Soul. Blues. Indie-rock. Heavy metal. Classical. Classic rock. And even country. Whatever musical genre you love the most, there’s a new book for you on the way. Read all about ’em:
Knock! Knock! Knock! On Wood: My Life in Soul
By Eddie Floyd & Tony Fletcher
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Known for the classics Knock on Wood, 634-5789, Raise Your Hand, Big Bird, and I’ve Never Found a Girl (To Love Me Like You Do), among others, Eddie Floyd’s career as a soul legend spans over 60 years. His professional singing career began in Detroit in the 1950s as a founding member of The Falcons, dubbed “The First Soul Group.” A solo artist and songwriter for Memphis’s famed Stax Records from 1966 until 1975, Floyd has subsequently been the singer for the Blues Brothers Band and for Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings, while continuing to perform and record solo. In Knock! Knock! Knock! On Wood, Floyd recounts how a three-year stint in an Alabama reform school shaped his young life; recalls the early years of R&B in Detroit alongside future Motown and Stax legends; discusses the songwriting sessions with Steve Cropper and Booker T. Jones that produced his biggest hits; addresses his complicated life-long relationship with the often-unpredictable Wilson Pickett; shares his memories of friend Otis Redding; reveals his unlikely involvement in the rise of southern rock darlings Lynyrd Skynyrd; and offers an insider perspective on the tragic downfall of Stax Records. With input from Bruce Springsteen, Bill Wyman, Paul Young, William Bell, Steve Cropper, and others, Knock! Knock! Knock! On Wood captures Eddie’s tireless work ethic and warm personality for an engrossing first-hand account of one of the last true soul survivors.”
It’s The World’s Birthday Today
By Christian “Flake” Lorenz & Tim Mohr
THE PRESS RELEASE: “I have no idea how late it actually is. We flew off somewhere this morning, and my cell phone automatically turns off the clock if we’re getting close to a new time zone by plane. Mile by mile, the bus pushes through the inner city. Budapest seems to be quite big. We are in the middle of rush hour traffic. As it is Friday, everyone wants to get out of the city very quickly. But nothing works quickly here at all.” Flake, the legendary keyboardist for the German band Rammstein, takes readers on a journey of what it is to be a touring musician. The excitement, the boredom, the moments that will be remembered and those that are forgotten. It’s The World’s Birthday Today is a strange and moody book about life on the road.”
What Makes the Monkey Dance: The Life And Music Of Chuck Prophet And Green On Red
By Stevie Simkin
THE PRESS RELEASE: “How do you define success? If you let somebody else define what success is, you’re a sucker. I’m no sucker.” Chuck Prophet started out as a post-punk California kid who helped kick-start the alt-country genre when he joined Dan Stuart’s Green On Red, then making a name for themselves as part of the so-called Paisley Underground alongside bands like The Dream Syndicate and The Bangles. While Green On Red established a reputation for self-destruction illuminated by flashes of brilliance in the studio and on festival stages around Europe in the late 1980s, Prophet simultaneously immersed himself in roots music and forged a solo career via backroom and basement venues across his adopted home of San Francisco. He has emerged as one of the most respected musicians of his generation, admired for his talents as a songwriter, guitarist, vocalist, and live performer. He has worked with the likes of Tony Visconti and Warren Zevon, and his songs have been performed by artists as diverse as Bruce Springsteen and Solomon Burke. Those who know him through his social media presence or his live shows are well aware that no one tells a story quite like Chuck Prophet; here, his voice rings clearly from the first page to the last as he gives his perspective on writing, recording, and performing, and talks candidly about his struggles and remarkable recovery from years of addiction. As Prophet’s official archivist, author Stevie Simkin draws on over a hundred hours of interviews with his subject, as well as contributions from fellow musicians, producers, friends, and associates, and unique access to unreleased songs and live recordings and scores of previously unseen photographs. Time and again, Simkin puts the reader in the room with Chuck as he talks, or in the studio as he plays, and the live experience is captured from both sides of the stage monitors. An exciting rock ’n’ roll odyssey, What Makes The Monkey Dance is essential reading for every fan of this phenomenal artist, but also for anyone with an interest in alternative music during a period seismic change, offering a fascinating portrait of how a true artist has managed to carve out a career at the sharp end of a notoriously ruthless industry.”
