12 results for "Biography"

There's No Bones in Ice Cream Sylvain Sylvain's Story of the New York Dolls

Sylvain Sylvain
There's No Bones in Ice Cream, by Sylvain Sylvain, is the inside story of glam heroes the New York Dolls - outrageous, defiant, sleaze kings, transgender posers, drug casualties and victims, not just of their own excess but of an unsympathetic music industry that simply didn't know how to process them. Sylvain, one of only two surviving members of the original New York Dolls, offers a fly-on-the-wall, sincere and often hilarious account of the rise and fall of the Dolls, the group that flew so close to the sun that they exploded in a fireball that lit the touch paper under punk rock. Though their brief, sensation-filled yet doomed career produced just two albums, the Dolls exerted an influence on rock that changed it forever. A cross between the Rolling Stones and the Sex Pistols, the Dolls became the link in the chain between them, offering a crash course in mischief, cross-dressing and anarchy, but like unheralded prophets of Biblical times they were cast aside until the world finally caught up. "Other people turned the New York Dolls into legends. We just went along for the ride."
Omnibus Press 2018 256 pages

Anyone Who Had a Heart

Burt Bacharach
The autobiography of one of the most significant and beloved of songwriters, writer of fifty - two UK Top 40 hits from 'Walk On By' to 'Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head'. Burt Bacharach is one of the most celebrated and legendary song - writers of the twentieth century. Throughout his sixty year career he has worked with artists from Dionne Warwick to Dr Dre, Marlene Dietrich to Elvis Costello. Anyone Who Had a Heart is the story of one of the greatest song writers of all time. It traces for the first time in his own words, the life and times of the man who created the music that has become the sound track for the lives of his millions of devoted fans all over the world. Bacharach's songs include: 'Magic Moments' - Perry Como, ' Baby It's You' - The Shirelles / The Beatles, 'Please Stay' - The Drifters / Marc Almond, 'Wishin' and Hopin'''' - Dionne Warwick / Dusty Springfield / Ani DiFranco, 'Walk On By' - Dionne Warwick / The Stranglers, 'I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself' - Dusty Springfield / The White Stripes, '(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me' - Sandie Shaw, 'A Message to Martha' - Adam Faith, 'What's New Pussycat?' - Tom Jones, 'Trains and Boats and Planes' - Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas, 'Alfie' - Cilla Black / Cher / Rumer, 'I Say a Little Prayer' - Dionne Warwick / Aretha Franklin, 'Do You Know the Way to San Jose?' - Dionne Warwick, 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head' - B.J. Thomas / Sacha Distel / Johnny Mathis, 'I'll Never Fall in Love Again' - Bobby Gentry, 'Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)' - Burt Bacharach / Barry Manilow / Shirley Bassey.
ReadHowYouWant.com, Limited 2014-10-29 420 pages

The Lives of John Lennon

Albert Goldman
The result of six years of research and some 1,200 interviews, this book takes fans deep into Lennon’s secretive world, from his traumatic childhood to his Beatles days to his hidden life with Yoko Ono. While the Lennon of legend enjoyed a gifted and inspired life, the private Lennon lived in torment, poisoning himself with drugs and self-hatred. The Lives of John Lennon exposed for the first time all of his various lives, from idealist to cynic, from ascetic to junkie. It is a lasting tribute to his brilliant achievements and a revelation of the price he paid for them.
A Capella 2001 719 pages

Tell It to My Heart How I Lost My S#*t, Conquered My Fear, and Found My Voice

Taylor Dayne,Dave Smitherman
Tell It to My Heart: How I Lost My S#*T, Conquered My Fear, and Found My Voice captures Taylor Dayne's ascent against all odds, and the stories behind the dance soundtrack of our lives. From her early life growing up in a challenging blue-collar Long Island home in the 1960s and 1970s through her years touring as a chart-topping musician through New York, LA, Shanghai, London, Paris, and Tokyo in the 1980s and 1990s, she tells-almost-all about her experiences with renowned talents including Michael Jackson, Elton John, and Whitney Houston. Readers will be immersed in her enduring 30-year career, performing for audiences worldwide, as she raises twins as a single mother by choice. Taylor has a powerful voice, not only as a singer, but as a storyteller as well. Her personal journey is proof that childhood reverie can become reality. The humor, strength, resilience and grace that led her to stardom are woven through the scenes of her book--showing how vulnerability turns out to be strength, and how strength comes from somewhere inside when you least expect it. Tell It to My Heart should be read by fans, musicians, artists, and women of all ages. She inspires us to live our lives with courage--to raise our voices, to take action, to believe in ourselves, and to never give up on our dreams. Taylor describes her memoir: "It's gritty, it's real, and it's truthful. It's about love, which is good even when it doesn't last, and God, who is good, even when it seems like He's being kind of a dick. It's also about friendship, but most of all, it's about the voice which was my salvation. At fifty-fffrrshx, I feel like I'm the closest I've ever been to knowing peace, knowing who I am and what I need. Loving, learning, mentoring and mothering--these are tall tasks that require a strong backbone of authenticity and integrity. I hope this book will inspire readers to do the same."
Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing 2019-02-14 244 pages

