Respected arts commentator and author Paul Morley, an artistic advisor to the curators of the highly successful retrospective exhibition 'David Bowie Is...' for the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, constructs a definitive story of Bowie that explores how he worked, played, aged, structured his ideas, influenced others, invented the future, and entered history as someone who could and would never be forgotten. Morley captures the greatest moments from across Bowie's life and career; how young Davie Jones of South London became the international David Bowie; his pioneering collaborations in the recording studio with the likes of Tony Visconti, Mick Ronson, and Brian Eno; to iconic live, film, theatre, and television performances from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, as well as the various encounters and artistic relationships he developed with musicians from John Lennon, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop to Trent Reznor and Arcade Fire. And of course, discusses in detail his much-heralded and critically acclaimed finale with the release of Blackstar just days before his shocking death in New York.
When baseball’s reserve clause was struck down in late 1975 and ushered in free agency, club owners feared it would ruin the game; instead, there seemed to be no end to the “baseball fever” that would grip America. In Gathering Crowds: Catching Baseball Fever in the New Era of Free Agency, Paul Hensler details how baseball grew and evolved from the late 1970s through the 1980s. Trepidation that without the reserve clause only wealthy teams would succeed diminished when small-market clubs in Minnesota, Kansas City, and Boston found their way to pennants and World Series titles. The proliferation of games broadcast on cable and satellite systems seemed to create a thirst for more baseball rather than discourage fans from going to the ballpark. And as fans clicked the turnstiles and purchased more and more team-licensed products, the national pastime proved it could survive and thrive even as other professional sports leagues vied for the public’s attention. By the end of the 1980s, baseball had positioned itself to progress into the future stronger and more popular than ever. Gathering Crowds reveals how the national pastime moved beyond the grasp of the reserve clause to endure a lengthy strike and drug scandals and then prosper as it never had before. The book also offers insight into how societal issues influenced baseball in this new era, from women in the clubhouses and minorities finally named as managers to a gay player’s debut at the big-league level. Gathering Crowds is a fascinating examination of baseball’s transformation during this unprecedented era.
A groundbreaking study of the trailblazing music of Chicago’s AACM, a leader in the world of jazz and experimental music. Founded on Chicago’s South Side in 1965 and still thriving today, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) is the most influential collective organization in jazz and experimental music. In Sound Experiments, Paul Steinbeck offers an in-depth historical and musical investigation of the collective, analyzing individual performances and formal innovations in captivating detail. He pays particular attention to compositions by Muhal Richard Abrams and Roscoe Mitchell, the Association’s leading figures, as well as Anthony Braxton, George Lewis (and his famous computer-music experiment, Voyager), Wadada Leo Smith, and Henry Threadgill, along with younger AACM members such as Mike Reed, Tomeka Reid, and Nicole Mitchell. Sound Experiments represents a sonic history, spanning six decades, that affords insight not only into the individuals who created this music but also into an astonishing collective aesthetic. This aesthetic was uniquely grounded in nurturing communal ties across generations, as well as a commitment to experimentalism. The AACM’s compositions broke down the barriers between jazz and experimental music and made essential contributions to African American expression more broadly. Steinbeck shows how the creators of these extraordinary pieces pioneered novel approaches to instrumentation, notation, conducting, musical form, and technology, creating new soundscapes in contemporary music.
This year marks the golden anniversary of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the flagship band of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Formed in 1966 and flourishing until 2010, the Art Ensemble distinguished itself by its unique performance practices—members played hundreds of instruments on stage, recited poetry, performed theatrical sketches, and wore face paint, masks, lab coats, and traditional African and Asian dress. The group, which built a global audience and toured across six continents, presented their work as experimental performance art, in opposition to the jazz industry’s traditionalist aesthetics. In Message to Our Folks, Paul Steinbeck combines musical analysis and historical inquiry to give us the definitive study of the Art Ensemble. In the book, he proposes a new theory of group improvisation that explains how the band members were able to improvise together in so many different styles while also drawing on an extensive repertoire of notated compositions. Steinbeck examines the multimedia dimensions of the Art Ensemble’s performances and the ways in which their distinctive model of social relations kept the group performing together for four decades. Message to Our Folks is a striking and valuable contribution to our understanding of one of the world’s premier musical groups.
