Becoming Elektra tells the incredible true story of the pioneering Elektra Records label and its farsighted founder, Jac Holzman, who built a small folk imprint into a home for some of the most groundbreaking, important, and enduring music of the rock era.Placing the Elektra label in a broader context, the book presents a gripping narrative of musical and cultural history that reads like an inventory of all that is exciting and innovative about the 60s and...

Jac Holzman started his own record company when he was all of nineteen.  His total assets amounted to a handful of dollars, a brain fizzing with ideas, and a heart pumping with naive late-teenage hope.  He christened his label Elektra.   Twenty years later, Jac had brought five hundred albums into being.  He built the hippest, most advanced studio in the known world, its walls lined with gold and platinum records, and Elektra's reputation was global. And...

From a legendary music journalist with four decades of unprecedented access, an insider's behind-the-scenes look at the major personalities of rock and roll.Lisa Robinson has interviewed the biggest names in music--including Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, John Lennon, Patti Smith, U2, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Jay Z and Kanye West. She visited the teenage Michael Jackson many times at his Encino home. She spent hours talking to John Lennon at his Dakota apartment--and ...

A vivid, highly evocative memoir of one of the reigning icons of folk music, highlighting the decade of the ’60s, when hits like “Both Sides Now” catapulted her to international fame.Sweet Judy Blue Eyes is the deeply personal, honest, and revealing memoir of folk legend and relentlessly creative spirit Judy Collins. In it, she talks about her alcoholism, her lasting love affair with Stephen Stills, her friendships with Joan Baez, Richard and Mimi Fariña, David Crosby, and...

Newly updated to include his critically acclaimed post-millennial work, this look at Tom Waits - both the reality and the myriad myths - reveals the man behind the curtain. A tale of how a self-taught, drunken hipster in roach-killers and a dirty beret has influenced a generation of musicians with his sound, warmth, and willingness to take chances, this biography shows how he has moved between sideshow barker and evocative troubadour with ease, recording almost 20 albums that range from ca...

An entertaining trivia compendium flush with fun facts about all things music.From boogie-woogie to Beethoven, from Prince to Pavarotti, from the bards of Broadway to the rebels of rock 'n' roll—it's all here. Uncle John has created this harmonious collection of tuneful tales for music lovers everywhere.Uncle John has proven once again that he is in tune with our legion of loyal readers. This 516-page musical masterpiece dedicated to all things noteworthy r...

Talking Music is a collection of nineteen of Holger Petersens in-depth radio interviews with artiststhe pioneering men and women who created the blues and roots sounds that have influenced the course of popular culture and music in North America. Many of his interview subjects are no longer with ustheir stories need to be told. The book is divided into four collections of interviews: British Blues Revival, Delta and Memphis Blues, Artists Who Helped Build Stony Plain, and Bonus Tracks. Eac...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Grateful Dead’s official historian presents the definitive chronicle of one of the most long-lived and legendary bands in rock history.“A Long Strange Trip manages to capture the entirety of the complex organism that was the Grateful Dead. . . . The most comprehensive and reliable account out there.”—Entertainment Weekly“[Dennis McNally] conjures afresh the pure, unaccountable, jolting wei...

A revelatory account of the life of beloved American music icon, Paul Simon, by the New York Times –bestselling rock biographer, the author of Bruce .To have been alive during the last sixty years is to have lived with the music of Paul Simon. The boy from Queens scored his first hit record in 1957, just months after Elvis Presley ignited the rock era. As the songwriting half of...

Sex, Drugs, Rock 'n' Roll, and . . . Ham Sandwiches?If you are a music fan, you may be aware of some of music’s most enduring mysteries. Where did Pearl Jam get their name? Are the White Stripes related by blood or by marriage? Did Mama Cass really die from choking on a ham sandwich? Gavin Edwards has heard just about every strange question, racy rumor, and legend of the music world. As the writer of Rolling Stone’s “Rolling Stone Knows” column, Edwards proved himself as a...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “One of the most prolific and revered producers in music history” (Rolling Stone) recounts his moving life story and decades working alongside superstars like Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, and dozens of others.“[Jones] was orchestrating the sound of America, complicating it while grasping what makes it pop. . . . His music opens one of the most-watched television events ever br...

Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan's life in music is revisited by his foremost interpreter -- weaving individual moods and moments into a brilliant history of their changing times.The book begins in Berkeley in 1968, and ends with a piece on Dylan's show at the University of Minnesota -- his very first appearance at his alma mater -- on election night 2008. In between are moments of euphoric discovery: From Marcus's liner notes for the 1967 Basement Tapes (pop music's m...