Shy The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers

Mary Rodgers,Jesse Green
The memoirs of Mary Rodgers—writer, composer, Broadway royalty, and “a woman who tried everything.” “What am I, bologna?” Mary Rodgers (1931–2014) often said. She was referring to being stuck in the middle of a talent sandwich: the daughter of one composer and the mother of another. And not just any composers. Her father was Richard Rodgers, perhaps the greatest American melodist; her son, Adam Guettel, a worthy successor. What that leaves out is Mary herself, also a composer, whose musical Once Upon a Mattress remains one of the rare revivable Broadway hits written by a woman. Shy is the story of how it all happened: how Mary grew from an angry child, constrained by privilege and a parent’s overwhelming gift, to become not just a theater figure in her own right but also a renowned author of books for young readers (including the classic Freaky Friday ) and, in a final grand turn, a doyenne of philanthropy and the chairman of the Juilliard School. But in telling these stories—with copious annotations, contradictions, and interruptions from Jesse Green, the chief theater critic of The New York Times — Shy also tells another, about a woman liberating herself from disapproving parents and pervasive sexism to find art and romance on her own terms. Whether writing for Judy Holliday or Rin Tin Tin, dating Hal Prince or falling for Stephen Sondheim over a game of chess at thirteen, Rodgers grabbed every chance possible—and then some. Both an eyewitness report from the golden age of American musical theater and a tale of a woman striving for a meaningful life, Shy is, above all, a chance to sit at the feet of the kind of woman they don’t make anymore—and never did. They make themselves.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2023-08-08 480 pages

The Complete Beatles Chronicle The Definitive Day-by-Day Guide to the Beatles' Entire Career

Mark Lewisohn
In 1979, Beatles expert Mark Lewisohn set about establishing a complete list of the group’s live appearances from 1957 through 1966, when they stopped giving concerts; the research took seven long years and was published as the book The Beatles Live! Shortly thereafter, EMI Records invited Lewisohn to be the only person outside of the Beatles and their production staff to go into Abbey Road and listen to the entire collection of Beatles session tapes and to interview practically everyone involved in their making. The result was published in 1988 as The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, and sold over 150,000 copies. This book artfully combines and updates all the vital material in Lewisohn’s earlier two books with his definitive account of the Beatles’ work in radio, television, film, and video to create a complete day-by-day summary of the group’s entire oeuvre. First published in 1992, The Complete Beatles Chronicle has become the Beatles Bible, the one book no fan can live without, and a perfect companion to the bestselling Beatles Anthology, which recounted their story in their own words.
Chicago Review Press 2010 365 pages

Killing Time Short Stories from the Long Road Home

Jimmy Barnes
Tales of adventure, misadventure, love and loss - this collection of non-fiction short stories from the Australian rock legend turned writer is vintage Jimmy. Outrageous, witty, warm and wise, Killing Time shares more than forty yarns reflecting an epic life - from an encounter with a soul legend in Memphis, a night in a haunted studio in upstate New York, and a doomed haircut in Thailand to a madcap misunderstanding in a Japanese ski resort, a family feud on a remote coral atoll, and an all-too-revealing appearance for a Sydney charity. PRAISE FOR KILLING TIME: "A moving and deeply felt kaleidoscope of life, love, family, music, friendship and the fragility of time. Barnes proved his storytelling mettle with his memoirs. But in Killing Time he has refined his unique voice with this wildly entertaining suite of tales, anecdotes, observations and reflections that can have you laughing out loud on one page and moved to tears on the next. It is all here, the joys and fears of parenthood, the search for your sense of place, fortune-tellers, the loss of beloved pets, bad golf, ghosts, backstage stories, celebrities, the homeless, and the wonder of being alive, all told with searing honesty. What sets Barnes's writing above the rest is that it comes from an authentic and soulful place. His work cannot help but ring true, like the strike of a tuning fork." Matt Condon "Jimmy Barnes is never a bystander. Stories happen to him. He not only remembers every circumstance, he has the ability to distil the moment in a way that's both poetic and uncontrived. He's funny, chaotic, insightful and heartbreaking. Jimmy is truly a natural-born storyteller. It's like writing has just been waiting for him to arrive. And now, he's here." Mandy Nolan
HarperCollins Publishers Australia 2023 336 pages

West Coast Calamities Ariel Pink and Haunted Graffiti

Ariel Pink
The vast and surreal musical catalog of Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, once unknown to all but a small circle of friends and peers on the early-2000s LA freak scene, has grown tremendously in listenership and notoriety, becoming both a touchstone for the era and an acknowledged influence on our weirdo pop present. But while the tunes have been canonized, criticized, and endlessly dissected, the unique circumstances leading to their creation remain mysterious. Now, on the heels of the Ariel Archives set of comprehensive reissues undertaken by Mexican Summer, Untitled APHG Book sets out to tell the unvarnished story of the Haunted Graffiti era in scrapbook form. Drawing from a massive trove of documentation and ephemera as well as archival interviews and reflections from friends, witnesses, and collaborators, the book is a document of relentless creative pursuit--and a celebration of the fertile and undersung artistic community that fed one of the most singular musical projects of the new century.
Anthology Editions, LLC 2023-12-31 240 pages