This narrative history describes the events preceding, and the prosecution of, the Texas Revolution and the U.S.-Mexican War. It begins with the introduction of the empresario system in Mexico in 1823, a system of land distribution to American farmers and ranchers in an attempt to strengthen the postwar economy following Mexico's independence from Spain. Once welcomed as fellow countrymen, the new settlers, homesteading on land destined to be called Texas, were viewed as enemies when in 1835 they revolted against the government's harsh Centralist rulings. Winning independence from Mexico and recognition from the United States as the independent Republic of Texas only intensified the Mexican refusal to accept their loss of Texas as legitimate. The final straw for both sides came when Texas was granted U.S. statehood and 11 American soldiers were ambushed and murdered. As a result, Congress declared war on Mexico, a bloody conflict that resulted in the U.S. gain of 525,000 square miles.
The 1813 storming of Fort Mims by Creek Indians brought to light the careers of Andrew Jackson, David Crockett and Sam Houston. All three fought the Creeks and each would have his part to play two decades later when the Alamo was stormed during the fight for Texan independence from Mexico. President Jackson was the first head of state to recognize the fledgling Republic of Texas. Colonel Crockett would be enshrined as a folk hero for his stand at the Alamo. General Houston won Texan independence at San Jacinto in 1836. This book tells the stories of the two landmark battles--at Fort Mims and the Alamo--and the interwoven lives of Jackson, Crockett and Houston, three of the most fascinating men in American history.
“Fellow rock stars, casual members of the public, lords and media magnates, countless thousands of people will talk of their encounters with this driven, talented, indomitable creature, a man who has plumbed the depths of depravity, yet emerged with an indisputable nobility. Each of them will share an admiration and appreciation of the contradictions and ironies of his incredible life. Even so, they are unlikely to fully comprehend both the heights and the depths of his experience, for the extremes are simply beyond the realms of most people’s understanding.” —from the Prologue The first full biography of one of rock ’n’ roll’s greatest pioneers and legendary wild men Born James Newell Osterberg Jr., Iggy Pop transcended life in Ypsilanti, Michigan, to become a member of the punk band the Stooges, thereby earning the nickname “the Godfather of Punk.” He is one of the most riveting and reckless performers in music history, with a commitment to his art that is perilously total. But his personal life was often a shambles, as he struggled with drug addiction, mental illness, and the ever-problematic question of commercial success in the music world. That he is even alive today, let alone performing with undiminished energy, is a wonder. The musical genres of punk, glam, and New Wave were all anticipated and profoundly influenced by his work. Paul Trynka, former editor of Mojo magazine, has spent much time with Iggy’s childhood friends, lovers, and fellow musicians, gaining a profound understanding of the particular artistic culture of Ann Arbor, where Iggy and the Stooges were formed in the mid to late sixties. Trynka has conducted over 250 interviews, has traveled to Michigan, New York, California, London, and Berlin, and, in the course of the last decade or so at Mojo, has spoken to dozens of musicians who count Iggy as an influence. This has allowed him to depict, via real-life stories from members of bands like New Order and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Iggy’s huge influence on the music scene of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, as well as to portray in unprecedented detail Iggy’s relationship with his enigmatic friend and mentor David Bowie. Trynka has also interviewed Iggy Pop himself at his home in Miami for this book. What emerges is a fascinating psychological study of a Jekyll/Hyde personality: the quietly charismatic, thoughtful, well-read Jim Osterberg hitched to the banshee creation and alter ego that is Iggy Pop. Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed is a truly definitive work—not just about Iggy Pop’s life and music but also about the death of the hippie dream, the influence of drugs on human creativity, the nature of comradeship, and the depredations of fame.
Paul Thompson offers an alternative take on the romanticized and mythologized process of record-making. Side A illustrates how creativity arises out of a system in action, and introduces the history, culture, traditions and institutions that contribute to the process of commercial record production. Side B demonstrates this system in action during the central tasks of songwriting, performing, engineering and producing. Using examples from John Lennon, David Bowie, Tupac Shakur, Björk, Marta Salogni, Sylvia Massy and Rick Rubin, each chapter takes the reader inside a different part of the commercial record production process and uncovers the interactive and interrelated multitude of factors involved in each creative task.