Chasing Chopin: A Musical Journey Across Three Centuries, Four Countries, and a Half-Dozen Revolutions
By Annik LaFarge
THE PRESS RELEASE: “A modern take on a classical icon: this original, entertaining, well-researched book uses the story of when, where, and how Chopin composed his most famous work, uncovering many surprises along the way and showing how his innovative music still animates popular culture centuries later. The Frédéric Chopin that Annik LaFarge presents here is not the melancholy, sickly, romantic figure so often portrayed. The artist she discovered is, instead, a purely independent spirit: an innovator who created a new musical language, an autodidact who became a spiritually generous, trailblazing teacher, a stalwart patriot during a time of revolution and exile. In Chasing Chopin she follows in his footsteps during the three years, 1837–1840, when he composed his iconic Funeral March — dum dum da dum — using its composition story to illuminate the key themes of his life: a deep attachment to his Polish homeland; his complex relationship with writer George Sand; their harrowing but consequential sojourn on Majorca; the rapidly developing technology of the piano, which enabled his unique tone and voice; social and political revolution in 1830s Paris; friendship with other artists, from the famous Eugène Delacroix to the lesser known, yet notorious in his time, Marquis de Custine. Each of these threads — musical, political, social, personal — is woven through the Funeral March in Chopin’s Opus 35 sonata, a melody so famous it’s known around the world even to people who know nothing about classical music. But it is not, as LaFarge discovered, the piece of music we think we know. As part of her research into Chopin’s world, then and now, LaFarge visited piano makers, monuments, churches, and archives; she talked to scholars, jazz musicians, video game makers, software developers, music teachers, theater directors, and of course dozens of pianists. The result is extraordinary: an engrossing, page-turning work of musical discovery and an artful portrayal of a man whose work and life continue to inspire artists and cultural innovators in astonishing ways.”
Charley Patton: Expanded Edition
By John Fahey
THE PRESS RELEASE: “The Father of the Delta Blues, Charley Patton (1891-1934) was born and raised around Mississippi’s cotton plantations. During the 1920s, he was the first of the region’s great stars, performing for packed houses throughout the South and making popular recordings in New York City. His music — ranging from blues and ballads to ragtime and gospel — is distinctive for his gravelly, high-energy singing and the propulsive beat of his guitar. Patton had a lively stage presence, originating many of the guitar-playing antics now associated with Jimi Hendrix and other latter-day musicians. His influence, among both his contemporaries and subsequent blues artists, is incalculable. Noted guitarist John Fahey presents a textual and musicological examination of Patton’s music. This new edition of the original 1970 publication is enhanced by Fahey’s notes from the Grammy-winning, out-of-print box set Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton. Available for the first time outside the set, Fahey’s reconsideration of Patton’s music offers fresh perspectives and key corrections of the historical record.”
Heavy Metal Music in Argentina: In Black We Are Seen
By Emiliano Ricardo Scaricaciottoli, Nelson Varas-Díaz, Daniel Nevárez Araujo
THE PRESS RELEASE: “This is an interdisciplinary study of Argentina’s heavy metal subculture between 1983 and 2002, a period in which metal music withstood the onslaught of military dictatorship and survived the neoliberal policies of bourgeois democracy. Edited by leading researchers in the field, this collection addresses the music’s rituals, circulations, cultural products, lyrics, and intertexts, allowing readers to rethink the genre’s place within Argentinean politics and economics. Exclusively written by members of the Group for Interdisciplinary Research on Argentinian Heavy Metal in a communal approach to scholarship, the book echoes the working-class voices that marked early post-dictatorship metal music in Argentina, exploring heavy metal music as a catalyst for social change and a site for engaging political reflection. This is a fascinating work of scholarship and a groundbreaking contribution to the emerging field of global metal studies.”
