these years no other guitarist has come along in the way that Hendrix had to defy musical conventions and to question how we listen to music. His recordings continue to sell. In America alone the amount is estimated to be somewhere in the region of twenty million. As a mark of their high regard two of his albums, Are you Experi...

"[Stanley is] as clear-eyed about music as he is crazy in love with it." —Mikael Wood, Los Angeles TimesA monumental work of musical history, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! traces the story of pop music through songs, bands, musical scenes, and styles from Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rock around the Clock” (1954) to Beyoncé’s first megahit, “Crazy in Love” (2003). Bob Stanley—himself a musician, music critic, and fan—teases out the connections and tensions tha...

Modern pop began in 1952 when the first British chart was published and the first 7" singles were released. It ended (perhaps) in 1995 when Robson and Jerome reached the top of the charts with the first number one not to be available on vinyl since 1953. The internet age ushered in the death rites of over 40 years of pop.A Complete History Pop describes the journey that leads from 'Rock Around the Clock' to 'Crazy in Love'. Raw, thrilling, surprising and sometimes downrigh...

David Bowie: every single song. Everything you want to know, everything you didn't know.The legacy of David Bowie is roughly 450 songs, which he recorded or performed over half a century. They range from cabaret to psychedelia to folk rock to glam rock to Philadelphia soul, from avant-garde instrumentals to stadium anthems. Cataloging Bowie’s songs from the dawn of his career in 1963 to his Hollywood stardom in 1976, examining them in the order of their composition...