What Is Their Secret And What Are They Hiding? Step inside the secret world of the Masons and discover: How such pivotal American documents as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights reflect Masonic principles and influence. How Freemasons became the world's oldest and largest fraternal organization. If Freemasons rule the world--or want to. Why Masonic symbolism appears on American currency. Why the opposition groups, from conspiracists to the Catholic Church, fear Freemasons. Why Texas has been called "the Masonic Republic." How to recognize Masonic rings, pins, and other symbols. From George Washington to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, the Freemasons have influenced the United States in many surprising ways. With nearly half the world's six million Freemasons--some twenty-five U.S. presidents and thirty-five Supreme Court justices among them--America has felt the group's impact more deeply and broadly than any other country. Using historical anecdotes and incisive analysis, this timely and insightful portrait separates the myths surrounding Freemasonry from the facts, offering a unique insider's view into what American Freemasonry was, is, and will be tomorrow. H. Paul Jeffers has published more than 50 works of fiction and nonfiction, including Freemasons: Inside the World's Oldest Secret Society, biographies of presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Grover Cleveland, New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, Diamond Jim Brady, and others. He lives in Manhattan.
An instant New York Times bestseller! The definitive biography of guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan, with an epilogue by Jimmie Vaughan, and foreword and afterword by Double Trouble’s Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon. Just a few years after he almost died from a severe addiction to cocaine and alcohol, a clean and sober Stevie Ray Vaughan was riding high. His last album was his most critically lauded and commercially successful. He had fulfilled a lifelong dream by collaborating with his first and greatest musical hero, his brother Jimmie. His tumultuous marriage was over and he was in a new and healthy romantic relationship. Vaughan seemed poised for a new, limitless chapter of his life and career. Instead, it all came to a shocking and sudden end on August 27, 1990, when he was killed in a helicopter crash following a dynamic performance with Eric Clapton. Just 35 years old, he left behind a powerful musical legacy and an endless stream of What Ifs. In the ensuing 29 years, Vaughan’s legend and acclaim have only grown and he is now an undisputed international musical icon. Despite the cinematic scope of Vaughan’s life and death, there has never been a truly proper accounting of his story. Until now. Texas Flood provides the unadulterated truth about Stevie Ray Vaughan from those who knew him best: his brother Jimmie, his Double Trouble bandmates Tommy Shannon, Chris Layton and Reese Wynans, and many other close friends, family members, girlfriends, fellow musicians, managers and crew members.
Individuals are not born to greatness, but through failure and defeat, they are prepared for it. Our struggles seem to define us more than our triumphs, and our character determines which path we choose. What road would General George Washington take when offered absolute power? Would Captain John Smith accept his common birth as a limitation of his own achievements? Would Abraham Lincoln demand vengeance on the South after his victory in the Civil War? What beliefs would guide their decisions, and what life experiences shaped their character? Nations as well are not born to greatness and must earn their places in history. Their trials can destroy them or make them even stronger. America was conceived in adversity and achieved greatness through the actions of its people in its darkest moments. Six stories chronicle the lives of the people who guided a nation to greatness by relying on the Christian principles of providence, divine purpose, and perseverance. God would direct their paths to victory over the dark times. From the first settlements of Jamestown and Plymouth to the Civil War, we discover that greatness rarely comes from success, but often rises out of defeat. In our weakness, we are made strong. Through the fires of struggle, individuals forged a nation into "a shining city on a hill." These fires would light the way through the dark for future generations of Americans across the world to see.
The story of Eastmancolor's arrival on the British filmmaking scene is one of intermittent trial and error, intense debate and speculation before gradual acceptance. This book traces the journey of its adoption in British Film and considers its lasting significance as one of the most important technical innovations in film history. Through original archival research and interviews with key figures within the industry, the authors examine the role of Eastmancolor in relation to key areas of British cinema since the 1950s; including its economic and structural histories, different studio and industrial strategies, and the wider aesthetic changes that took place with the mass adoption of colour. Their analysis of British cinema through the lens of colour produces new interpretations of key British film genres including social realism, historical and costume drama, science fiction, horror, crime, documentary and even sex films. They explore how colour communicated meaning in films ranging from the Carry On series to Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979), from Lawrence of Arabia (1962) to A Passage to India (1984), and from Goldfinger (1964) to 1984 (1984), and in the work of key directors and cinematographers of both popular and art cinema including Nicolas Roeg, Ken Russell, Ridley Scott, Peter Greenaway and Chris Menges.
