Buddy Holly

Dave Laing

Buddy Holly occupies an enigmatic position in pop and rock music history, partly because of his premature death at the age of 22 in a plane crash in February 1959. Designated in Don MacLeans hit American Pie as the day the music died, this enabled him to be included in the trope...

From CBGB to the Roundhouse

Tim Burrows

This is the first-ever collection of interviews, photographs, and up-to-date information on our best- loved venues, great and small, many of which have closed.

Includes interviews and anecdotes from promoters, fans, and musicians concerning historic arenas in the United States—the Ho...

Bjork

Nicola Dibben

This book provides the first comprehensive musicologically-informed account of Icelandic singer-songwriter Bjork. Bjork is internationally recognized for her unique and innovative musical style, as well as her collaborative working relationship with artists, musicians and sound engineers. Her work c...

Elvis Costello

Dai Griffiths

It’s likely that, as an icon of pop music, Elvis Costello still looks like the cover of This Year’s Model (1978) and, were he run over by a bus, it’s ‘Oliver’s Army’ (1979) that would be played in surprised and sombre tribute. Here to stay, and recognized by Burt Bacharach as ‘a great su...

Being Prez

Dave Gelly

Named as One of The Observer Music Monthly’s Best Books for 2007

Lester Young (1909-1959) was one of the great jazz masters, whose tenor saxophone playing brought new levels of expressiveness and subtlety to the jazz language. Many of his recordings – with Billi...

Lee Morgan

Tom Perchard

This is the first biography of the jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan (1938-72). He was a prodigy: recruited to Dizzy Gillespie's big band while still a teenager, joining Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers not much after, by his early-20s Morgan had played on four continents and dozens of albums. The trumpeter wou...

Living Life without Loving the Beatles

Gary Hall

This book is a satirical and sometimes surreal self-help guide, which as well as challenging the orthodox perception of the Beatles' status, presents an oppressed minority with a complete defence strategy for dealing with any Fab Four fans reluctant to give peace a chance. By breaking Beatles' fans...

The Velvet Underground

Richard Witts

Though The Velvet Underground existed for less than three years with its original members, it is considered to be not just the ‘ultimate New York band’ but also the most influential group ever. Artists who have acknowledged such influence include David Bowie, The Sex Pistols, Pat...

Jazz Visions

Peter Ind

Lennie Tristano was one of jazz's most extraordinary innovators, possessing a superb piano technique and an awesome musical imagination. Unheralded by the general public, the blind pianist's work was revered by many jazz greats including the legendary Charlie Parker. Tristano's persuasive personalit...

Chasin' the Bird

Brian Priestley

In his short life, Parker was one of the most influential musicians in jazz, and together with Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, he was the main architect of the modern jazz revolution of the 1940s known as bebop. Addicted to drugs and alcohol, and with a tangled private life, Park...