Download Free Musical Biography Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Musical Biography and write the review.

Here is an up-to-date, thoroughly researched biography of the world's most popular pop-punk band. Green Day is almost certainly the world's most popular pop-punk band. How they got there is the subject of Green Day: A Musical Biography, the first book to follow the band from their beginnings through the spring 2009 release of 21st Century Breakdown. Tracing the band's evolution from fiercely independent punks to a global powerhouse, Green Day starts with the members' earliest musical influences and upbringing and the founding of the punk club 924 Gilman Street that shaped their sense of community. Discussion of their conflicted feelings about signing to a major label explores the classic rock 'n' roll conundrum of "selling out," while details of their decline and 2004 rebirth offer an inspirational story of artistic rejuvenation. Interviews with the band members and key figures in their lives, excerpted from punk 'zines and other publications, offer a perspective on their methods of self-promotion and the image they have chosen to project over time.
In 2004, the original Broadway production of Wicked earned 10 Tony nominations, including best musical. Based on the best-selling novel by Gregory Maguire, the show continues to run on Broadway and has touring companies throughout the United States and around the world. In Wicked: A Musical Biography, author Paul Laird explores the creation of this popular Broadway musical through an examination of draft scripts, interviews with major figures, and the study of primary musical sources such as sketches, drafts, and completed musical scores. Laird brings together an impressive amount of detail on the creation of Wicked, including a look at Maguire's novel, as well as the original source material, The Wizard of Oz. This volume also offers a history of the show's genesis along with examinations of the draft scenarios and scripts that demonstrate the show's development. Laird also explores Stephen Schwartz's life and work, providing an analysis of the composer and lyricist's work on the show through song drafts, sketches, and musical examples. Laird also surveys the show's critical reception in New York and London, noting how many critics failed to appreciate its qualities or anticipate its great success. The unusual nature of Wicked's story—dominated by two strong female leads—is also placed in the context of Broadway history. A unique look into a successful Broadway production, Wicked: A Musical Biography will be of interest to musicologists, theatre scholars, students, and general readers alike.
A concise musical biography traces the Beastie Boys' story from the New York punk scene through a blockbuster career that spans more than 20 years. Ever since they hit the big time with their 1986 rock/rap debut Licensed to Ill, the first rap album to reach #1 on the Billboard 200, the Beastie Boys have been a cultural bellwether, the likes of which was unseen before or since. Their association with MTV made the Beasties instant poster children for an unprecedented phase of integration, both musical and racial. Their music, a pastiche of sounds that spans decades and genres, influenced the course of popular music and continues to do so today. Beastie Boys: A Musical Biography tells the story of the band, from its beginnings through its ongoing critical and commercial success. Fans can read about the group's origins, the training of its members, its awards and accomplishments, and its influence on pop culture. Authoritative yet concise, this lively overview covers everything from the band's unique sound to their collaborations with leading filmmakers on their award-winning videos.
Amadeus . . . Yankee Doodle Dandy . . . Swanee River . . . Rhapsody in Blue. Even before movies had sound, filmmakers dramatized the lives of composers. Movie biographies—or biopics—have depicted composers as diverse as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, George M. Cohan, Stephen Foster, and George Gershwin. In this enticing book, the first devoted entirely to such films, John C. Tibbetts surveys different styles and periods from the Hollywood of the 1920s and 1930s to the international cinema of today, exploring the role that film biographies play in our understanding of history and culture. Tibbetts delves into such questions as: How historically accurate are composer biopics? How and why have inaccuracies and distortions been perpetrated? What strategies have been used to represent visually the creative process? The book examines the films in several contexts and considers their role in commodifying and popularizing music. Extensive archival research, dozens of illustrations, and numerous interviews make this an appealing book for film and music enthusiasts at all levels.
Musical biography has rarely been an object of theoretical and methodological reflection. Our present-day perception of the lives of prominent composers and performers of the past has been largely formed by cultural and political assumptions of nineteenth-century biographers and their twentieth-century followers. While older biographies are being scrutinized for veracity and 'updated' with new evidence, their historiographical premisses and narrative techniques remain largely unchallenged. The epistemological upheavals in the humanities since the 1960s have generated a body of theoretical thought that has undermined many of the assumptions of traditional biography. Consequently, many of these assumptions have lost their hold as viable underpinnings for present-day scholarly biography. For example, the accumulation of facts is no longer believed to bring us closer to an understanding of the subject; nor are the traditional views of the unified self and the self as a foundational idea taken for granted. This volume brings together musicologists and historians who explore, through individual case studies, the rich potential of these new theories for writing musical lives. The authors of this volume examine how the insights provided by these theories illuminate our critical reassessment of older biographies - and the interpretations of musical works these biographies were used to construe - and help forge new approaches to musical biography. The authors also explore the functions musical biographies served in different historical contexts, the relevance of biography for musical criticism, the reliability of archival evidence, the ethics of biography, the demands placed on biography by feminist and gender history, and the new possibilities offered by cinema. The contributors to this volume challenge the view that biography has little importance for music history, analysis, and criticism. Collectively, they reassert biography's centrality and relevance, and dem
As if recovering from a raucous dream of the 1960s, Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell, and Dan Peek arrived on 1970s American radio with a sound that echoed disenchanted hearts of young people everywhere. The three American boys had named their band after a country they’d watched and dreamt of from their London childhood Air Force base homes. What was this country? This new band? Classic and timeless, America embodied the dreams of a nation desperate to emerge from the desert and finally give their horse a name. Celebrating the band’s fiftieth anniversary, Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell share stories of growing up, growing together, and growing older. Journalist Jude Warne weaves original interviews with Beckley, Bunnell, and many others into a dynamic cultural history of America, the band, and America, the nation. Reliving hits like “Ventura Highway,” “Tin Man,” and of course, “A Horse with No Name” from their 19 studio albums and incomparable live recordings, this book offers readers a new appreciation of what makes some music unforgettable and timeless. As America’s music stays in rhythm with the heartbeats of its millions of fans, new fans feel the draw of a familiar emotion. They’ve felt it before in their hearts and thanks to America, they can now hear it, share it, and sing along.