Showing titles in History & Criticism

Keith Hatschek tells the story of three determined artists: Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, and Iola Brubeck and the stand they took against segregation by writing and performing a jazz musical titled The Real Ambassadors. First conceived by the Brubecks in 1956, the musical's journey to the stage for its 1962 premiere tracks extraordinary twists and turns across the backdrop of the civil rights movement.

This cultural brilliance of sound presented a voice and unique mind through the rough streets of America's largest conurbations going as far back as the 1920s. Sprung from the spirits of poverty, this inner city culture quickly uncovered an amazing bunch of young fresh black American forces of nature eager to express their unique self-street accounts and contributed to a spirited new style of soul of black Americana across major cities in the USA. Nowadays, hip hop has reached the doorsteps of regions as distinct as Africa, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Jamaica, and just about everywhere.

Martin Schleske, einer der großen Geigenbauer der Gegenwart, liest die besten Passagen aus seinem Buch und gewährt einen akustischen Einblick in seine international renommierte Werkstatt. Dabei zeigt er, wie für ihn die Kunst des Geigenbaus ein Gleichnis für persönliche Entwicklung und für das Streben nach dem richtigen Platz im Leben ist. Und wer schon immer wissen wollte, wie eine Schleske-Geige tönt: Der Geiger Alban Beikircher, Solist u. a. bei den Münchner Symphonikern, bringt sie in diesem Hörbuch zum Klingen.

One of rock music's most fascinating personalities, Neil Young has persistently charted his own career, ignoring pop fashions, creating innovative music ranging from folk classics like "Heart of Gold" to rock-and-roll anthems like "Down By the River". Don't Be Denied charts Neil Young's formative years, from his high school days in Winnipeg, Manitoba, through his adventures in Toronto's Yorkville district to his ultimate successes with Buffalo Springfield, Crazy Horse, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, and as a solo performer.

All They Will Call You is the harrowing account of "the worst airplane disaster in California's history", which claimed the lives of 32 passengers, including 28 Mexican citizens - farmworkers who were being deported by the US government. Outraged that media reports omitted only the names of the Mexican passengers, American folk icon Woody Guthrie penned a poem that went on to become one of the most important protest songs of the 20th century.

The Great Gate of Kiev resounds to the tumultuous bell rings that end Pictures an an Exhibition, one of the most magnificent and virtuosic of all piano pieces. However, to some of his contemporaries, Modest Mussorgsky was ‘insane’ and ‘a perfect idiot’. Born into a wealthy land-owning family, what drove this tormented man and why did he suffer psychological breakdowns and alcoholism? How did he achieve his command of the realist idiom in his stage works? d, of course, Pictures at an Exhibition.

It’s October 1977, and the Rolling Stones are in a Paris recording studio. They’re under siege. Keith Richards’s legal troubles after his arrest for heroin possession threaten the band’s future, and the broad consensus among rock aficionados is that the band will never again reach the heights of Exile on Main Street.

R.E.M.'s debut album, released in 1983, was so far removed from the prevailing trends of American popular music that it still sounds miraculous and out of time today. J. Niimi tells the story of the album's genesis—with fascinating input from Don Dixon and Mitch Easter. He also investigates Michael Stipe's hypnotic, mysterious lyrics, and makes the case for Murmur as a work of Southern Gothic art.

The Indiana Jones of rock history and founding curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum narrates the Hall's wild history and his quest to build its collection from scratch—from Ozzy Osbourne's country manor to Keith Moon’s childhood bedroom and Art Garfunkel’s personal archives—including stories about Debbie Harry, Mick Jagger, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and more.

It was a time when music fans copied and traded recordings without permission. An outraged music industry pushed Congress to pass anti-piracy legislation. Yes, that time is now; it was also the era of Napster in the 1990s, of cassette tapes in the 1970s, of reel-to-reel tapes in the 1950s, even the phonograph epoch of the 1930s. Piracy, it turns out, is as old as recorded music itself. In Democracy of Sound, Alex Sayf Cummings uncovers the little-known history of music piracy and its sweeping effects on the definition of copyright in the United States.

