L enny Kaye lives in the moment, The Waterboys’ Mike Scott looks back, Harry Styles is celebrated, Billy Joe Shaver is remembered, Vince Staples and Ringo get animated — and more new additions to your post-holiday reading list. Take a peek behind the covers:
Lightning Striking: Ten Transformative Moments in Rock and Roll
By Lenny Kaye
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Memphis, 1954. New Orleans, 1957. Philadelphia, 1959. Liverpool, 1962. San Francisco, 1967. Detroit, 1969. New York, 1975. London, 1977. Los Angeles, 1984 / Norway, 1993. Seattle, 1991. Rock ’n’ roll was birthed in basements and garages, radio stations and dance halls, in cities where unexpected gatherings of artists and audience changed and charged the way music is heard and celebrated, capturing lightning in a bottle. Musician and writer Lenny Kaye explores 10 crossroads of time and place that define rock ’n’ roll, its unforgettable flashpoints, characters and visionaries, how each generation came to be, how it was discovered by the world. Whether describing Elvis Presley’s Memphis, The Beatles’ Liverpool, Patti Smith’s New York or Kurt Cobain’s Seattle, Lightning Striking reveals the communal energy that creates a scene, a guided tour inside style and performance, to see who’s on stage, along with the movers and shakers, the hustlers and hangers-on, and why everybody is listening. Grandly sweeping and minutely detailed, informed by Kaye’s acclaimed knowledge and experience as a working musician, Lightning Striking is an ear-opening insight into our shared musical and cultural history, a carpet ride of rock ’n’ roll’s most influential movements and moments.”
The Magnificent Seven: The Waterboys Fisherman’s Blues / Room To Roam band, 1989-90
By Mike Scott
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “This 240-page book contains a 50,000 word narrative from Waterboys founder/leader Mike Scott, telling the story of The Waterboys great seven-piece band from 1989 through to the release of their 1990 album Room to Roam. Covering the band members’ backgrounds, places they played, how they discovered traditional songs and recording at Spiddal House in the West of Ireland, the book also features contributions by band members, an incredible collection of photographs, maps, lyrics, manuscripts, master tapes and other archival material.”
The Book of Harry: A Celebration of Harry Styles
By Charlotte McLaren
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Harry Styles is a global superstar and fashion icon who has broken records, won awards and was the first solo man to grace the cover of Vogue, but he is also grounded, humble and down to earth. He doesn’t care what other people think, isn’t afraid to be vulnerable and truly loves his fans. We could all do with being a bit more like Harry. With chapters on finding your style, building confidence and supporting charities, The Book of Harry explores Harry’s incredible journey to stardom and the lessons we can take from his music, career and wider approach to life. Learning from his example, it will arm readers with tips, tricks and wisdom to empower them to be fearless, be themselves and above all, treat people with kindness.”
Live Forever: The Songwriting Legacy of Billy Joe Shaver
By Courtney S Lennon
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Billy Joe Shaver wrote nine of the 10 songs included on Waylon Jennings’ landmark album Honky Tonk Heroes and played a dominant role in the origins and development of the Outlaw Country movement of the 1970s. He has been named by Ray Wylie Hubbard, alongside Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, as a member of the “holy trinity” of Texas songwriters. He has exerted a Texas-sized influence on Texas music and especially Texas singer-songwriters, and is cited as a chief inspiration by at least two generations of artists. But although his influence has been profound, Shaver has the dubious honor of becoming, according to author Courtney S. Lennon, “country music’s unsung hero.” In Live Forever: The Songwriting Legacy of Billy Joe Shaver, Lennon seeks to give Shaver the recognition his prolific output deserves. She unfolds for readers the complexity and the simplicity of the artist who wrote the songs that Brian T. Atkinson, in his foreword, calls “peaceful and pure, complex and convoluted, mad and merciful” — the musician who wrote You Just Can’t Beat Jesus Christ and That’s What She Said Last Night, Honky Tonk Heroes, and Get Thee Behind Me Satan. Based on in-depth interviews with a host of notable singer-songwriters, this book reveals and celebrates the saint and the sinner, the earthy intellectual and the hard-drinking commoner, the poet and the cowboy.”
