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Brian May: The definitive biography
by Laura JacksonAs the lead guitarist of Queen, Brian May is one of rock's most recognisable stars. Brian May: the definitive biography charts his life from his childhood, through his years studying astro physics and teaching, his success with Queen, his more recent projects and his volatile relationship with actress Anita Dobson. Bestselling writer Laura Jackson examines closely the many aspects of the musician's life revealing his true story for the first time. The book reveal's Queen's struggles to gain success and life at the top, throwing some of the most notorious and wildly salacious parties in the business. It charts the camaraderie and conflicts within Queen as well as Brian's difficult years throughout the disintegration of his first marriage, the death of his father and the profound professional and emotional effects of Freddie Mercury's illness and death. The book is packed with nearly 70 first-hand exclusive interviews with some of his closest friends, colleagues and fellow musicians. These include school and college friends, early band members and colleagues in the scientific world. Interviewees include, Tony Iommi, Joe Elliott, Raul Rodgers, Cliff Richard and Spike Edney.
Bridie Gallagher: The Girl From Donegal
by Jim LivingstoneForeword by Daniel O'Donnell Known as ‘the Girl from Donegal’, Bridie Gallagher was Ireland’s first truly international pop star. Over a fifty-year career she sang at sell-out concerts from small halls across Ireland to leading venues such as the London Palladium, Royal Albert Hall, the Lincoln Centre in New York and the Sydney Opera House. She brought glamour to show business in Ireland, and gave new life to forgotten Irish ballads. Her rise to fame began in the mid-1950s and was marked by enormous crowds wherever she appeared, as she won the hearts of legions of fans loyal ever since. But as well as phenomenal success, her life was marked by tragedy and loss. This biography by her son, Jim Livingstone, draws upon Bridie’s own handwritten memoir, interviews with friends, fans and colleagues, and Jim’s own personal insights, having worked closely with her as manager and musical director for twenty-five years. This is the story of a young, beautiful and talented girl from humble beginnings in Donegal who established a career in show business that was to endure for half a century.
A Brief Guide To OZ: 75 Years Going Over The Rainbow (Brief Histories)
by Paul SimpsonWhat if Dorothy Gale wasn't the only person who went to see the Wizard of Oz? MGM's landmark 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, starring Judy Garland, did not mark the beginning of adventures in Oz. Both before and since, dozens of tales have been told of the Marvellous Land of Oz, and its inhabitants such as the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger and Jack Pumpkinhead. In this fascinating and wide-ranging book, Paul Simpson looks back at the Famous Forty - the original novels by L. Frank Baum and his successors which entranced generations of children with their wonderful world of munchkins, princesses and wicked witches. He examines the many ways in which the stories have been retold in movies - from the silent era to Disney's recent blockbuster Oz the Great and Powerful - and on television, featuring everyone from Tom & Jerry to trades union leaders. On stage, Oz has come to life in the many revivals of The Wizard of Oz musical and the worldwide reign of Elphaba in the smash hit Wicked. Celebrate the 75th anniversary of the world's best-loved film and the whole magical world of Oz with its vampires, muppets, dragons, living statues and so much more.
A Brief History of Rock, Off the Record
by Wayne RobinsThe birth of rock ‘n’ roll signaled the blossoming of a new teenage culture, dividing generations and introducing a new attitude of rebellion and independence. From Chuck Berry to the Beatles, from punk rock to hip hop, rock ‘n’ roll has continuously transformed alongside or in reaction to social, cultural, and political changes. A Brief History of Rock, Off the Record is a concise introduction to rock history and the impact it has had on American culture. It is an easy-to-read, vivid account written by one of rock’s leading critics. Pulling from personal interviews over the years, Wayne Robins interweaves the developments in rock music with his commentary on the political and social events and movements that defined their decades.
A Brief History of Rock, Off the Record
by Wayne RobinsThe birth of rock ‘n’ roll signaled the blossoming of a new teenage culture, dividing generations and introducing a new attitude of rebellion and independence. From Chuck Berry to the Beatles, from punk rock to hip hop, rock ‘n’ roll has continuously transformed alongside or in reaction to social, cultural, and political changes. A Brief History of Rock, Off the Record is a concise introduction to rock history and the impact it has had on American culture. It is an easy-to-read, vivid account written by one of rock’s leading critics. Pulling from personal interviews over the years, Wayne Robins interweaves the developments in rock music with his commentary on the political and social events and movements that defined their decades.
