Richard Niles was born in Hollywood but grew up in London where his 50-year professional career as a composer, arranger, record producer led to work with some of the most acclaimed artists of our time, including Paul McCartney, Ray Charles, James Brown, Tina Turner, Cher and jazz icon Pat Metheny. He has worked on 20 Gold and 28 Platinum records. He has published many books on music including The Pat Metheny Interviews, The Invisible Artist, From Dreaming to Gigging, Piano Grooves, Songwriting – The 11-Point Plan, Adventures in Arranging, Adventures in Jazz Composition, What is Melody?, and How to be an Employable Musician. Dr. Niles' PhD is from Brunel University and he has lectured internationally.
If any artist invented soul, funk, and rap, it is Mister James Brown.
I worked with him in 1994 and this book captures the spirit of the man, telling his story from his dirt-poor childhood to becoming a musical icon. He was an innovator who influenced innovators like Michael Jackson, and Prince. It also expresses his deep commitment to social and political issues, and his understanding of the power of music to change our lives.
He was 'the hardest working man in showbusiness'; he invented modern funk music; he was an electrifying, sweat-drenched live performer; he was the gospel-singing, jiving preacher who stole the show in The Blues Brothers: he spent several periods in jail; he wrote such funk classics as 'Please Please Please', Sex Machine', 'Living in America' and 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag'. James Brown was one of the truly legendary figures of modern pop, soul and rock music, and a seminal influence on countless musicians from Mick Jagger to Prince. Now, two years after his death, Aurum republish Brown's own life…
I was born in 1970. From my earliest memory there was music. But it’s never been just about the music, I have a natural curiosity for the people who make that music. The artist on the album cover, but also the side musicians, the producers, engineers, and promoters. I’m also fascinated by the roadmap from blues to rock to Laurel Canyon to disco to punk and on and on. Real music infuses and informs the fiction I write — by reading real-life accounts and listening to the songs, I’m put in the world from which it was all born.
Growing up in Memphis, I heard a lot about Elvis Presley. From there, it was just a side step to Sun Studio and Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis. But there was this place across town — Stax. It was in a place called Soulsville, and it was magical. An old movie theater where Blacks and whites came together in the 1960s and ‘70s to make some of the best music anywhere — soul music. Not the polished sounds of Motown, but gritty, stirring music from the gut. In my writing a fictional world of music, the very real world of Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, Booker T. & the MG’s, and so many others provided inspiration against a backdrop of exultation, innovation, beauty, and tragedy.
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. Everything is lost, and the sanctuary that flourished is ripped from the ground. A generation later, Stax is rebuilt…
An academically trained historian, I'm a Music Obsessive/History Geek/Southerner/Guitarist/Public Historian/Teacher/Interpreter/Writer/Fan who studies the intersection of music, culture, history, and place. I grew up devouring Mom’s Beatles and Dad’s country records. My life changed in 6th grade when I got my first guitar and discovered the blues. In 7th grade I wrote a research paper on the hippies. That’s when I fell in love with the counterculture. Throughout my life I’ve interwoven my love of the blues, punk rock, the Allman Brothers Band, and the Jam Depression collective as a historian, fan, and musician. My enduring passion culminated in a Ph.D. and the publication of Play All Night! Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East.
Flowers in the Dustbin uses an approach I dearly love: the vignette. Miller deftly selects stories that tie together a larger narrative of “where rock & roll came from—and what it came to do.”
The book begins with the birth of rhythm & blues through one of its earliest stars, Wynonie Harris. Subsequent stories in chapter one weave together the impacts of technology, the Great Migration, racial dynamics, a booming economy, and an emerging youth culture. It culminates in Elvis’s earliest recordings, the so-called birth of rock & roll. All in the first chapter!
In the story that follows, Miller demonstrates why rock & roll emerged and how it reflected and shaped the social, cultural, and political landscape.
A prizewinning historian and journalist who has covered the pop music scene for more than three decades, James Miller brings a powerful and challenging intellectual perspective to his recounting of some key turning points in the history of rock. Arguing that the music underwent its full creative evolution in little more than twenty-five years, he traces its roots from the jump blues of the forties to the disc jockeys who broadcast the music in the early fifties. He shows how impresarios such as Alan Freed and movie directors such as Richard Brooks (of Blackboard Jungle) joined black music to white…
The older I get, the more fascinated I am with family history and the way certain traits or talents get passed down – or not. Unfortunately, we don’t always know much about our own ancestors. Maybe that’s why I appreciate a multigenerational story that shows all the forms a young person’s “inheritance” can take, whether money, looks, a special skill or talent, or even a disease. And because I’ve always loved a good mystery, I enjoy books where a young person seeks to uncover a family secret. Finally, now that I’m on the older side of the generations, I appreciate a book that portrays older family members realistically and with respect.
