Buddy Holly: A Biography

Ebook

Buddy Holly: An Autobiography

Ebook

Blondie: Parallel Lives

Ebook

Billie Holiday: Her Life and Times

Ebook

The Life of Lou Reed: Notes from the Velvet Underground

Ebook

LIFE Bob Dylan: Forever Young

Ebook

Stranded in the Jungle: Jerry Nolan's Wild Ride: A Tale of Drugs, Fashion, the New York Dolls and Punk Rock

Ebook

Billy Joel: The Life and Times of an Angry Young Man

Ebook

A Pure Drop: The Life Of Jeff Buckley

Ebook

LIFE Remembering Kurt Cobain: 20 Years Later

Ebook

Survivor: The Benny Turner Story

Ebook

Rap Capital: An Atlanta Story

Ebook

Billy Vera: Harlem to Hollywood

Ebook

Joni on Joni: Interviews and Encounters with Joni Mitchell

Ebook

The Do-Re-Mi

Ebook

From Strawberry Fields to Abbey Road: A Billy Shears Story

Ebook

Bob Dylan in Minnesota: Troubadour Tales from Duluth, Hibbing and Dinkytown

Ebook

The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars: Heroin, Handguns, and Ham Sandwiches

Ebook

Love & Murder The Lives and Crimes of Bonnie and Clyde

Ebook

Malcolm & Jack (And Other Famous American Criminals)

Ebook

The Dylanologists: Adventures in the Land of Bob

Ebook

Texas Entertainers: Lone Stars in Profile

Ebook

The Last Patrician: Bobby Kennedy and the End of American Aristocracy

Ebook

Bonnie and Clyde

Ebook

Life and Marvelous Adventures of Wild Bill: A True and Exact History of All the Combats and Escapes of the Most Famous Scout and Spy

Ebook

Louisville Jug Music: From Earl McDonald to the National Jubilee

Ebook

Ty and The Babe: Baseball's Fiercest Rivals: A Surprising Friendship and the 1941 Has-Beens Golf Championship

Ebook

South Never Plays Itself, The: A Film Buff’s Journey Through the South on Screen

Ebook

The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold

Ebook

The House That Rock Built: How it Took Time, Money, Music Moguls, Corporate Types, Politicians, Media, Artists, and Fans To Bring the Rock Hall To Cleveland

Ebook

There Will Be Rainbows: A Biography of Rufus Wainwright

Ebook

The Everything Essential Music Theory Book: A Guide to the Fundamentals of Reading, Writing, and Understanding Music

Ebook

Me: Elton John Official Autobiography

Ebook

Music Theory 101: From keys and scales to rhythm and melody, an essential primer on the basics of music theory

Ebook

The Only Guitar Book You'll Ever Need: From Tuning Your Instrument and Learning Chords to Reading Music and Writing Songs, Everything You Need to Play like the Best

Ebook

Music Theory For Dummies

Ebook

Learn Jazz Piano: book 1

Ebook

The Easyway to Play Piano: A Beginner's Best Piano Primer

Ebook

A Strange Loop

Ebook

The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band

Ebook

The Circle of Fifths: Visual Tools for Musicians, #1

Ebook

Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & The Dark Heart Of The Hippie Dream

Ebook

Compton Street Legend: Notorious Keffe D’s Street-Level Accounts of Tupac and Biggie Murders, Death Row Origins, Suge Knight, Puffy Combs, and Crooked Cops

Ebook

Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums, Drums, Drums

Ebook

Learn Your Fretboard: The Essential Memorization Guide for Guitar (Book + Online Bonus)

Ebook

The Everything Songwriting Book: All You Need to Create and Market Hit Songs

Ebook

Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album

Ebook

Songwriting: Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure: Tools and Techniques for Writing Better Lyrics

Ebook

Hal Leonard Pocket Music Theory (Music Instruction): A Comprehensive and Convenient Source for All Musicians

Ebook

Bowie: An Illustrated Life

Ebook

Learn Guitar A Beginner's Course

Ebook

Singing For Dummies

Ebook

88 Piano Classics for Beginners

Ebook

Guitar For Dummies

Ebook

Singing Coach Secrets

Ebook

More Myself: A Journey

Ebook

Music Theory For Beginners

Ebook

Step By Step Mixing: How to Create Great Mixes Using Only 5 Plug-ins

Ebook

IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD

Ebook

Rememberings

Ebook

The Meaning of Mariah Carey

Podcast episode

Ep. 101 - KINKY FRIEDMAN ("Sold American"): Kinky Friedman reveals who he believes deserves credit for starting country music's outlaw movement; what Waylon Jennings said when he saw Kinky walking down the street with his laundry; how he ended up receiving the Male Chauvinist Pig of the Year Award from the National Organization for Women; the way Nelson Mandela embraced one of his songs; the advice Willie Nelson gave him that changed his life; the reason he writes about Jesus so much; and why he says you've got to be miserable to write great songs.