About the author -- Introduction -- Artist -- David Bowie -- Freddie Mercury -- Hans Christian Andersen -- J.K. Rowling -- John Lennon and Paul McCartney -- Madonna -- Miles Davis -- Pablo Picasso -- Roy Lichtenstein -- Salvador Dali -- Woody Allen -- Business leader -- Akio Morita -- Anne Mulcahy -- Clarence Birdseye -- Daniel Peter -- Ingvar Kamprad -- Jeff Bezos -- Levi Strauss -- Ray Kroc -- Ricardo Semler -- Rob McEwen -- Sidney Bernstein -- Sir Charles Dunstone -- Soichiro Honda -- Zhang Ruimin -- Genius -- Beethoven -- Michelangelo -- Mozart -- Pythagoras -- William Shakespeare -- Inventor -- Eric Migicovsky -- George de Mestral -- Hiram Maxim -- Johannes Gutenberg -- John Harrison -- John Sipe -- Jorge Odon -- Louis Braille -- Martin Cooper -- Nick d'Aloisio -- Percy Spencer -- Ted Hoff -- Thomas Edison -- Trevor Baylis -- Maverick -- Anita Roddick -- Don Estridge -- Hannibal -- Jonathan Swift -- Nelson -- Phil Romano -- Steve Jobs -- Pioneer -- Auguste Escoffier -- Dick Fosbury -- Florence Nightingale -- Gustave Eiffel -- Hedy Lamarr -- Marconi -- Muhammad Yunus -- Travis Kalanick -- Scientist -- Alexander Fleming -- Alexander Graham Bell -- Archimedes -- Charles Darwin -- Dmitri Mendeleev -- Edward Jenner -- Edwin Land -- Galileo -- Govindappavenkataswamy -- Joseph Lister -- Marie Curie -- Visionary -- Elon Musk -- John F. Kennedy -- Mahatma Gandhi -- Oprah Winfrey -- Walt Disney -- Zhao Kuangyin
Paul Evans, a New Yorker has had a long and varied musical career. As a songwriter, Paul has written hits for himself as well as for Bobby Vinton – the 1962 classic, 'Roses Are Red, My Love', the Kalin Twins 'When' in 1957, and Elvis Presley 'The Next Step is Love' and 'I Gotta Know' and more. His songs have been featured in movies – Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas and John Waters' Pecker, television shows (Scrubs) and TV ads. He also wrote an off-off Broadway show, Cloverleaf Crisis, and the theme for the original network television show, CBS This Morning. Paul has spent a great deal of his life as a recording artist. From his 1959 and 60's hits: 'Seven Little Girls Sitting in The Back Seat', 'Midnight Special' and 'Happy Go Lucky Me' to his 1979 hit: 'Hello, This Is Joannie', #6 on the UK pop charts and Top 40 on Billboard's Country charts. This book describes his journey from getting his start in the music business, becoming part of the Brill's song-writing community and the sixty-three music-filled years that followed.
Paul Shaffer—born and bred music junkie and longtime leader of David Letterman’s Late Show band—opens up in this candid, endearing, hilarious, and star-studded memoir. From playing seedy strip joints in Toronto, to being the first musical director of Saturday Night Live and helping to form the Blues Brothers, to being onstage every night with David Letterman and playing with the greatest musicians of our time, Shaffer has lived the ultimate showbiz life. Now—dishing on everyone from John Belushi and Jerry Lewis to Mel Gibson and Britney Spears—Paul gives us the full behind-the-scenes story of his life, from banging out pop tunes on the piano at the age of twelve to leading the band every night at the Sullivan Theater.
The 1960s were among the most compelling years in the history of the United States, from the intensifying clamor for civil rights to the tragic incidents of assassination and war. Caught up in this sea of restlessness was major league baseball, and the manner in which baseball addressed the challenges of this decade would have a lasting impact on the game. In The New Boys of Summer: Baseball's Radical Transformation in the Late Sixties, Paul Hensler looks at the key issues confronting baseball during this tumultuous time. Hensler carefully examines how domestic racial issues, the war in Vietnam, assassinations of prominent public figures, youthful rebellion, and drug use each placed their imprint on the game just as baseball was about to celebrate its centennial season. The expansion of both the American and National leagues is also covered in depth, as are the new divisional alignments and major rule changes that were implemented in 1969. Other factors impacting the national pastime include the appointment of Bowie Kuhn as commissioner, the rising influence of Marvin Miller as the director of the players association, the construction of modern stadiums, and the rapid developments in information technology. An earlier generation of players was venerated as the Boys of Summer, and indeed, they continue to hold their rightful place in baseball’s legend and lore; but in the late 1960s, a fresh cast of characters made their own mark as transformations in the game brought baseball into the new modern era. Baseball historians and fans alike will be entertained and informed by this fresh look at the national pastime in the decade of discontent.