I love a good tear-jerker, and I love a book where a child has a solid and credible relationship with a grandparent, and I love a good junior-high musical. Believe it or not, this book has all that!
I pretty much blubbered through the last 10 chapters. The secret that Shirli’s grandfather has hidden for decades is a heart-wrenching one, but when it comes out it contains seeds of joy and healing.
A violin and a middle-school musical unleash a dark family secret in this moving story by an award-winning author duo. For fans of The Devil's Arithmetic and Hana's Suitcase.
It's 2002. In the aftermath of the twin towers -- and the death of her beloved grandmother -- Shirli Berman is intent on moving forward. The best singer in her junior high, she auditions for the lead role in Fiddler on the Roof, but is crushed to learn that she's been given the part of the old Jewish mother in the musical rather than the coveted part of the sister. But…
I’ve always been fascinated by the intensity of friendships, whether they last a few months or a lifetime. For me, unlikely friendships have always been the most interesting, whether it be differences in class, age, hobbies, etc. I think all people can find common ground if they just listen to one another and talk for a minute. I love books featuring unlikely duos and almost always include them in my own novels. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I do, and they remind you of the best friends you’ve ever had.
Me and a Guy Named Elvis is a book I couldn’t put down. My sister and I took a road trip to Graceland years ago and ever since we’ve been a bit fascinated by Elvis. Jerry is a regular guy who happens to meet Elvis right before he becomes a star. Jerry is several years younger, but that doesn’t matter. What ensues is a decades-long friendship that takes Jerry on many adventures -- some out of this world and some heartbreaking. It’s an inside look at Elvis the superstar as well as Elvis the “regular guy.”
On a lazy Sunday in 1954, twelve-year-old Jerry Schilling wandered into a Memphis touch football game, only to discover that his team was quarterbacked by a nineteen-year-old Elvis Presley, the local teenager whose first record, "That's All Right," had just debuted on Memphis radio. The two became fast friends, even as Elvis turned into the world's biggest star. In 1964, Elvis invited Jerry to work for him as part of his "Memphis Mafia," and Jerry soon found himself living with Elvis full-time in a Bel Air mansion and, later, in his own room at Graceland. Over the next thirteen years…
I’ve been playing and singing music since I was six, and my childhood dream was to become an orchestral cello player. Over the years, I learned a number of other instruments and studied music around the globe, yet I was always intrigued, even intimidated, by those who were able to compose. This list of books helps readers like me really get inside the heads of some of the greatest composers (and performers) of popular music in the 20th and 21st centuries. While many of my questions were answered, there remains a sense of mystery and wonder that even the artists themselves can’t always explain.
I always knew there was something special, even mystical, about Led Zeppelin’s lead guitarist Jimmy Page. As a high school student, there was something about the band that drew me in, as if I didn’t have a choice.
I now know that I love their music, and Page’s playing in particular, because of the vision Page had for the band’s music, lyrics, and iconography on their album covers and artwork. Light and shade, light and heavy, clear and murky, simple and epic—how better to sum up Led Zeppelin?
This “oral autobiography” of Jimmy Page, the intensely private mastermind behind Led Zeppelin—one of the most enduring bands in rock history—is the most complete and revelatory portrait of the legendary guitarist ever published.
More than 30 years after disbanding in 1980, Led Zeppelin continues to be celebrated for its artistic achievements, broad musical influence, and commercial success. The band's notorious exploits have been chronicled in bestselling books; yet none of the individual members of the band has penned a memoir nor cooperated to any degree with the press or a biographer. In Light & Shade, Jimmy Page, the band’s most…
I’ve been a music fan–especially pop and rock and roll–since I was a toddler, thanks to my dysfunctional family upbringing that led me to spend the bulk of my time attached to my transistor radio! Not only did I listen to rock radio stations, but I also learned about musicians, including the Beatles, thanks to magazine articles and books once I started to read at an early age–I went to my local library daily and continued to do so all the way through my school years!
Not only is Kenneth Womack an incredible writer, but also an extremely knowledgeable Beatles expert! Plus, he knew enough to approach me for an interview to include in this book of his since, of course, I co-conducted John Lennon’s last interview at the Dakota for RKO Radio on December 8, 1980, mere hours before he was shot and killed, so naturally it added important details when it came to Kenneth writing about the final day of John Lennon’s life!
Kenneth Womack also inspired me to finally begin writing my book. When he read it before I got it published, he was so excited that he contributed an incredibly complimentary Foreward that appears in my paperback book and recorded it for my audiobook version!
