Author: Patti Jones
Publisher: Quartet Books (UK)
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
"Mose Allison is a pianist and singer whose importance and influence is often overlooked: his compositions and playing ranges from blues through jazz to twentieth century 'classical' music, and his influence on rock music has been profound. Born and raised in Mississippi during the Depression he was unaware that whites don't play the blues and developed his own style, mixing country blues with jazz swing." "Patti Jones has had the full co-operation of the self-effacing pianist and has written a critical biography that traces Mose's roots in Mississippi through a long, and still continuing, career. She is as alert to the social and cultural shifts that have influenced him as she is to the development of his piano style. The book includes interviews with some of the musicians influenced by Mose Allison: Pete Townshend, Bonnie Raitt, Black Francis, Al Kooper, Jack Bruce, Ray Davies and many more." --Book Jacket.
Author: Gerald W. Haslam
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 052092262X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 393
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Book Description
California has been fertile ground for country music since the 1920s, nurturing a multitude of talents from Gene Autry to Glen Campbell, Rose Maddox to Barbara Mandrell, Buck Owens to Merle Haggard. In this affectionate homage to California's place in country music's history, Gerald Haslam surveys the Golden State's contributions to what is today the most popular music in America. At the same time he illuminates the lives of the white, working-class men and women who migrated to California from the Dust Bowl, the Hoovervilles, and all the other locales where they had been turned out, shut down, or otherwise told to move on. Haslam's roots go back to Oildale, in California's central valley, where he first discovered the passion for country music that infuses Workin' Man Blues. As he traces the Hollywood singing cowboys, Bakersfield honky-tonks, western-swing dance halls, "hillbilly" radio shows, and crossover styles from blues and folk music that also have California roots, he shows how country music offered a kind of cultural comfort to its listeners, whether they were oil field roustabouts or hash slingers. Haslam analyzes the effects on country music of population shifts, wartime prosperity, the changes in gender roles, music industry economics, and television. He also challenges the assumption that Nashville has always been country music's hometown and Grand Ole Opry its principal venue. The soul of traditional country remains romantically rural, southern, and white, he says, but it is also the anthem of the underdog, which may explain why California plays so vital a part in its heritage: California is where people reinvent themselves, just as country music has reinvented itself since the first Dust Bowl migrants arrived, bringing their songs and heartaches with them.
Author: Dan Dunn
Publisher: Dey Street Books
ISBN: 9780062394644
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
A professional booze writer whose life spins out of control tries to piece it back together by embarking upon an epic wine-fueled adventure that takes him to every corner of the U.S. Part vision quest, part guidebook, part journey into the bizarre tapestry of American life, it will make you laugh, make you cry and teach you a whole lot about wine. Former Playboy magazine nightlife columnist Dan Dunn has a made a career out of drinking. Yet this man’s man—a connoisseur of beer and whiskey—knew next to nothing about one of the major drinks enjoyed the world over: wine. When a fateful tasting experience coincided with a serious existential crisis, Dunn decided to hit the road on a journey of discovery. To quench his thirst for knowledge (and be able to throw down with the experts), he would educate himself about the industry glass by glass, from winery to winery, in nearly every region in the United States. His bold 15,000-mile road trip took Dunn from Sonoma, California, to Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, where he twirled, sniffed, and sipped glass after glass of a vast array of wines with vintners, savants, and celebrities, including Kurt Russell and “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” Jonathan Goldsmith. Dunn’s mission was to transform himself from a heartbroken schlub who barely knew the difference between Merlot and Meritage, into a confident connoisseur capable of wowing others simply by swirling some fermented grape juice around in his mouth and pronouncing it “troubling, yet brilliant.” In American Wino, Dunn shares it all—the good, the bad, the sublime. As his wine knowledge grows and becomes more complex, he shares it with the reader in the form of digestible, actionable nuggets in each chapter. It’s like a wine-tasting course at your local community college extension program, only with more sex and less crushing despair. An intoxicating blend of travel writing, memoir, and booze journalism that pairs earthy humor with fine wine for hilarious and enlightening results, it is the story of one man’s journey to find himself—and everyman’s journey to better understand the true spirit of this divine elixir.
Author: Ray Celestin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1681776081
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 358
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Book Description
Chicago, 1928. In the stifling summer heat, three disturbing events take place: A clique of city leaders is poisoned in a fancy hotel; a white gangster is found mutilated in an alleyway in the Blackbelt; and a famous heiress vanishes without a trace. Pinkerton detectives Michael Talbot and Ida Davis are hired to find the missing heiress by the girl’s troubled mother. But it soon proves harder than expected to find a face that is known across the city, and Ida must elicit the help of her friend, Louis Armstrong. While the police take little interest in the Blackbelt murder, Jacob Russo—crime scene photographer—can’t get the dead man’s image out of his head, leading him to embark on his own investigation. And Dante Sanfelippo—rum-runner and fixer—is back in Chicago on the orders of Al Capone, who suspects there’s a traitor in the ranks and wants Dante to investigate. But Dante is struggling with his own problems, as he is forced to return to the city he thought he’d never see again . . .