Podcast episode

Episode 3: The Day the Music Died: We describe Rock N Roll as an “enfant terrible,” then an unruly toddler, then a hyperactive kid. When Buddy Holly breaks out in late 1957, we see Rock N Roll has stepped out into the world as a confident young adult. Our story begins on a snowy two-lane highway in rural Iowa, on February 2nd, 1959: the fateful last day of the Winter Dance Party tour. The shows are going well, but the tour is a real grind. Cold, tired, and fed up, Buddy Holly decides to charter a small plane after the show that night in Clear Lake, Iowa. We meet the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, and Dion DiMucci. We discuss how Ritchie Valens was the first Latino crossover artist, and his 1957 release “La Bamba” is the first Spanish-language pop hit. We then devote a good chunk of the show to Buddy Holly’s life and musical career. We emphasize his giant influence on future Rock N Roll legends, and talk about The Crickets’ groundbreaking tour of the United Kingdom in early 1958. We meet “

Podcast episode

Episode 49: “Love is Strange” by Mickey and Sylvia: Welcome to episode forty-eight of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. This one looks at Love is Strange by Mickey and Sylvia, and how a reluctant bluesman who wrote books on jazz guitar, and a failed child star who would later become the mothe

Podcast episode

Episode 5: The Ballad of Bob and J.R.: A quick prologue: we stop by the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, where they opened up a very cool exhibit in March of 2015. Then we move on to Newport, Rhode Island, where Pete Seeger is about to introduce Johnny Cash, an established country star playing for the first time to a folk festival audience. After a rough beginning, the show goes very well. Afterwards, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan—mutual fans—meet for the first time and begin a lifelong friendship. We then spend some time getting to know the Man in Black; we learn about the family tragedy that moved J.R. Cash to write and make music. We find out the real origins of “Folsom Prison Blues.” We leave Johnny Cash in Memphis for the meantime, and head north to Hibbing, Minnesota and check in on young Robert Allen Zimmerman. As a teen, Bobby is a leather-jacketed Rock N Roll rebel; but he takes on a new name and identity when he discovers folk music as a freshman at the University of Minn

Podcast episode

E121: Peter Guralnick on Blues + Southern Soul + Jerry Wexler: In this episode we invite the great Peter Guralnick — Zooming in from his native Massachusetts — to discuss his "adventures in music and writing"… to quote the subtitle of his wonderful 2020 collection Looking to Get Lost. Peter takes his hosts back to his discovery of Delta blues giants Skip James and Robert Johnson in the early '60s — and to the first pieces he wrote for Paul Williams' Crawdaddy! in 1966. He explains his approach to the masterful profiles he collected in Feel Like Going Home and Lost Highway, and the friendships with Charlie Rich and Bobby "Blue" Bland that resulted from them. Conversation leads from Howlin' Wolf to Solomon Burke and southern soul, and from there to the use of Val Wilmer's remarkable photos in Peter's books. Talk of Memphis and Muscle Shoals prompts Mark to introduce the first of three clips from Barney's 1985 audio interview with Atlantic Records legend Jerry Wexler. Peter reminisces abo

Podcast episode

The Life & Spirit of Sam Kinison - Featuring A Rare Interview With Bill Kinison: Formerly a preacher, Sam Kinison became one of the the loudest and rudest comedians of the 20th century. For some, his name conjures up images of a hard-partyin

Podcast episode

EP 61: Suze Rotolo and Bob Dylan

Podcast episode

Episode Sixty-Four: “Reet Petite” by Jackie Wilson: Episode sixty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at Reet Petite by Jackie Wilson, and features talent contests with too much talent, the prehistory of Motown, a song banned by the BBC, and a possible Mafia hit. Click the full pos

Podcast episode

#22- Rock 'N' Roll Pioneer Buddy Holly: This week, Scott, Karl, and Trent talk about the life and music of rock 'n' roll legend Buddy Holly.  Growing up in Lubbock, Texas, Buddy began his musical career singing country and western songs. Scott points out, "Buddy's love songs aren't the...

