Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Rudy Vallee-these cultural icons whose fame spanned all the important mass media, also played a vital role in the origin and development of the crooning tradition.Crooning represented one of the most important musical styles of the twentieth century, intermingling with jazz and fronting the big band craze of the thirties and forties. Crooners spurred the rise of radio as home staple and the Golden Age of film musicals. When commercial t...

This is the candid and unabridged story of the Beatles as told by the insiders who worked, recorded and toured with the group from the Hamburg days to the bitter end. This in-depth book features a meticulously researched and comprehensive array of inside sources. Here, at last, is the whole uncensored story of the life and work of the Beatles. The book is fully illustrated throughout and features interviews with those who knew and worked with the Beatles throughout their remarkable career....

When Genesis announced their reformation and tour dates early in 2007, the shows sold out in just a few hours - proof, if any were needed, that despite being in hibernation for some years, they remain on of the most popular acts in rock music.Now the band has just three original members; but fans hark back to the golden period of the early seventies, when the ranks included superb guitarist Steve Hackett and above all the charismatic front man Peter Gabriel.This fully illustrated eBook tel...

Paul Weller wrote some of the best songs during his sabbatical with The Style Council - from savvy socially-conscious pop to effortless love songs. Between 1983 and 1985, its as if Paul was happiest taking chances, usurping expectations, borrowing magpie-like from the past and remoulding it for the present (in true Mod fashion). Iain Munn must be congratulated for flying the flag for Weller's least understood musical exploit: The ultimate fans eye view of Weller's seven year itch. "Painsta...

Pete Burns sadly passed away aged 57 in 2016. He became a star with the band Dead Or Alive, who had a huge hit with "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" but there was much more to Pete than meets the eye - and with his extraordinary features and sense of fashion, that's really saying something.His amazing autobiography includes frank details of his affairs with major rock stars, his long-time marriage, how he had to sell his GBP 2m house to pay for the plastic surgery that went wrong...

Blesh published They All Played Ragtime as first major scholarly work on ragtime music in 1950, which sparked a ragtime revival. He founded Circle Records in 1946, which recorded new material from aging early jazz musicians as well as the Library of Congress recordings of Jelly Roll Morton. He sparked renewed interest in the music of Joseph Lamb, James P. Johnson, and Eubie Blake, among others.

Tells the story of her upbringing in South London to her thrilling rise to international fame as a singer and also a highly individual fashion icon.Her collaborations and working relationships with Chanel Creative Director Karl Lagerfeld, her manager Mairead Nash and her friend Isabella Summers who to this day forms part of ‘the machine’.

I can confirm that should you ever find yourself on stage playing the bass guitar with tree left hands, it is usually the one in the middle that is the real one. The other two are probably phantoms.Playing the Bass with Three Left Hands tells the story of one of the most influential, revered and ultimately demented British bands of the 1980s, Spacemen 3. In classic rock n roll style they split up on the brink of their major breakthrough.As the decade turne...

Hit Woman is the story of Susan Hamilton’s wildly improbable life: from early days as a child prodigy and actor, through heady success on the concert stage, in the boardrooms of Madison Ave. and over the talkback microphones of recording studios all over the world. This personal and most intimate tale is spun in a voice that is fresh, funnier than hell, and always unflinchingly candid — even in the face of heartbreaking tragedy and more than one wrenching life/love setback. <p&g...

Izzy Brown was rising fast on the music charts. Her song, "If You Loved Me," was number three on the billboards and her concerts were selling out fast. Izzy was twenty-one, blonde and beautiful. She grew up in California to doting parents that nurtured her singing talent from a young age. Now she was a star. She had decided to move to New York to grow, both as an artist and as a woman. A must read for all young singers.

This sensational biography charts Christina Aguilera’s rise to the top in the face of parental issues, panic attacks, self-harm, and professional betrayals big and small.Initially driven by a compulsion to escape from her father, she took refuge in a private world of music, singing along with her favourite tapes. When she and her mother fled to escape the family home, Christina’s ambitions to sing made her the victim of school bullying, but after a breakthrough stint on TV in Disne...

Pink Moon explores how Nick Drake's third and final album has puttered and purred its way into a new millennium. Features interviews with producer Joe Boyd, string arranger Robert Kirby, and even the marketing team behind the VW Cabrio commercial that launched the album to platinum status more than thirty years after its release.