Yes In The 1980s: Decades
By Stephen Lambe
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “When Yes ran into problems recording their 10th album in Paris at the end of 1979, it was almost the end. Yet in the ’80s the band rallied, firstly as part of an unlikely collaboration with a new wave duo, then with 90125, the most successful album of their career, which spawned a No. 1 hit in the U.S. with Owner Of A Lonely Heart. The band failed to capitalise on this success, however, lingering too long over its successor Big Generator and by the end of the decade, Yes had effectively split into two versions of the same band. With most authors concentrating on the group’s 1970s career, Yes in the 1980s looks in forensic detail at this relatively underexamined era of the band’s history, featuring rarely seen photos researched by author David Watkinson. The book follows the careers of all nine significant members of the group during a turbulent decade which saw huge highs but also many lows. Not only does it consider the three albums the band itself made across the decade, but also the solo careers and other groups — including Asia, XYZ, The Buggles, Jon and Vangelis and GTR — formed by those musicians as the decade wound towards a reunion of sorts in the early 1990s.”
1967: A Year in Psychedelic Rock: The Bands and the Sounds of the Summer of Love
By Kevan Furbank
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “It was the year the ’60s really started swinging — the Summer of Love, when The Rolling Stones said We Love You and The Beatles pointed out that All You Need Is Love. The piper was at the gates of dawn, a strange brew was bubbling in the mellow, yellow mind gardens and a purple haze air was in the air. At the centre of the year’s tumultuous social and cultural change was the mind-expanding music called psychedelic rock, a multi-coloured mixture of amazing sounds, when imagination and experimentation ran riot and the old musical boundaries were torn down in a haze of hallucinogenic abandon. In this fascinating book, Kevan Furbank looks at the roots of psychedelic rock and examines the contributions made by some of the biggest bands of the year, including The Beatles, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Love, Pink Floyd and The Beach Boys. He examines the hits and misses, the successes and failures, the bands that were born to be psychedelic and those that had psychedelia thrust upon them — sometimes with disastrous results. And he shows how the genre planted the seeds for other forms of popular music to take root and flourish. If you love music, and want to know why 1967 was such a watershed year, then you will want this book. It is eye-popping, mind-opening and horizon-expanding — and a splendid time is guaranteed for all.”
Becoming the Instrument: Lessons on Self-Mastery from Music to Life
By Kenny Werner
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Quincy Jones calls him, “My kind of musician.” Herb Alpert praised him for helping him regain his musical voice after a fierce creative block. When he performed with Dizzy Gillespie, he mastered an effortless state of flow in his music. Kenny Werner has been a world-class pianist, composer, and teacher for 40 years. In 2010, Werner received the Guggenheim Fellowship Award for his seminal work No Beginning No End, a musical journey exploring tragedy and loss, death and transition, and the path from one lifetime to the next. Now he has coalesced his knowledge into Becoming the Instrument, the highly anticipated sequel to his landmark book, Effortless Mastery, which revolutionized how musicians approach their craft. In Becoming the Instrument, Werner shares how anyone can experience mastery, drawn from his experience as a musical master. It’s the guide for seeing the highest in oneself and others. This new book is for anyone who wants to understand the fine art of mastery and how it applies to their own life. He brilliantly yet simply expresses how to lift one’s perceptions from the mundane to a higher plane, and he does it with a sense of humor. The next level is attainable.”
Shared Notes: A Musical Journey
By Martin Haye
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Martin Hayes spent his childhood on a farm in County Clare, in a household steeped in musical tradition. After a free-spirited youth, he headed to the United States where he built a career that led to a life of musical performance on stages all over the world. Shared Notes traces this remarkable journey. Picking up his first fiddle at the age of seven, Hayes learned that music must express feeling. No amount of technical prowess can compensate for an absence of soulfulness. His interpretations of traditional Irish music are recognized the world over for their exquisite musicality and irresistible rhythm. Hayes has toured and recorded with guitarist Dennis Cahill for over 20 years, founded the Irish-American band The Gloaming, The Martin Hayes Quartet and The Common Ground Ensemble, and here, for the first time, tells his story of getting to the heart of the music.”
Vince Staples: Limbo Beach
By Vince Staples, Bryan Edward Hill, Chris Robinson & Buster Moody
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Join fan-favorite rapper Vince Staples, Bryan Edward Hill (Batman & the Outsiders; Titans), Chris Robinson (Children of the Atom), and Buster Moody (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) on an adventure into the mysterious Limbo Beach, an island theme park ruled by adolescents with unique abilities! Follow the newest member of the Wunderlosts, a band of misfit teenage raiders, on a journey to discover the truth about the park — and himself — in a tale that is equal parts Lord of the Flies and The Warriors.”
Orbit: Ringo Starr
By David Cromarty
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “TidalWave has created the comic book biographies on the other Beatles, so now it is time to read about the world of Sir Ringo Starr in comic book form. Read about how overcame life-threatening illnesses during childhood to how he became one of the world’s best drummers of all time in The Beatles.”