A Brief Introduction to A Philosophy of Music and Music Education as Social Praxis
by Thomas A. RegelskiMusic and Music Education as Social Praxis is a brief introduction to a praxial theory of music education, defined by author. It is grounded in an interdisciplinary approach, for undergraduate and graduate students in music education. Drawing upon scholarship from a range of disciplines, including philosophy and sociology, the book emphasizes and highlights thinking of music as an active social practice and offers an alternative to existing approaches to music education. This text advocates for an alternative approach to teaching music, rooted in the social practice of music, and will supplement Foundations or Methods courses in the Music Education curriculum.
A Brief Introduction to A Philosophy of Music and Music Education as Social Praxis
by Thomas A. RegelskiMusic and Music Education as Social Praxis is a brief introduction to a praxial theory of music education, defined by author. It is grounded in an interdisciplinary approach, for undergraduate and graduate students in music education. Drawing upon scholarship from a range of disciplines, including philosophy and sociology, the book emphasizes and highlights thinking of music as an active social practice and offers an alternative to existing approaches to music education. This text advocates for an alternative approach to teaching music, rooted in the social practice of music, and will supplement Foundations or Methods courses in the Music Education curriculum.
A Briefe Introduction to the Skill of Song by William Bathe
by Kevin C. KarnesAlthough unjustly neglected by modern writers, William Bathe‘s contributions to music pedagogy in late sixteenth-century England were profound. Bathe‘s A Briefe Introduction to the Skill of Song (1596) not only includes the first explication of a four-syllable, non-hexachordal solmization method published by an English writer (a system similar to that which would become the standard in England during the seventeenth century) but also outlines a combinatorial method for composing canons that is remarkably forward-looking in both conception and design. In addition to providing the first modern edition of Bathe‘s treatise, the volume examines the complicated compilation and publication histories of the book, the historical and theoretical foundations of Bathe‘s contributions, and the relationship between the 1596 book and Bathe‘s 1584 treatise A Briefe Introduction to the True Arte of Musicke (the extant text of which is included as an appendix).
A Briefe Introduction to the Skill of Song by William Bathe
by William Bathe and Kevin C. KarnesAlthough unjustly neglected by modern writers, William Bathe‘s contributions to music pedagogy in late sixteenth-century England were profound. Bathe‘s A Briefe Introduction to the Skill of Song (1596) not only includes the first explication of a four-syllable, non-hexachordal solmization method published by an English writer (a system similar to that which would become the standard in England during the seventeenth century) but also outlines a combinatorial method for composing canons that is remarkably forward-looking in both conception and design. In addition to providing the first modern edition of Bathe‘s treatise, the volume examines the complicated compilation and publication histories of the book, the historical and theoretical foundations of Bathe‘s contributions, and the relationship between the 1596 book and Bathe‘s 1584 treatise A Briefe Introduction to the True Arte of Musicke (the extant text of which is included as an appendix).
Bright Star of the West: Joe Heaney, Irish Song Man (American Musicspheres)
by Sean Williams Lillis Ó LaoireBright Star of the West examines the life, repertoire, and influence of Ireland's greatest sean-nos (old-style) singer, Joe Heaney (1919-1984). Best known for popularing this form of Gaelic a cappella folk song in the United States, authors Sean Williams and Lillis Ó Laoire reveal the ways in which Heaney's life story demonstrates the intertwining of music with political memory and cultural understanding.
Bright Star of the West: Joe Heaney, Irish Song Man (American Musicspheres)
by Sean Williams Lillis Ó LaoireBright Star of the West examines the life, repertoire, and influence of Ireland's greatest sean-nos (old-style) singer, Joe Heaney (1919-1984). Best known for popularing this form of Gaelic a cappella folk song in the United States, authors Sean Williams and Lillis Ó Laoire reveal the ways in which Heaney's life story demonstrates the intertwining of music with political memory and cultural understanding.