Podcast episode

E141: RJ Smith on Chuck Berry + Ice-T + Black L.A. + Wilko Johnson: In this episode we invite esteemed author RJ Smith to tell us about his career, his adopted Los Angeles, and his new biography of Chuck Berry. We start in Detroit, where RJ was raised on a diet of AM radio, the Stooges and Creem magazine, then follow him to New York and his decade of writing for the Village Voice. He talks about the impact of Lester Bangs and Robert Christgau before explaining why he followed the Voice's executive editor Kit Rachlis to California and the L.A. Weekly. We hear how he became fascinated by the pre-rock history of African-American L.A. and how that led to the publication of The Great Black Way (2008). His fourth book, Chuck Berry: An American Life, gives us the opportunity to discuss the problematic brilliance of St. Louis's "Black bard of white teen angst", a half-century after the creepy novelty comedy of 'My Ding-a-Ling' gave the Black-rock pioneer a No. 1 hit on both sides of the Atlan

Podcast episode

Episode 80 | "Billy Joel: Every Album, Every Song"/Lisa Torem: ‘In the beginning,’ Billy Joel entertained Long Island locals, with The Hassles and Attila, prior to forging a solo career in 1971. One year later, the singer-songwriter-pianist captivated college students when “Captain Jack” dominated the...

Podcast episode

A MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT by David Baldacci, read by Brittany Pressley, Kyf Brewer: Countdown to midnight with David Baldacci’s latest thriller. Jo Reed and Jonathan Smith discuss this audiobook’s unusual narration which adds to the tension and edginess. Brittany Pressley and Kyf Brewer blend their styles seamlessly.

Podcast episode

Ep. 8B - SWAMP DOGG ("She's All I Got") - 2 of 2: PART 2 OF 2: R&B cult favorite Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams is best known as the co-writer, with Gary U.S. Bonds, of the cross-genre classic, “She’s All I Got,” which became a Top 10 R&B single for Freddie North and a #2 country hit for Johnny Paycheck in 1971. Tracy Byrd recorded it in 1996, hitting #4 on Billboard’s Country rankings and introducing the song to a new generation of fans. Williams’ career began in 1954 when, at the age of 12, he made his first record, “HTD Blues.” He found success in the 1960s, recording the Top 40 R&B hit “Baby You’re My Everything” under the name Little Jerry Williams, and writing songs for other artists, including Gene Pitney’s Top 20 Pop single, “She’s a Heartbreaker.” He became Atlantic Records’ first African American staff producer in 1968, but left the following year to pursue independent projects in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. By the 1970s he was an in-demand producer and songwriter, penning Top 40 R&

Podcast episode

Episode 72: “Trouble” by Elvis Presley: Episode seventy-two of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at Trouble by Elvis Presley, his induction into the army, and his mothers death. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episod

Podcast episode

Episode 1: The Precursors: Welcome to Rock N Roll Archaeology! This is a reboot of Episode One: The Precursors, originally released October 15, 2015. We updated and improved it some, and re-released it on November 4, 2020.  We begin in Times Square, late summer of 1945. The war is over.  First up, the Baby Boom and a newly-discovered demographic, the white American teenager.  This new cohort is huge, with unprecedented economic clout. Young, restless and affluent, and they want to get beyond the timid, conformist popular culture of 1950s America.  “Race Records” (an outdated term for rhythm and blues records by African American musicians) become hugely popular with white teenagers. Drawn from the well of sorrow that is the Black American experience, this music has the edge and urgency--the authenticity--these kids are seeking.  We meet our first hero - the musical genius Ray Charles - and our first anti-hero, the frenetic, fatally flawed DJ Alan Freed.  We shine a light on two grassroo

Podcast episode

Ep. 8A - SWAMP DOGG ("She's All I Got") - 1 of 2: PART 1 OF 2: R&B cult favorite Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams is best known as the co-writer, with Gary U.S. Bonds, of the cross-genre classic, “She’s All I Got,” which became a Top 10 R&B single for Freddie North and a #2 country hit for Johnny Paycheck in 1971. Tracy Byrd recorded it in 1996, hitting #4 on Billboard’s Country rankings and introducing the song to a new generation of fans. Williams’ career began in 1954 when, at the age of 12, he made his first record, “HTD Blues.” He found success in the 1960s, recording the Top 40 R&B hit “Baby You’re My Everything” under the name Little Jerry Williams, and writing songs for other artists, including Gene Pitney’s Top 20 Pop single, “She’s a Heartbreaker.” He became Atlantic Records’ first African American staff producer in 1968, but left the following year to pursue independent projects in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. By the 1970s he was an in-demand producer and songwriter, penning Top 40 R&

Podcast episode

Episode 22: The Second Wave - On the Morning After the Sixties: Janis Joplin dies just before releasing her magnum opus, “Pearl.” A band called Fanny is ready to rock, but a culture poisoned by the patriarchy isn’t yet ready to accept them. Carole King makes Tapestry, a sincere, modest, and deeply personal album that hits huge and becomes a milestone for women. We complete the story with a profile of one of the giants of 20th Century Music, Joni Mitchell. We discuss her artistic and commercial peak in the early 70s with “Blue,” “For the Roses,” and “Court and Spark.” We admire all of these women for kicking down the door, and we celebrate the progress we’ve made since them, but there is still a long way to go.