Queen: The Nordic Concerts 1974-1986
By Søren Vangsgaard
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Still relatively unknown, Queen set out on a tour of the Nordic countries in 1974. The tour turned out to be a disaster: So few tickets were sold that the last shows were cancelled, and the truck with the band’s gear drove into a bridge and damaged it all. The band returned victoriously three years later with a bunch of massive hits, and played shows in Scandinavia in 1977, 1978, 1982 and 1986. The book tells the story behind the ups and downs behind the shows, with new interviews with the people involved as well as rare and unseen photographs. The entire story of Queen is also told from scratch, so new fans can start here as well.”
The Rolling Stones: The Nordic Concerts 1965-1973
By Søren Vangsgaard
THE PRESS RELEASE: “With their fame rapidly rising, The Rolling Stones were booked to go on two tours of the Nordic Countries in 1965, even visiting Norway and Finland, which was quite unusual for rock bands in the period. They returned to Denmark and Sweden in 1966, 1970 and 1973. Here is the story behind the shows, documented by loads of new interviews as well as rare and unseen photographs, taken both by professional and private photographers. The entire story of The Rolling Stones is also told from scratch, so new fans can start here as well.”
The Meaning of Soul: Black Music and Resilience Since the 1960s
By Emily J Lordi
THE PRESS RELEASE: “In The Meaning of Soul, Emily J. Lordi proposes a new understanding of this famously elusive concept. In the 1960s, Lordi argues, soul came to signify a cultural belief in black resilience, which was enacted through musical practices — inventive cover versions, falsetto vocals, ad-libs, and false endings. Through these soul techniques, artists such as Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway, Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, and Minnie Riperton performed virtuosic survivorship and thus helped to galvanize black communities in an era of peril and promise. Their soul legacies were later reanimated by such stars as Prince, Solange Knowles, and Flying Lotus. Breaking with prior understandings of soul as a vague masculinist political formation tethered to the Black Power movement, Lordi offers a vision of soul that foregrounds the intricacies of musical craft, the complex personal and social meanings of the music, the dynamic movement of soul across time, and the leading role played by black women in this musical-intellectual tradition.”
Behind the Boards: Nashville
By Jake Brown
THE PRESS RELEASE: “If you’re a county music fan, you’ve seen glimpses perhaps of it on TV shows like Nashville and movies like Walk the Line, but never before have fans of music’s biggest-selling genre been invited inside the heart of the creative nerve centers where their favorite # 1 hits are brought to life, the recording studio! Inside the pages of Behind the Boards: Nashville, country music fans for the first time ever are given a front-row seat inside Music Row’s most famous recording studios on tours narrated by the town’s biggest record producers, including Songland star Shane McAnally, Dann Huff, James Stroud, Jim Ed Norman, Dave Cobb, Justin Neibank, Ross Copperman, Zach Crowell, Chris Destefano, Jesse Frasure, Norbert Putnam, Josh Osborne, Luke Laird, Clint Black, Frank Liddell, Jimmy Robbins, Josh Leo, Nathan Chapman, Paul Worley, Jeff Stevens, Jody Stevens, Bobby Braddock, Michael Knox, Don Cook, Frank Rogers, Joey Moi, Ray Baker, and Buddy Cannon, Ray Riddle, Jimmy Robbins, J. Gary Smith, Smo and more. Collectively, the book features over 300 # 1 hits by Country’s biggest stars, including Taylor Swift, Luke Bryan, Lady Antebellum, Chris Stapleton, Carrie Underwood, George Strait, Jason Aldean, Miranda Lambert, Clint Black, Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville”, Florida Georgia Line, Reba McEntire, Lionel Richie’s Tuskegee album, A Star is Born Soundtrack starring Lady Gaga/Bradley Cooper, Brad Paisley, Sam Hunt, Blake Shelton, Trisha Yearwood, Kacey Musgraves, Brooks & Dunn, Keith Urban, Alabama, Jason Isbell, George Jones, Jewel, Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw, Toby Keith, Willie Nelson, Lori McKenna, Midland, Faith Hill, Steve Earle, Hank Williams Jr., Lyle Lovett, Thomas Rhett, Dierks Bentley, Vince Gill, Brett Eldredge, Martina McBride, The Dixie Chicks, The Band Perry, Shooter Jennings, Jake Owen, Big & Rich, Jon Pardi, the Nitty Gritty Band, Scotty McCreery, Darius Rucker, Mo Bandy, Eagles and the great Merle Haggard among others.