Brilliant Corners: A Bio-Discography of Thelonious Monk (Discographies: Association for Recorded Sound Collections Discographic Reference)
by Chris SheridanIn this masterful compilation, world-recognized discographer Chris Sheridan draws together the most comprehensive reconstruction of Thelonious Monk's performances and recordings. Woven through the chronological listing of Monk's work is the story of his rise to acceptance as one of the key pianists and composers of jazz and his decline in health and popularity to his death in 1982.Following a Prologue which attempts to summarize the career and man, the narrative discography covers Monk's entire performance career. This is followed by appendixes listing all microgroove and post-microgroove issues of Monk's performances, all known commercially produced films and videos in which Monk took part, a listing of all of his engagements from 1944 until his career petered out in the mid-1970s, and a bibliography. The work concludes with an index of the people, places, producers, and radio and television programs referred to or quoted in the main taxt, a listing of all musicians, vocalists, and broadcast presenters who took part in the recordings or who played in Monk's bands, an index of all the titles used for Monk's tunes by other musicians and vocalists, and a listing of all tunes played, together with their composers and, where relevant, lyricists. A comprehensive reference work for all scholars and other researchers involved with jazz from the 1940s onward.
Brimful of Asia: Negotiating Ethnicity on the UK Music Scene
by Rehan HyderDuring the 1990s, Asian pop artists began entering the mainstream of the British music industry for the first time. Bands such as Black Star Liner, Cornershop, Fun Da Mental and Voodoo Queens, led those within and without the industry to start asking questions such as what did it mean to be Asian? How did the bands' Asian background affect their music? What did their music say about Asians in Britain? In this book, Rehan Hyder draws on in-depth interviews with musicians from these bands and with critics and record producers, to examine the pressures associated with making music as a young Asian in today's multi-ethnic Britain. As the book reveals, these musicians wish to convey an authentic sense of creativity in their music, while at the same time wanting to assert a positive ethnic identity. Hyder explores these two impulses against the backdrop of a music industry and a society at large that hold a range of confining stereotypes about what it means to be Asian. The experiences of these bands add considerably to the wider debate about the nature of identity in the contemporary world.
Brimful of Asia: Negotiating Ethnicity on the UK Music Scene
by Rehan HyderDuring the 1990s, Asian pop artists began entering the mainstream of the British music industry for the first time. Bands such as Black Star Liner, Cornershop, Fun Da Mental and Voodoo Queens, led those within and without the industry to start asking questions such as what did it mean to be Asian? How did the bands' Asian background affect their music? What did their music say about Asians in Britain? In this book, Rehan Hyder draws on in-depth interviews with musicians from these bands and with critics and record producers, to examine the pressures associated with making music as a young Asian in today's multi-ethnic Britain. As the book reveals, these musicians wish to convey an authentic sense of creativity in their music, while at the same time wanting to assert a positive ethnic identity. Hyder explores these two impulses against the backdrop of a music industry and a society at large that hold a range of confining stereotypes about what it means to be Asian. The experiences of these bands add considerably to the wider debate about the nature of identity in the contemporary world.
Bring the Noise: 20 Years Of Writing About Hip Rock And Hip Hop
by Simon ReynoldsAn anthology of writings spanning Simon Reynolds's extraordinary career as a music writer, Bring the Noise weaves together interviews, reviews, essays, and features to create a critical history of the last twenty years of pop culture. Bring the Noise juxtaposes the voices of many of rock and rap's most provocative artists - Morrissey, Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, The Stone Roses, PJ Harvey, Radiohead, The Streets - with Reynolds's own passionate analysis. With all the energy and insight you would expect from the author of Rip It Up And Start Again, Bring the Noise tracks the alternately fraught and fertile relationship between white bohemia and black street music. The selections transmit the immediacy of their moment while offering a running commentary on the broader enduring questions of race and resistance, multiculturalism and division. From grunge to grime, from Madchester to the Dirty South, Bring the Noise chronicles hip hop and alternative rock's competing claims to be the cutting edge of innovation and the voice of opposition in an era of conservative backlash. Alert to both the vivid detail and the big picture, Simon Reynolds has shaped a compelling narrative that cuts across a thrillingly turbulent two-decade period of pop music.
