Exploring the interplay of Irving Berlin's life with the life of New York City, noted biographer James Kaplan offers a visceral narrative of Berlin as self-made man and witty, wily, tough Jewish immigrant. Enjoy this excerpt of Kaplan's book, Irving Berlin: New York Genius.
For director Oliver Murray, music exists in the air, but the emotional archives of former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman gives viewers a tactile experience of this band's story in The Quiet One.
In Solid State, acclaimed Beatles historian Kenneth Womack offers the most definitive account yet of the writing, recording, mixing, and reception of Abbey Road. (excerpt)
Music documentary Echo in the Canyon beautifully captures Jakob Dylan's search for the best lessons in collaboration from pioneering California Sound supergroups.
In her history of women in punk music, Revenge of the She-Punks, Vivien Goldman hefts the scene's virtues and the vices into one heap and concludes that some of it was necessary, some of it was fun, and some of it was evil.
John Corbett's writing is often poetic in Pick Up the Pieces: Excursions in Seventies Music, with each essay being a resonant reflection on the music, artists, scenes, and memories seemingly etched deeply in his being.
In this excerpt of '70s music, Pick up the Pieces, John Corbett puts his critique of Kraftwerk's Autobahn to poetry and pogos with his conflict for the Clash and their album, The Clash.
In this excerpt of a history of the UK music press, A Hidden Landscape Once a Week, Tony Stewart recalls his time as writer and deputy editor at NME (1971-85) — the strengths and pleasures of teamwork and the vital role of the visual in the energies of a rock paper.
Gina Arnold's research into rock festivals in the US, Half a Million Strong, reveals that it's about the music, yes, but it's also very much about you.
If 1977 was New Wave's breakout year, by 1979 it had become an industry force, all but replacing punk as a viable vehicle or term of currency.
How do we measure the status of a performer's Holy Grail like the Apollo Theater in 2019? Ted Fox and James Otis Smith's beautifully realized, updated graphic novel brings this rich history to life.
Ian Winwood's story of how punk rock music came to be so popular in the '90s is sewn together like a patchwork quilt of unlikely rises to fame and the ordinary people whose dedication made it possible.
Well before artists were their own entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs became rock stars, A&R pros improvised a blueprint for the workings of the modern music industry.
In Novel Sounds, scholar Florence Dore is interested in how a mass cultural phenomenon like rock 'n' roll can help illuminate realities about institutionalized high culture.
A Spy In The House of Loud works best on quiet stages, taking singular trips down clearly paved roads with definite endings.
Black music's past is a rabbit hole more than big enough for these two vastly different excursions into its secret riches.
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