Podcast episode

E79: Loyd Grossman, Rock Critic + Brian May audio + (Dixie) Chicks: In this episode we are joined by self-professed "failed musician" and pasta-sauce mogul Loyd Grossman, OBE, to wax nostalgic about the most important years of his illustrious career: those he spent as a contributor to Fusion, Rolling Stone and other American music papers. Loyd reminisces very amusingly about seminal late '60s shows at the Boston tea party, before explaining how he moved to London and reinvented himself as a British national treasure on TV and in every kitchen in the country. He also recounts how he came to play guitar, three times a year, with Jethro Tull.  After a digression on the sad passing of Fairport Convention's original singer Judy Dyble, Loyd joins his hosts in hearing clips from a 1982 audio interview with Queen's Brian May in which that poodle-headed plank-spanker describes, among other things , working with David Bowie on the classic 'Under Pressure'. Barney drags Loyd into a discussion of

Podcast episode

E122: David Dalton on The Beach Boys + The Beatles + Charles Manson: In this episode we welcome the legendary — and highly amusing — David Dalton to join us all the way from his rural retreat in upstate New York. We start by comparing our shocked reactions to Vladimir Putin's horrific invasion of Ukraine before asking David how he moved to America from England in 1961. He tells us about his mid-'60s adventures as a photographer of British Invasion acts like the Animals — with assistance from a pre-Beatle Linda McCartney — and then about his mid-stream switch to profiles of James Brown and Janis Joplin for Jann Wenner's nascent Rolling Stone. We revisit the award-winning 1970 Stone piece David co-wrote about Charles Manson and the Family, hearing along the way about Manson's connections with the Beach Boys. This leads almost seamlessly into clips from the late Andy Gill's 1988 audio interview with Dr. Eugene Landy, the shrink who "saved" Brian Wilson only to abuse his professional trust

Podcast episode

Episode #176: Ed Eckstine (Billy Eckstine): Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast we are talking to Ed Eckstine, son of singer Billy Eckstine and actress/model Carolle Drake. Our conversation with Ed was fun, fascinating, edifying and above all, full of stories of his life as the child of a...

Podcast episode

E158: Charles Shaar Murray on the NME + John Lee Hooker + Robbie Robertson: We welcome NME legend Charles Shaar Murray to reminisce about his career

Podcast episode

13: Lizzie Borden, Part 4: Lizzie Borden was an American woman tried and acquitted of the August 4, 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. No one else was charged in the murders, and despite ostracism from other residents, Borden spent the...

Podcast episode

13: Lizzie Borden, Part 2: Lizzie Borden was an American woman tried and acquitted of the August 4, 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. No one else was charged in the murders, and despite ostracism from other residents, Borden spent the...

Podcast episode

13: Lizzie Borden, Part 1: Lizzie Borden was an American woman tried and acquitted of the August 4, 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. No one else was charged in the murders, and despite ostracism from other residents, Borden spent the...

Podcast episode

Episode 44: “Train Kept A-Rollin'”, by Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio: Episode forty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at Train Kept A-Rollin by Johnny Burnette and the Rock n Roll Trio, and how a rockabilly trio from Memphis connect a novelty cowboy song by Ella Fitzgerald to Motorhead and Aerosmi

Podcast episode

BONUS: Sitting In // Jody Carroll and the Newport Recordings

Podcast episode

Daniel de Visé, "The Blues Brothers: An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic" (Grove Atlantic, 2024): An interview with Daniel de Visé

Podcast episode

Bonus Episode: Dana Gillespie Remembers Her Teenage Romance with Bowie and Life as a Swinging Sixties 'It Girl'

Podcast episode

13: Lizzie Borden, Part 5: Lizzie Borden was an American woman tried and acquitted of the August 4, 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. No one else was charged in the murders, and despite ostracism from other residents, Borden spent the...

Podcast episode

Episode 46: “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man” by Chuck Berry: Episode forty-six of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at Brown-Eyed Handsome Man by the Chuck Berry Combo, and how Berry tried to square the circle of social commentary and teen appeal. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to