John Lennon, 1980: The Final Days in the Life of Beatle John tells the story of the legendary musician's incredible last year. For Lennon, 1980 had begun as a ceaseless shopping spree in which he and wife Yoko Ono fell into the doldrums of purchasing blue-chip real estate and indulging their every whim. But for John, that pivotal year would climax in several moments of creative triumph as he rediscovered his artistic self in dramatic fashion, only to be cut down by an assassin's bullets on Monday, December 8th, 1980, in the prime of a new life that was only…
As a lifelong country music fan and musician, I absolutely love to read about the lives of country music stars. I began reading about the history of country music when I was twelve years old out of my interest in such performers as Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, and especially Jimmie Rodgers. There are quite a few really good books, so it was difficult to narrow down to five. But I think these can set anyone well along the road to learning about this uniquely American music and the colorful lives of its performers.
This book is particularly special to me. I have always been a huge Jimmie Rodgers fan and have loved Nolan Porterfield’s biography of him.
As important as Porterfield’s biography is, Barry Mazor’s Meeting Jimmie Rodgers shows the full impact of Rodgers's music while also updating his life story with newly-discovered information. This book, maybe more than any other, inspired me to write my book.
In the nearly eight decades since his death from tuberculosis at age thirty-five, singer-songwriter Jimmie Rodgers has been an inspiration for numerous top performers-from Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Bill Monroe and Hank Williams to Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, and Beck. How did this Mississippi-born vaudevillian, a former railroad worker who performed so briefly so long ago, produce tones, tunes, and themes that have had such broad influence and made him the model for the way American roots music stars could become popular heroes? In Meeting Jimmie Rodgers, the first book to explore the deep legacy of…
As a NASA Flight Controller and crewman on the high-altitude research aircraft, I met many pilots, including those who flew X-planes. I became passionate about extreme and experimental flying. I have experienced supersonic flight and have flown to 70,000 feet. These experiences motivated me to write three books about X-planes: Stratonauts, X-59: Lowering the Sonic Boom, and X-66A: Bracing for the Future.
The concept for this aircraft was born from General Curtis LeMay’s desire for a heavy bomber with the weapon load and range of the subsonic B-52 and a top speed in excess of the supersonic medium bomber, the B-58 Hustler. I once met General LeMay in the Mercury Control Center in 1962.
However, in April 1961, Defense Secretary McNamara stopped the production of the XB-70 due to rapid cost escalation and the USSR’s newfound ability to destroy aircraft at extremely high altitudes with missiles or the new Mig-25 fighter. The XB-70 became famous for its breakthrough technology and the spectacular images captured when an observing Starfighter collided with the Valkyrie, which crashed into the Mojave Desert.
During the 1950s, at the time Elvis Presley was rocking the world with Hound Dog and the USA was aiming to become the world's only superpower, plans were being drawn at North American Aviation in Southern California for an incredible Mach-3 strategic bomber. The concept was born as a result of General Curtis LeMay's desire for a heavy bomber with the weapon load and range of the subsonic B-52 and a top speed in excess of the supersonic medium bomber, the B-58 Hustler. If LeMay's plans came to fruition there would be 250 Valkyries in the air; it would be…
I grew up watching every cop show on the air with my father. I always wanted to be a detective, but one that didn’t have to do a lot of chasing, like Starsky and Hutch, or get beat up a lot, like Mannix—one who could take a laid-back approach and work his own hours, like Ellery Queen. I wound up becoming a forensic specialist who also writes thrillers. The protagonists have my same job, only with smarter criminals and better-looking colleagues. I also grew up playing the clarinet—not, I admit, particularly well—in a band and/or orchestra from the fourth grade until well after I married.
A greatly entertaining book about the myriad scandals of Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, crimes and murder among Norway’s black metal bands, how Sam Cooke wound up shot to death in a low-budget motel, and Gram Parsons’ death at 26, among others, written by the guy with a podcast of the same name. I’ve played and listened to music my entire life but have never really studied the topic or its practitioners, so much of this came as a fascinating surprise. Brennan does veer into fiction—at one point he relates a conversation between two dead people after they’re dead—but still a very interesting compilation.
From the creator of the popular rock 'n' roll true crime podcast, Disgraceland comes an off-kilter, hysterical, at times macabre book inspired by true stories from the highly entertaining underbelly of music history. You may know Jerry Lee Lewis married his thirteen-year-old cousin but did you know he shot his bass player in the chest with a shotgun or that a couple of his wives died under extremely mysterious circumstances? Or that Sam Cooke was shot dead in a seedy motel after barging into the manager's office naked to attack her? Maybe not. Would it change your view of him…