Bringing Metal To The Children: The Complete Berserker's Guide To World Tour Domination
by Zakk WyldeZakk Wylde – the man, the guitar god, the legend – invites all who dare to follow onto the tour bus for tales of glory, debauchery and metal mayhem.
Brithop: The Politics of UK Rap in the New Century
by Justin A. WilliamsWith ongoing debates on Scottish independence, immigration, Britain's place in the EU, multiculturalism, national identity and the specter of a past Empire complicating ethnically-defined notions of "Britishness," the Kingdom seems far from United. As a cultural force that is often discussed as giving voice to the voiceless and empowering marginalized communities, hip-hop has become a space in which to explore and debate these issues-defining global community while celebrating locality. In Brithop, author Justin A. Williams finds new hope in an often-neglected figure: the British rapper. Through themes of nationalism, history, subculture, politics, humor and identity, Brithop explores multiple forms of politics in rap discourses from Wales, Scotland and England. Featuring rappers and groups such as The Streets, Goldie Lookin Chain, Akala, Lowkey, Stanley Odd, Loki, Speech Debelle, Lady Sovereign, Shadia Mansour, Shay D, Stormzy, Sleaford Mods, Riz MC and Lethal Bizzle, Williams investigates how rappers in the UK respond to the "postcolonial melancholia" of post-Empire Britain. Brithop shows a rich, multifaceted cultural reality reflective of both the postcolonial condition of the UK and the importance of localism within its varying cultures.
BRITHOP C: The Politics of UK Rap in the New Century
by Justin A. WilliamsWith ongoing debates on Scottish independence, immigration, Britain's place in the EU, multiculturalism, national identity and the specter of a past Empire complicating ethnically-defined notions of "Britishness," the Kingdom seems far from United. As a cultural force that is often discussed as giving voice to the voiceless and empowering marginalized communities, hip-hop has become a space in which to explore and debate these issues-defining global community while celebrating locality. In Brithop, author Justin A. Williams finds new hope in an often-neglected figure: the British rapper. Through themes of nationalism, history, subculture, politics, humor and identity, Brithop explores multiple forms of politics in rap discourses from Wales, Scotland and England. Featuring rappers and groups such as The Streets, Goldie Lookin Chain, Akala, Lowkey, Stanley Odd, Loki, Speech Debelle, Lady Sovereign, Shadia Mansour, Shay D, Stormzy, Sleaford Mods, Riz MC and Lethal Bizzle, Williams investigates how rappers in the UK respond to the "postcolonial melancholia" of post-Empire Britain. Brithop shows a rich, multifaceted cultural reality reflective of both the postcolonial condition of the UK and the importance of localism within its varying cultures.
British 60s Music
by Robin BextorThe 1960s was simply the most exciting decade in music history known to man. The eruption of talent after the discovery of the Mersey Sound, spearheaded of course by the Fab Four, changed the world.What was special was that for a glorious and colourful short period of time, hardly a week went by without some new creative talent emerging on our airwaves, some new direction in music being created; something fresh to excite us being presented for our edification. Looking back at the charts week by week you realise that there was an explosion in song writing, a huge growth in people being interested in music and, as a result, some really great sounds were made.In this book we have not tried to quantify that, or even order those bands and artists who helped to change our society and our way of looking at it, but we have created a top 40 of artists that can simply not be ignored for what they did. From artists such as Cliff Richard to The Kinks and Pink Floyd, The Rolling Sones and, of course, The Beatles!
British and American Musical Theatre Exchanges in the West End: The “Americanization” of Drury Lane (Palgrave Studies in British Musical Theatre)
by Arianne Johnson QuinnThis monograph centres on the history of musical theatre in a space of cultural significance for British identity, namely the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which housed many prominent American productions from 1924-1970. It argues that during this period Drury Lane was the site of cultural exchanges between Britain and the United States that were a direct result of global engagement in two world wars and the evolution of both countries as imperial powers. The critical and public response to works of musical theatre during this period, particularly the American musical, demonstrates the shifting response by the public to global conflict, the rise of an American Empire in the eyes of the British government, and the ongoing cultural debates about the role of Americans in British public life. By considering the status of Drury Lane as a key site of cultural and political exchanges between the United States and Britain, this study allows us to gain a more complete portrait of the musical’s cultural significance in Britain.
