The definitive oral history of Pink Floyd as told by friends, lovers, family members, and the band themselves through exclusive, never-before-published interviews.In Pink Floyd: Shine On, acclaimed music writer and band confidant Mark Blake tells the definitive story of Pink Floyd for the first time in their own words.Based on Mark’s own extensive archive—from talking to the band over a thirty-five year period and including extensive new interviews...

An illuminating deep-dive into everything Fleetwood Mac—the songs, the rivalries, the successes, and the failures—Dreams evokes the band's entire musical catalog as well as the complex human drama at the heart of the Fleetwood Mac story.Fleetwood Mac has had a ground-breaking career spanning over fifty years and includes some of the best-selling albums and greatest hits of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. But the band’s unique story is one of enor...

In his own words-from rock's most legendary bad boy.Rock 'n' roll legend and Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has quite a few things to say: about Mick Jagger, the Stones, sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, and life itself. Sample these nuggets of wit and wisdom chipped from the tablets of Stone:On etiquette: "I've never turned blue in someone else's bathroom. I consider that the height of bad manners."On Mick Jagger: "My aim is alw...

More than just a biography about the band members, Classic Rock: Led Zeppelin is an incredible compilation of stories, insights and reflections by the band members themselves and the people who knew them. Learn about the origin of the rock and roll band from their unique sound and meteoric rise in popularity to the untimely death of their drummer, infighting and accusations of plagiarism. This amazingly detailed peek into the lives of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and John Bon...

Interest in Pink Floyd remains as intense as ever even 40 years after the release of Dark Side of the Moon, with lavish box-sets collecting demos and out-takes, and Roger Waters’ world tours of The Wall playing to packed stadiums.Now, Mark Blake’s superbly comprehensive and engrossing history of the group, rightly acclaimed as the definitive book on the band, has been fully revised and extended with new interviews to bring the story up to date with the recent appearances of David Gi...

Freddie Mercury was rock’s most dazzling showman, a legendary entertainer who in 1991, at the age of just forty-five, became the first major music star to die of AIDS. Mercury’s soaring four-octave voice was a defining element in Queen’s unique sound, crucial to the success of the band’s fifteen studio albums, from Queen (1973) to Made in Heaven (1995). He was also a supremely talented songwriter and musician who wrote many of the band’s greatest hits, including ‘Killer Queen’, ‘We Are the...

**“An engaging mix of humor and detailed critical analysis…great fun.” —MojoFrom the award-winning author of Bring It On Home: Peter Grant, Led Zeppelin, and Beyond and Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd comes this deeply researched alphabetical biography of Queen and each of its dynamic members.**Addressing the phenomenal success of the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, acclaimed music journalist Mark Blake builds on the legend of Q...

Queen's success in the 1970s was accompanied by a taste for musical and non-musical excess. Is This the Real Life? draws on eyewitness testimonies -- former producers and managers, ex-girlfriends and boyfriends -- to create a complete picture of one of the world's most ambitiously driven rock bands at work and at play. Revealing Queen's complex dynamic, Blake also explores how Freddie Mercury's sexuality alienated some of the band's fan base, how they reinvented themselves by morp...

The acclaimed, definitive biography of Pink Floyd, from their iconic beginnings in psychedelic, Swinging London to their historic reunion at the Live8 concert ("The most complete, insightful, and current account of Pink Floyd...nearly as essential as the music itself." -- Austin Chronicle)Mark Blake draws on his own interviews with band members as well as the group's friends, road crew, musical contemporaries, former housemates, and university coll...

'A definitive tome for both Who fans and newcomers alike’ ***** Q MagazinePete Townshend was once asked how he prepared himself for The Who’s violent live performances. His answer? ‘Pretend you’re in a war.’ For a band as prone to furious infighting as it was notorious for acts of ‘auto-destructive art’ this could have served as a motto.Between 1964 and 1969 The Who released some of the most dramatic and confrontational music of the decade, includi...

The authorized biography of the most notorious rock manager of all time, Peter Grant, best known for his work with Led ZeppelinPeter Grant is the most famous music manager of all time. Often acknowledged as the "fifth member of Led Zeppelin," Grant's story has appeared in fragments across countless Zeppelin biographies, but none has explored who this brilliant and intuitive manager yet flawed and sometimes dangerous man truly was. No one has successfully captured th...

Mark Blake draws on his own interviews with band members as well as the group's friends, road crew, musical contemporaries, former housemates, and university colleagues to produce a riveting history of one of the biggest rock bands of all time. We follow Pink Floyd from the early psychedelic nights at UFO, to the stadium-rock and concept-album zenith of the seventies, to the acrimonious schisms of the late '80s and '90s. Along the way there are fascinating new revelations about Syd Barrett...