A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A vibrant portrait of four college friends—Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Mary Midgley—who formed a new philosophical tradition while Oxford's men were away fighting World War II.The history of European philosophy is usually constructed from the work of men. In Metaphysical Animals, a pioneering group biography, Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman offer a compel...

Despite hardship, Mac Wiseman succeeded on the international music scene, thanks to strong, heartfelt tenor vocals, intricate pickin' style and easygoing manner, attaining chart hits "Ballad of Davy Crockett," "Jimmy Brown The Newsboy" and "Your Best Friend And Me," while also recording in tandem with diverse artists Bill Monroe, Molly O'Day, Flatt & Scruggs, Woody Herman, John Prine, Charlie Daniels, April Verch, Doc Watson, Del McCoury and Bootsy Collins. He was the first artist to serve...

Velvet-voiced Jim Reeves was not only one of the world's most popular — and enduring — recording stars, he was one of the most fascinating. Now, in this truly intimate and scrupulously well-researched biography, author Larry Jordan sets the record straight, dispelling rumors and misinformation that have swirled around Reeves for decades. More than 11 years in the writing, this riveting bio is based on hundreds of interviews with the people who knew Jim best, as well as his personal diaries...

The Grand Ole Opry has been home to the greatest legends of country music for over eighty years, and in that time it has seen some of conutry music's most dramatic stories unfold.We'll hear of the great love stories ranging from Johnny Cash and June Carter in the 1960s to Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, who married in 2005. We'll get the truth of the tragedies that led to the loss of three stars all in the same month, starting the rumor of the "Opry Curse." We'll learn how after b...

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...

Charlie Gillett, a British journalist, loves the music, and his passion is evident throughout The Sound of the City. Yet the greatest strength of the book is the way Gillett tracks the resistance of the music industry to early rock-and-roll, which was followed (needless to say) by a frantic rush to engulf and devour it.When first published The Sound of the City was hailed as having 'never been bettered as the definitive history of rock' (Guardian). Now th...

Becoming Jimi Hendrix traces "Jimmy's" early musical roots, from a harrowing, hand-to-mouth upbringing in a poverty-stricken, broken Seattle home to his early discovery of the blues to his stint as a reluctant recruit of the 101st Airborne who was magnetically drawn to the rhythm and blues scene in Nashville. As a sideman, Hendrix played with the likes of Little Richard, Ike and Tina Turner, the Isley Brothers, and Sam & Dave—but none knew what to make of his spotlight-stealing ro...

In the vein of the classic Johnny Cash: The Life, this groundbreaking work explores the wild life and extraordinary musical career of "the definitive country singer of the last half century" ( New York Times), who influenced, among others, Bob Dylan, Buck Owens, Emmylou Harris, John Fogerty, George Strait, Alan Jackson, and Garth Brooks.In a masterful biography laden with new revelations, veteran country music journalist/historian Rich Kienzle offers a definitive,...

The legendary critic and author of Mystery Train "ingeniously retells the tale of rock and roll" ( Publishers Weekly, starred review).Unlike previous versions of rock 'n' roll history, this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points everyone knows. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects ten songs and dramatizes how each embodies rock 'n' roll as a thing in itself, in the story it tells, in...

Acclaimed R&B singer Bettye LaVette celebrates her storied career in show business in this compelling memoir.As a teenager in Detroit, Bettye LaVette had a hit single with “My Man—He’s a Lovin’ Man.” By the time she was twenty, she had faded back into obscurity and was barely surviving in New York City. For the next forty years, despite being associated with legends such as Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, and James Brown, she remained relatively unknown...

Jerry Blavat's rockin' life story pulses with celebrity names, infamous episodes and "offers readers an insider's view into the golden era of rock and roll and pop music and entertainment" raves Publishers Weekly.The long-awaited autobiography of entertainment icon Jerry Blavat, You Only Rock Once is the wildly entertaining and unfiltered story of the man whose career began at the age of 13 on the TV dance show Bandstand and became a music...

Celebrating the dark origins of our most American music, Country reveals a wild shadowland of history that encompasses blackface minstrels and yodeling cowboys; honky-tonk hell and rockabilly heaven; medieval myth and musical miscegenation; sex, drugs, murder; and rays of fierce illumination on Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others, famous and forgotten, whose demonology is America's own. Profusely and superbly illustrated, Country stands as one of the most brilliant explora...