Showing titles in Music

What was it like to be Elvis Presley? What did it feel like when impossible fame made him its prisoner? As the world's first rock star there was no one to tell him what to expect, no one with whom he could share the burden of being himself - of being Elvis. On the outside he was all charm, sex...

Rob Halford is the legendary frontman of Judas Priest, one of the most successful heavy metal bands of all time. Known as 'The Metal God' by his devoted, global fan base, Rob Halford has always subverted the norm, and Confess will offer readers a compelling and honest look at the struggles he...

In the late 1980s Jon Ronson was the keyboard player in the Frank Sidebottom Oh Blimey Big Band. Frank wore a big fake head. Nobody outside his inner circle knew his true identity. This became the subject of feverish speculation during his zenith years. Together, they rode relatively high. Then it all went wrong. Twenty-five years later and Jon has co-written a movie, Frank, inspired by his time in this great and bizarre band. Frank is set for release in 2014, starring Michael Fassbender, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Domhnall Gleeson and directed by Lenny Abrahamson.

This program is read by the author and includes original music and a bonus conversation with Amy Ray of Indigo Girls. From the Grammy nominated folk singer and songwriter, an inspiring exploration of creativity and the redemptive power of song Mary Gauthier was twelve years old when she was...

“Pretty marvellous. A fabulous autobiography” Irvine Welsh “Full of beautiful, mad stories” Huw Stephens, BBC Radio 6 The long awaited autobiography from the musical maverick, polymath and Beta Band front man. “Self-destructive pop saboteurs who did it all wrong in all the right ways...

In the 1970s, Paul McCartney was a man on the run. After the breakup of The Beatles, the biggest and most culturally influential band of the 1960s, Paul McCartney faced an impossible question: Who was he now? At 27 years old, being a Beatle was all he had known since he was a teenager. Now he had to figure out who he was as an artist, as a husband, and as a father. In this Audible Original, hear Paul tell the story of his most transformative decade in his own words.

“A gripping journey.”—People The highly anticipated memoir from hip-hop icon Rick Ross chronicles his coming of age amid Miami’s crack epidemic, his star-studded controversies and his unstoppable rise to fame. Rick Ross is an indomitable presence in the music industry, but few people...

**Now a major motion picture directed by James McAvoy** California Schemin' is the remarkable true story of how two rappers from Dundee duped the music industry out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd – or Silibil N' Brains, as they became known – were two ordinary...

As a member of Big in Japan, The Slits and, most famously, Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Creatures, 'Budgie' was an era-defining drummer in the much-mythologised post punk scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s. But before he was Budgie, Peter Clarke was a boy growing up in working class St...

Through his pioneering work in the legendary country-punk band Uncle Tupelo, to his enduring legacy as the creative force behind the unclassifiable sound of Wilco, Jeff Tweedy has weaved his way between the underground and the mainstream - and back again. Funny, disarming and deeply honest, his memoir casts light on his unique creative process and the stories that shaped his life and career.

Giuseppe Verdi remains the greatest operatic composer that Italy, the home of opera, has ever produced. Yet throughout his lifetime, he claimed to detest composing and repeatedly rejected it. He was a landowner, a farmer, a politician, and a symbol of Italian independence, but his music tells a different story. An obsessive perfectionist, Verdi drove collaborators to despair, but his works were rightly lauded from the start as dazzling feats of composition and characterization. From Rigoletto to Otello, La Traviatato to Aida, Verdi's canon encompassed the full range of human emotion.

The once-in-a-generation memoir of a rock legend - the No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller. 'Electrifying' New York Times 'A masterpiece' The Word 'Funny, poignant, brutally honest' Sunday Telegraph 'Densely packed with incident... immensely readable' Sunday Times 'Once you begin this, wild, wild...

In this warm, intimate and humorous book, rich with nostalgia and unexpected intimate detail, Gary Barlow unpacks the people, music, places, things and cultural phenomena that have made him the man that he is. From the working men's club where it all began through to the sold out stadium tours, this is the story of Gary's life told through music.

Learn the overwhelming strength and calm that comes over you when you practice the ancient art of chanting. Chants of a Lifetime offers an intimate collection of stories, teachings, and insights from Krishna Das, who has been called "the chant master of American yoga" by the New York Times...

Decades tend to crest halfway through, and 1995 was the year of the Nineties: peak Britpop (Oasis v Blur), peak YBA (Tracey Emin's tent), peak New Lad (when Nick Hornby published High Fidelity, when James Brown's Loaded detonated the publishing industry, and when pubs were finally allowed to...

And the Roots of the Rhythm Remain is like no other. It shows how personalities, events and politics in Havana, Lagos, Buenos Aires, Soweto, Rio and Seville are as colourful and fascinating as anything that took place in Storyville, Harlem, Laurel Canyon or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, r&b and rock 'n' roll would never have happened if it wasn't for sounds emanating from over the horizon and below the equator.

Celebrating the music of electronic pioneer Gary Numan, track-by-track. Each episode delves into a different Gary Numan song from various albums and eras in a non-linear journey.

The story of Stax Records unfolds like a Greek tragedy. A white brother and sister build a record company that becomes a monument to racial harmony in 1960’s segregated south Memphis. Their success is startling, and Stax soon defines an international sound. Then, after losses both business and personal, the siblings part, and the brother allies with a visionary African-American partner. Under integrated leadership, Stax explodes as a national player until, Icarus-like, they fall from great heights to a tragic demise.

In this exceptional biography, Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary Gabriel chronicles the meteoric rise and enduring influence of the greatest female pop icon of the modern era: Madonna. Deftly tracing the artist's life and influence from her Michigan roots through to her sold out concerts in Lisbon, Buenos Aires, London, and Malawi, Mary captures the inspiration, fame, and activism of one of the greatest pop icons of our time.

Brought to you by Penguin. Explore how music has changed our world through 50 pieces across classical, folk and world traditions with BBC presenter Tom Service, in this official Radio 3 compendium. Music transports us and defines us. As a form of expression, it has been passed down through oral...