We've been getting lots of new books about some of rock's most influential and interesting bands and musicians. Clicking on a book's title or cover will take you to a screen where you can place a hold on it. Interested in reading about some other group or musician? Let us know!
Dirty Blvd. : The Life and Music of Lou Reed by Aidan Levy.
Lou Reed went out of his way to rub people the wrong way, from the noise rock he produced with the Velvet Underground in the late 1960s to his chaotic work with Metallica that would prove to be his swan song. On a personal level, too, he seemed to take pleasure in insulting everyone who crossed his path. How did this Jewish boy from Long Island, an adolescent doo-wop singer, rise to the status of Godfather of Punk? And how did he maintain that status for decades?
Dirty Blvd.—the first new biography of Reed since his death in 2013—digs deep to answer those questions. And along the way it unexpectedly shows us the tender side of his prickly personality.
The Who: The Official History
by Ben Marshall
A book filled with never-before-published images and memorabilia from the band's own archives chronicles The Who's highs and lows, documenting how a tax inspector, metal factory worker, art school stoner and maverick drummer created the sound of a generation
This Is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead
by Blair Jackson and David Gans
Fifty years after the Grateful Dead was formed, the band still exerts a powerful influence over hundreds of thousands of fans around the world. Today, an entire generation of Deadheads who have never experienced a live Dead show are still drawn to the music and the complex and colorful subculture that has grown up around it.
In This Is All a Dream We Dreamed, Blair Jackson and David Gans, two of the most well-respected chroniclers of the Dead, reveal the band's story through the words of its members and their creative collaborators, as well as a number of diverse fans, stitching together a multitude of voices into a seamless oral tapestry. Woven into this musical saga is an examination of the subculture that developed into its own economy, touching fans from all walks of life, from penniless hippies to celebrities, and at least one U.S. vice president.
The book traces the band's evolution from its folk/bluegrass beginnings through the Jug Band craze, an early incarnation as Rolling Stones wannabes, feral psychedelic warriors, the Americana jam band that blazed through the '70s, to the shockingly popular but still iconoclastic stadium-filling band of later years. The Dead broke every rule of the music business along the way, taking risks and venturing into new territory as they fused inspired ideas and techniques with intuition and fearlessness to create a sound-and a business model-unlike anything heard and seen before.
Petty: The Biography
by Warren Zanes
An exhilarating and intimate account of the life of music legend Tom Petty, by an accomplished writer and musician who toured with Petty.
No one other than Warren Zanes, rocker and writer and friend, could author a book about Tom Petty that is as honest and evocative of Petty's music and the remarkable rock and roll history he and his band helped to write.
Born in Gainesville, Florida, with more than a little hillbilly in his blood, Tom Petty was a kid without a whole lot of promise. Rock and roll made it otherwise. From meeting Elvis, to seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, to producing Del Shannon, backing Bob Dylan, putting together a band with George Harrison, Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne, making records with Johnny Cash, and sending well more than a dozen of his own celebrated recordings high onto the charts, Tom Petty's story has all the drama of a rock and roll epic. Now in his mid-sixties, still making records and still touring, Petty, known for his reclusive style, has shared with Warren Zanes his insights and arguments, his regrets and lasting ambitions, and the details of his life on and off the stage.
This is a book for those who know and love the songs, from "American Girl" and "Refugee" to "Free Fallin'" and "Mary Jane's Last Dance," and for those who want to see the classic rock and roll era embodied in one man's remarkable story. Dark and mysterious, Petty manages to come back, again and again, showing us what the music can do and where it can take us.
Reckless: My Life As a Pretender
by Chrissie Hynde
Chrissie Hynde, the songwriter and frontwoman of The Pretenders in its various incarnations, has for thirty-five years been one of the most admired and adored and imitated figures in rock. This long-awaited memoir tells her life story in full and utterly fascinating detail, from her all-American Ohio fifties childhood to her classic baby-boomer seduction by the rock of the sixties to her sojourn in the crucible of punk that was seventies London to her instant emergence with her band, The Pretenders, in 1980 into stardom as a frontwoman and songwriter. She brings a fantastic eye for detail, a withering and sardonic sense of humor, and a fearless and sometimes naked emotional honesty to her memoir, and every line, every word of it is unmistakably hers.
Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story
by Rick Bragg
The greatest Southern storyteller of our time, New York Times bestselling author Rick Bragg, tracks down the greatest rock and roller of all time, Jerry Lee Lewis, and gets his own story, from the source, for the very first time.
A monumental figure on the American landscape, Jerry Lee Lewis spent his childhood raising hell in Ferriday, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi; galvanized the world with hit records like" Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire," that gave rock and roll its devil's edge; caused riots and boycotts with his incendiary performances; nearly scuttled his career by marrying his thirteen-year-old second cousinâhis third wife of seven; ran a decades-long marathon of drugs, drinking, and women; nearly met his maker, twice; suffered the deaths of two sons and two wives, and the indignity of an IRS raid that left him with nothing but the broken-down piano he started with; performed with everyone from Elvis Presley to Keith Richards to Bruce Springsteen to Kid Rock and survived it all to be hailed as "one of the most creative and important figures in American popular culture and a paradigm of the Southern experience."
Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story is the Killer's life as he lived it, and as he shared it over two years with our greatest bard of Southern life: Rick Bragg. Rich with Lewis's own words, framed by Bragg's richly atmospheric narrative, , this is the last great untold rock-and-roll story, come to life on the page.
Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir
by Carrie Brownstein
A "narrative of [rock guitarist and actor Brownstein's] escape from a turbulent family life into a world where music was the means toward self-invention, community, and rescue. Along the way, Brownstein chronicles the excitement and contradictions within the era's flourishing and fiercely independent music subculture, including experiences that sowed the seeds for the observational satire of the popular television series Portlandia years later.
Van Halen Rising: How a Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal
by Greg Renoff
After years of playing gigs everywhere from suburban backyards to dive bars, Van Halen led by frontman extraordinaire David Lee Roth and guitar virtuoso Edward Van Halen had the songs, the swagger, and the talent to turn the rock world on its ear. The quartetâs classic 1978 debut, Van Halen, sold more than a million copies within months of release and rocketed the band to the stratosphere of rock success. On tour, Van Halenâs high-energy show wowed audiences and prompted headlining acts like Black Sabbath to concede that theyâd been blown off the stage. By the yearâs end, Van Halen had established themselves as superstars and reinvigorated heavy metal in the process.
Based on more than 230 original interviews including with former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and power players like Pete Angelus, Marshall Berle, Donn Landee, Ted Templeman, and Neil ZlozowerVan Halen Rising reveals the untold story of how these rock legends made the unlikely journey from Pasadena, California, to the worldwide stage.
The above book descriptions come from NoveList and Goodreads.