Over the course of his military career, George Crook developed empathy and admiration for American Indians both as foes and as allies. As Paul Magid has demonstrated in the previous two volumes of his groundbreaking biography, this experience prepared Crook well for his metamorphosis from Indian fighter to outspoken advocate of Indian rights. An Honest Enemy is the third and final volume of Magid’s account of George Crook’s life and involvement in the Indian wars. Using rarely tapped information, including Crook’s own diaries, the work documents in dramatic detail the general’s arduous and dangerous campaigns against the Chiricahua Apaches and their leader Geronimo, action that forms a backdrop to the transformation in the general’s role vis-à-vis Native Americans. In a story by turns harrowing and tragic, Magid details the plight of Indians who, in the aftermath of their defeat, were consigned to reservations too barren to sustain them, where they were subjected to impoverishment, indifference, and in many cases, outright corruption. With growing anger, Crook watched as many tribes faced death from starvation and disease and, unwilling to passively accept their fate, desperately sought to flee their reservations and return to their homelands. Charged with the grim task of returning the Indians to such conditions, Crook was forced to choose between fulfilling his duties as a soldier and his humanitarian values. Magid describes Crook’s struggle to reconcile these conflicting concerns while promoting policies he regarded as essential to the welfare of the Indians in the face of a hostile public, jealous fellow officers, and an unsympathetic government that regarded his efforts as quixotic and misguided. Here is a tale that readers will not soon forget.
I couldn't put this book down. Malcolm inspired us to make art out of our boredom and anger. He set us free' Bobby Gillespie, Primal Scream Included in the Guardian 10 best music biographies 'Excellent . . . With this book, Gorman convincingly moves away from the ossified image of McLaren as a great rock'n'roll swindler, a morally bankrupt punk Mephistopheles, and closer towards his art-school roots, his love of ideas. Tiresome, unpleasant, even cruel - he was, this book underlines, never boring' Sunday Times 'Exhaustive . . . compelling' Observer 'Definitive . . . epic' The Times 'Gobsmacker of a biography' Telegraph 'This masterful and painstaking biography opens its doorway to an era of fluorescent disenchantment and outlandish possibility' Alan Moore Malcolm McLaren was one of the most culturally significant but misunderstood figures of the modern era. Ten years after his life was cruelly cut short by cancer, The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren sheds fascinating new light on the public achievements and private life of this cultural iconoclast and architect of punk, whose championing of street culture movements including hip-hop and Voguing reverberates to this day. With exclusive contributions from friends and intimates and access to private papers and family documents, this biography uncovers the true story behind this complicated figure. McLaren first achieved public prominence as a rebellious art student by making the news in 1966 after being arrested for burning the US flag in front of the American Embassy in London. He maintained this incendiary reputation by fast-tracking vanguard and left-field ideas to the centre of the media glare, via his creation and stewardship of the Sex Pistols and work with Adam Ant, Boy George and Bow Wow Wow. Meanwhile McLaren's ground-breaking design partnership with Vivienne Westwood and his creation of their visionary series of boutiques in the 1970s and early '80s sent shockwaves through the fashion industry. The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren also essays McLaren's exasperating Hollywood years when he broke bread with the likes of Steven Spielberg though his slate of projects, which included the controversial Heavy Metal Surf Nazis and Wilde West, in which Oscar Wilde introduced rock'n'roll to the American mid-west in the 1880s, proved too rich for the play-it-safe film business. With a preface by Alan Moore, who collaborated with McLaren on the unrealised film project Fashion Beast, and an essay by Lou Stoppard casting a twenty-first-century perspective over his achievements, The Life & Times Of Malcolm McLaren is the explosive and definitive account of the man dubbed by Melvyn Bragg 'the Diaghilev of punk'.
An exhilarating journey through the subcultures, occupied squats, and late-night scenes in the anarchic first few years of Berlin after the fall of the wall Berlin Calling is a gripping account of the 1989 "peaceful revolution" in East Germany that upended communism and the tumultuous years of artistic ferment, political improvisation, and pirate utopias that followed. It’s the story of a newly undivided Berlin when protest and punk rock, bohemia and direct democracy, techno and free theater were the order of the day. In a story stocked with fascinating characters from Berlin’s highly politicized undergrounds—including playwright Heiner Müller, cult figure Blixa Bargeld of the industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, the internationally known French Wall artist Thierry Noir, the American multimedia artist Danielle de Picciotto (founder of Love Parade), and David Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust incarnation—Hockenos argues that the DIY energy and raw urban vibe of the early 1990s shaped the new Berlin and still pulses through the city today. Just as Mike Davis captured Los Angeles in his City of Quartz, Berlin Calling is a unique account of how Berlin became hip, and of why it continues to attract creative types from the world over.
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