The British Barbershopper: A Study in Socio-Musical Values
by Liz GarnettBarbershop singing is a distinctive and under-documented facet of Britain's musical landscape. Imported from the USA in the 1960s, it has developed into an active and highly organized musical community characterized by strong social support structures and a proselytizing passion for its particular style. This style is defined, within the community, in largely music-theoretical terms and is both highly prescriptive and continually contested, but there is also a host of performance traditions that articulate barbershop's identity as a distinct and specific genre. Liz Garnett documents and analyses the social and musical practices of this specialized community of music-makers, and extends this analysis to theorize the relationship between music and self-identity. The book engages with a range of sociological and musicological theoretical frameworks in order to explore the role of harmony, ritual, sexual politics, performance styles and 'tag-singing' in barbershop. This analysis shows how musical style and cultural discourses can be seen to interact in the formation of identity. Garnett provides the first in-depth scholarly insight into the British barbershop community, and contributes to ongoing debates in the semiotics and the sociology of music.
The British Barbershopper: A Study in Socio-Musical Values
by Liz GarnettBarbershop singing is a distinctive and under-documented facet of Britain's musical landscape. Imported from the USA in the 1960s, it has developed into an active and highly organized musical community characterized by strong social support structures and a proselytizing passion for its particular style. This style is defined, within the community, in largely music-theoretical terms and is both highly prescriptive and continually contested, but there is also a host of performance traditions that articulate barbershop's identity as a distinct and specific genre. Liz Garnett documents and analyses the social and musical practices of this specialized community of music-makers, and extends this analysis to theorize the relationship between music and self-identity. The book engages with a range of sociological and musicological theoretical frameworks in order to explore the role of harmony, ritual, sexual politics, performance styles and 'tag-singing' in barbershop. This analysis shows how musical style and cultural discourses can be seen to interact in the formation of identity. Garnett provides the first in-depth scholarly insight into the British barbershop community, and contributes to ongoing debates in the semiotics and the sociology of music.
The British Blues Network: Adoption, Emulation, and Creativity
by Andrew KellettBeginning in the late 1950s, an influential cadre of young, white, mostly middle-class British men were consuming and appropriating African-American blues music, using blues tropes in their own music and creating a network of admirers and emulators that spanned the Atlantic. This cross-fertilization helped create a commercially successful rock idiom that gave rise to some of the most famous British groups of the era, including The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, and Led Zeppelin. What empowered these white, middle-class British men to identify with and claim aspects of the musical idiom of African-American blues musicians? The British Blues Network examines the role of British narratives of masculinity and power in the postwar era of decolonization and national decline that contributed to the creation of this network, and how its members used the tropes, vocabulary, and mythology of African-American blues traditions to forge their own musical identities.
British Film Music: Musical Traditions in British Cinema, 1930s–1950s (Palgrave Studies in Audio-Visual Culture)
by Paul MazeyThis book offers a fresh approach to British film music by tracing the influence of Britain’s musical heritage on the film scores of this era. From the celebration of landscape and community encompassed by pastoral music and folk song, and the connection of both with the English Musical Renaissance, to the mystical strains of choral sonorities and the stirring effects of the march, this study explores the significance of music in British film culture. With detailed analyses of the work of such key filmmakers as Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Laurence Olivier and Carol Reed, and composers including Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton and Brian Easdale, this systematic and in-depth study explores the connotations these musical styles impart to the films and considers how each marks them with a particularly British inflection.
British Film Music and Film Musicals
by K. DonnellyIn the first book-length consideration of the topic for sixty years, Kevin Donnelly examines the importance of music in British film, concentrating both on musical scores, such as William Walton's score for Henry V (1944) and Malcolm Arnold's music for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and on the phenomenon of the British film musical.