From Sir Paul to Saint Etienne and Bob Dylan to Boy George, your musical reading options continue to cover the musical waterfront. Here are next week’s arrivals:
The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969-’73
By Allan Kozinn & Adrian Sinclair
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “When Paul McCartney issued a press release in April 1970 announcing that the world’s most beloved band, The Beatles, had broken up no one could have predicted that McCartney himself would go on to have one of the most successful solo careers in music history. Yet in the years after The Fab Four disbanded, McCartney became a legend in his own right. Now journalist and world-renowned Beatles historian Allan Kozinn and award-winning documentarian Adrian Sinclair chronicle in technicolor McCartney’s pivotal years from 1969 to 1973, as he recreated himself in the immediate aftermath of The Beatles’ breakup — a period when, newly married and with a growing family, he conquered depression and self-doubt, formed a new band, Wings, and recorded five epochal albums culminating in the triumphant smash, Band On The Run. Part 1 of a multivolume set, The McCartney Legacy, Vol. 1 documents a pivotal moment in the life of a man whose legacy grows increasingly more relevant as his influence on music and pop culture remains as relevant as ever. It is the first truly comprehensive biography, and the most finely detailed exploration of McCartney’s creative life beyond The Beatles, ever undertaken.”
How We Used Saint Etienne to Live
By Ramzy Alwakeel
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The essential guide to veteran British indie favourites Saint Etienne — the story of how they made music out of memories, and how we made memories out of them. Saint Etienne have spent three decades making music out of memories for people who make memories out of music. How We Used Saint Etienne to Live is the story of that reciprocal process, told in the wrong order but the right time. It’s about the methods we use to remember, and what happens when those methods become outdated. It’s a tale that involves tape splicing, town planning, Now compilations and Saint Etienne’s 1995 U.K. singles chart peak He’s On The Phone. Featuring original interviews with Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell, How We Used Saint Etienne To Live shows Saint Etienne’s minds at work as they make and manipulate history and nostalgia. Expect to be shown the receipts. Expect selective recollections and shameless revisionism. Expect concrete facts and flights of fancy. Don’t expect it to be immediately clear which is which.”
Bob Dylan in the Attic: The Artist as Historian
By Freddy Cristóbal Domínguez
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Bob Dylan is an iconic American artist, whose music and performances have long reflected different musical genres and time periods. His songs tell tales of the Civil War, harken back to 1930s labor struggles, and address racial violence at the height of the civil rights movement, helping listeners to think about history, and history making, in new ways. While Dylan was warned by his early mentor Dave Van Ronk that, “You’re just going to be a history book writer if you do those things. An anachronism,” the musician has continued to traffic in history and engage with a range of source material ― ancient and modern ― over the course of his career. In this beautifully crafted book, Freddy Cristóbal Domínguez makes a provocative case for Dylan as a historian, offering a deep consideration of the musician’s historical influences and practices. Drawing on interviews, speeches, and the close analysis of lyrics and live performances, Bob Dylan in the Attic is the first book to consider Dylan’s work from the point of view of historiography.”
America Over the Water
By Shirley Collins
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “In America Over the Water, celebrated English folksinger Shirley Collins offers an affecting account of her year-long stint as assistant to legendary musical historian and folklorist Alan Lomax. Together, they travelled to Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Georgia, discovering Mississippi Fred McDowell and many others, in their tireless work to uncover the traditional music of America’s heartland. Blending the personal story of Collins’ relationship with Lomax and offering a unique first-hand account of a country on the brink of the civil rights era, America Over the Water cuts right to the heart of the blues in a fascinating account of Collins’ and Lomax’s ground-breaking journey across the southern states of the U.S.A. to record the music that started it all. Originally published over 15 years ago, this definitive edition includes a new introduction by Collins.”
Like Punk Never Happened: New Expanded Edition
By Dave Rimmer
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “A story of money, sex, stardom, screaming fans and forgotten ideals, Like Punk Never Happened is Dave Rimmer’s witty, authoritative, fast-moving and provocative insider account of the roller-coaster ride that was Boy George and Culture Club and the new ’80s pop.”
Tears For Fears: Every Album, Every Song
By Paul Clark
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “After 40 years in existence, the shorthand of critics of Tears For Fears have been to describe them as an ’80s band. It is understandable why that categorisation happens when songs like Mad World appear in films that typify that period and Everybody Wants to Rule the World has a prolonged life as one of the most-streamed songs on Spotify. Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith quickly transformed from mod-revivalists Graduate to introspective studio obsessives with The Hurting, and to global hitmakers on Songs from the Big Chair, before releasing The Seeds of Love — epic in terms of vision and cost. Musical differences and strained relations led to the dissolution of the original partnership at the end of the decade, while Orzabal carried on under the Tears For Fears banner in the 1990s. Everybody loves a happy ending and that’s what fans got in 2004 when the reformed duo released that jocularly titled album. Then followed a long wait for a new record, a period occasionally punctuated by extensive touring commitments around the world. The patience of their loyal followers was rewarded in 2022 with the universally lauded The Tipping Point released after 18 years of waiting. This book is a chance to reflect on the diverse sound that is Tears for Fears, album by album and song by song.”
Paper Cuts
By Ted Kessler
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Paper Cuts is the inside story of the slow death of the British music press. But it’s also a love letter to it, the tale of how music magazines saved one man’s life. Ted Kessler left home and school around his 17th birthday, determined ‘to be someone who listened to music professionally.’ That dream appeared forlorn when he was later arrested for theft behind the counter of the record shop he managed during acid house’s long hot summer of love. Paper Cuts tells how Kessler found redemption through music and writing and takes us on a journey alongside the stars he interviewed and the workplace dramas he navigated as a senior staffer at NME through the boom-time ’90s and on to the monthly Q in 2004, where he worked for 16 years before it folded with him at its helm as editor in 2020. We travel in time alongside musical heroes Paul Weller, Kevin Rowland, Mark E Smith, and to Cuba twice, first with Shaun Ryder and Bez, then with Manic Street Preachers. We spend long, mad nights out with Oasis and The Strokes, quality time with Jeff Buckley and Florence Welch, and watch Radiohead deliver cold revenge upon Kessler in public. A story about love and death, about what it’s like when a music writer shacks up with a conflict of interest, and what happens when your younger brother starts appearing on the cover of the magazines you work for, this is the memoir of “a delinquent doofus” whose life was both rescued and defined by music magazines.”