Author: Phil Pastras
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520236874
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
"It is hard to say which makes for the more compelling narrative: the life of jazz great Jelly Roll Morton or the detective work that Phil Pastras undertook in putting together this engaging book. Dead Man Blues tells both these tales admirably, drawing on a treasure-trove of previously unknown material. It is both an important contribution to jazz scholarship and a fascinating piece of storytelling."—Ted Gioia, author of The History of Jazz and West Coast Jazz "Meticulously researched, including primary source material recently uncovered by the author, Dead Man Blues is not only a masterfully written, definitive account of Jelly Roll Morton's west coast years, but also a penetrating psychological and social study of the man and the forces that drove and shaped him."—Steve Isoardi, co-author of Central Avenue Sounds "A must-read for all jazz aficionados."—Gerald Wilson "One of the best books ever written about Jelly Roll Morton."—Gerald Wiggins, jazz pianist
Author: O G Fillmore Slim
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781539014867
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
In his memoir, O. G. Fillmore Slim breaks down how he went from being the most prolific pimp in America, the legendary gentleman Mack, to an eminent blues musician later in life. Known as The Godfather and Pope of the Game, Slim leads his prostitution operation with charisma, kindness, and charm turning out more than ten thousand women in over thirty years in the game. He preaches the ethics of safe sex and nonviolence. "I pimped with my brain, not with my fists." His gentlemanly approach promotes his highly lucrative business, and in the eyes of many, gives him a highly celebrated and revered reputation in urban street culture. But when Slim emerges from his longest stint in prison-five years-he leaves the pimping life behind and transforms himself into a famous blues musician, which was his original dream. Despite the odds, his stardom soars and he goes on to perform with an array of famous musicians, from B. B. King to Ike and Tina Turner, touring America, Europe, Russia, and beyond. Slim explains how his two worlds-the streets and the entertainment industry-are much more linked than the average person would guess as he tells the unbelievable story of his life.
Author: Harold Battiste
Publisher: Louisiana Artists Biography
ISBN: 9780917860553
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
"Arrangements and productions": p. 177-179.
Author: Clifford Thompson
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 159051906X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 177
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Book Description
An African-American writer's concise, heartfelt take on the state of his nation, exploring the war between the values he has always held and the reality with which he is confronted in twenty-first-century America. In the tradition of James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me comes Clifford Thompson's What It Is. Thompson was raised to believe in treating every person of every color as an individual, and he decided as a young man that America, despite its history of racial oppression, was his home as much as anyone else's. As a middle-aged, happily married father of biracial children, Thompson finds himself questioning his most deeply held convictions when the race-baiting Donald Trump ascends to the presidency—elected by whites, whom Thompson had refused to judge as a group, and who make up the majority in this country Thompson had called his own. In the grip of contradictory emotions, Thompson turns for guidance to the wisdom of writers he admires while knowing that the answers to his questions about America ultimately lie in America itself. Through interviews with a small but varied group of Americans he hears sharply divergent opinions about what is happening in the country while trying to find his own answers—conclusions based not on conventional wisdom or on what he would like to believe, but on what he sees.
Author: Bobby Rush
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0306874792
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 327
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Book Description
Experience music history with this memoir by one of the last of the genuine old school Blues and R&B legends, the Grammy-winning dynamic showman Bobby Rush. This memoir charts the extraordinary rise to fame of living blues legend, Bobby Rush. Born Emmett Ellis, Jr. in Homer, Louisiana, he adopted the stage name Bobby Rush out of respect for his father, a pastor. As a teenager, Rush acquired his first real guitar and started playing in juke joints in Little Rock, Arkansas, donning a fake mustache to trick club owners into thinking he was old enough to gain entry. He led his first band in Arkansas between Little Rock and Pine Bluff in the 1950s. It was there he first had Elmore James play in his band. Rush later relocated to Chicago to pursue his musical career and started to work with Earl Hooker, Luther Allison, and Freddie King, and sat in with many of his musical heroes, such as Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed and Little Walter. Rush eventually began leading his own band in the 1960s, crafting his own distinct style of funky blues, and recording a succession of singles for various labels. It wasn't until the early 1970s that Rush finally scored a hit with "Chicken Heads." More recordings followed, including an album which went on to be listed in the Top 10 blues albums of the 1970s by Rolling Stone and a handful of regional jukebox favorites including "Sue" and "I Ain't Studdin' Ya." And Rush's career shows no signs of slowing down now. The man once beloved for performing in local jukejoints is now headlining major music/blues festivals, clubs, and theaters across the U.S. and as far as Japan and Australia. At age eighty-six, he is still on the road for over 200 days a year. His lifelong hectic tour schedule has earned him the affectionate title "King of the Chitlin' Circuit," from Rolling Stone. In 2007, he earned the distinction of being the first blues artist to play at the Great Wall of China. His renowned stage act features his famed shake dancers, who personify his funky blues and his ribald sense of humor. He was featured in Martin Scorcese's The Blues docuseries on PBS, a documentary film called Take Me to the River, performed with Dan Aykroyd on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and most recently had a cameo in the Golden Globe nominated Netflix film, Dolemite Is My Name, starring Eddie Murphy. He was recently given the highest Blues Music Award honor of B.B. King Entertainer of the Year. His songs have also been featured in TV shows and films including HBO's Ballers and major motion pictures like Black Snake Moan, starring Samuel L. Jackson. Considered by many to be the greatest bluesman currently performing, this book will give readers unparalleled access into the man, the myth, the legend: Bobby Rush.
Author: James Earl Hardy
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0060512393
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Do men and monogamy mix? It's not a question Mitchell "Little Bit" Crawford gave much thought to until his beaufriend of almost two years, Raheim "Pooquie" Rivers, an All-American jeans model, heads to Hollywood to make his first feature film. As Mitchell soon discovers, the temptation to cheat is very real . . . and it seems to be everywhere. An ex even pops up hoping to pick up where they left -- and got -- off. While intrigued, Mitchell chalks all the attention up to "the married man" syndrome: one is much more desirable when he's attached to someone else. But as he continues to run into bisexual musician Montgomery "Montee" Simms, the look-but-don't-touch rule is put to the test. As he and Montee get closer, Mitchell's idealistic beliefs about commitment are challenged. Will he love the one he's with because he can't be with the one he loves?