In Simply Stravinsky, Professor Pieter van den Toorn takes a fresh look at the composer and his legacy, providing a compact, exciting, and accessible introduction to the 20th century’s most celebrated composer and his timeless music. From Stravinsky’s apprenticeship in St. Petersburg to his life among the émigré community in Southern California, Professor van den Toorn shows how the composer’s music was tied to his personality and how it came to influence artists from Aaron Copland to Philip Glass.

Sex. Drugs. Loud music. Wild costumes. Dazzling light shows. These words can all describe a great rock concert or a hot dance club, but they were also part and parcel of the ancient cultural phenomenon known as the "Mystery religions". In this book, author Christopher Knowles shows how the long-dead Mystery religions got a secular reincarnation when a new musical form called rock 'n' roll burst onto the scene.

Jewell uncovers how battles to control college radio were about more than music—they were an influential, if unexpected, front in the nation's culture wars. These battles created unintended consequences and overlooked contributions to popular culture that students, DJs, and listeners never anticipated. More than an ode to beloved stations, this book will resonate with both music fans and observers of the politics of culture.

Of all the musical developments of rock in the 1960s, one in particular fundamentally changed the music's structure and listening experience: the incorporation of extended improvisation into live performances. While many bands—including Cream, Pink Floyd, and the Velvet Underground—stretched out their songs with improvisations, no band was more identified with the practice than the Grateful Dead. In Get Shown the Light Michael Kaler examines how the Dead's dedication to improvisation stemmed from their belief that playing in this manner enabled them to touch upon transcendence.

For 15 years, the Philpotts have been getting under the skin of musical artistes. Picking up on glaring errors in their lyrics or sometimes getting completely the wrong end of the stick (perhaps to irritate things a little further), they totally misunderstand the meaning of "poetic license". Hundreds of missives have landed on the real and virtual doormats of musicians, worldwide. In return, these lyrical legends have exercised their right to reply, correcting and sometimes confirming the authors' summation of what went wrong...or right.

Critiquing avant-garde rock bands from the 1960s to 2000, Bill Martin examines how social upheaval gave rise to this new form of musical expression. He covers early experimentation by artists such as James Brown; initiation into the mainstream and the resulting adaptations by the Beatles and the Who; and continues into the next era looking at how groups like Stereolab, Sonic Youth, Jim O’Rourke, and others continued to innovate.

Zur Einstimmung auf laute Tage und lange Nächte präsentiert Nico Rose vom "Ministerium für Schwermetall" erhellende Erkenntnisse rund um die Psychologie des Metalheads. In "Hard, Heavy & Happy" gehen wir der Frage auf den Grund, wie Metal das Leben bereichert und einfach glücklich macht – oder manchmal: etwas weniger unglücklich. Wir werfen einen meist heiteren, bisweilen aber auch melancholischen Blick auf die besonderen Sitten und Gebräuche der Szene. Als Psychologe beleuchtet Nico Rose insbesondere die seelisch-emotionale Seite dieser außergewöhnlichen Musik.

A whimsical guide to the conduct of a romance interwoven with the history of classical music, which is, surprisingly, not as nice as you might think.... The history of classical music is littered with murder, sado-masochism, adultery, bigamy, fraud, riches, poverty, nervous breakdowns, bizarre habits, gluttony and terrible, terrible toilet humour (Mozart was the prime exponent of the latter).

In his 1967 megahit "San Francisco," Scott McKenzie sang of "people in motion" coming from all across the country to San Francisco, the white-hot center of rock music and anti-war protests. At the same time, another large group of young Americans was also in motion, less eagerly, heading for the jungles of Vietnam.

This invaluable primer will introduce the uninitiated to the mysteries of opera and help more experienced fans to expand their understanding and deepen their appreciation of the art form.