Musical Genres Books - Page 12

Tommyland

Tommy Lee

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 60 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

I am Tommy Lee, born Thomas Lee Bass in Athens, Greece, on October 3, 1962, and raised in a suburb of California by an American father and a Greek mother. At seventeen, I joined Mötley Crüe and we became one of the baddest-ass rock bands in history. We sold over 40 million albums, we wreaked havoc, we scared parents, and we titillated too many fathers' daughters. I've been married three times: once for just a few days to a Penthouse Pet, for seven years to Heather Locklear, and then for five years to Pamela Anderson, with whom I have two beautiful sons. I've gotten into a lot of fights and I've been to jail a few times.

But this book isn't your typical journey in a straight line from day one to day now. I'm more interested in revealing what's most important about my life, like how I cook my steaks; what I think of the tabloids, the truth, my ex-wives, my ex-band, my music; and what an innocent observer might find hanging around my house any given Sunday. You'll get plenty of facts and I'll tell you a story, but my real mission here is to paint you a picture of my life. I want to show you how my memories smell.

I'd like to get into it now, so please take your seats. I advise you to keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times. If you have a pacemaker, a heart condition, or if you are pregnant or too damn short to reach the safety bar, I ask that you turn back immediately. Those with weak stomachs, strict morals, or chronic indigestion should put the book down now. For the rest of you, there's one truth that's real across the board: What you send out is what you get back. Send out the good, people, and it will come back to you. There's another thing I've learned over the years, in court, in fights, and in arguments with people I love: There isn't one truth, there are many. This book is my truth.

Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats

Pannonica de Koenigswarter

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

An unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look at jazz legends

 

In the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, Pannonica de Koenigswarter, known as Nica, was a constant and benevolent presence on the thriving New York jazz scene. Known as the Jazz Baroness (she was born into the wealthy Rothschild family and later married a French aristocrat) she befriended such giants as Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Barry Harris, Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, and many more. She inspired over twenty jazz compositions, bailed musicians out of jail, and even acted as a booking agent.

 

She also collected wishes. Over the course of a decade, Koenigswarter asked three hundred musicians what their three wishes in life were, jotting them all down in a notebook. At the same time she took hundreds of candid photographs, saving them all. In Three Wishes, Koenigswarter’s forays into the psyches and lives of these legendary jazz artists are made available in America for the first time.

 

With a foreword by celebrated jazz critic Gary Giddins, and a introduction from Nica’s granddaughter, Nadine de Koenigswarter, providing rare insights into the mysterious baroness’s life, this funny, eclectic, and moving compilation is a uniquely intimate look into the immortals of the classic era of jazz, and a must-have for any fan or afficianado.

Rock n' Blues Harmonica: A World of Harp Knowledge, Songs, Stories, Lessons, Riffs, Techniques and Audio Index for a New Generation of Harp Players (Includes ... book and 74 minute stereo CD Jamming Buddy)

Jon Gindick

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 66 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Fun way to understand blues harp 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Even if you don't play (or want to) this book helps understand where those wonderful notes come from.

Just what I was looking for 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I use a harmonica on a couple songs while playing guitar - basic, easy riffs following original recordings. I wanted to expand my knowledge of the instrument, but I'm not planning on becoming a harp soloist. This book gave me the information I was looking for along with useful music theory. The background stories help present the information in an enjoyable way. The included CD does a fantastic job of reinforcing the book while giving the opportunity of improving your chops while jamming along.

An enjoyable escape from reality. 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Turn on this CD and lay back and jam along.
A great way to reduce stress
and learn to play the blues harmonica.

Editorial Review:

One of the most complete harmonica books ever! Uses fact, fiction, illustration, and notation to teach Music Theory 101, chord progressions, puckering, tongue-blocking, octaves, tongue-slaps, headshakes, vibrato, bends, overblows, secrets of great tone, and much more. B/W photos.

Fargo Rock City : A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota

Chuck Klosterman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 70 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

From a grown-up, then anti-metal, punker 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

While I think that this book is deservedly the black sheep of the Klosterman books, its still enjoyable. What this book lacks is any sense of flow... I never caught a real story or any purpose. It just seemed like a series of rants on liking metal (pop/ hair metal in particular) that were taped and then transcribed. Klosterman still has that really approachable style that's fun and thoguhtful.

While I'd like to laugh at him for liking crappy bands, Klosterman's experiences are similar to most any youth who feels a strong connection to music. I know that they're not unlike my feelings as a young teen becoming obsessed with hardcore records back then... though I had one up on Chuck 'cos I was living in Philly, and not rural North Dakota, back in the day.

Typical Klosterman; funny, absurd, and thoughtful... I suppose a lot of other readers are turned away by what they see as a lack of direction or movement in the book.

Editorial Review:

Empirically proving that -- no matter where you are -- kids wanna rock, this is Chuck Klosterman's hilrious memoir of growing up as a shameless metalhead in Wyndmere, North Dakotoa (population: 498). With a voice like Ace Frehley's guitar, Klosterman hacks his way through hair-band history, beginning with that fateful day in 1983 when his older brother brought home Mötley Crüe's Shout at the Devil. The fifth-grade Chuck wasn't quite ready to rock -- his hair was too short and his farm was too quiet -- but he still found a way to bang his nappy little head. Before the journey was over, he would slow-dance to Poison, sleep innocently beneath satanic pentagrams, lust for Lita Ford, and get ridiculously intellectual about Guns N' Roses. C'mon and feel his noize.

Uncle Tom's Cabin: by George L. Aiken and George C. Howard, 1852

George L. Aiken

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 146 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A towering, very important American classic 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

For whatever reasons, I'm one of those who, over the years, never gave "Uncle Tom's Cabin" much thought. I'm afraid I dismissed the book based on the derogatory cliche of describing a complacent black man as an Uncle Tom. What a pleasure to find how wrong I was.

Although the style of narration, the punctuation style of the day and the evolution of contractions, compound words and other bits of syntax show this book to be from the mid 1800s, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a modern novel. It is largely without the stifling level of detail offered in other books of the time, and it pushes the concept of omniscient narrator (perhaps along the lines of Vonnegut in "Breakfast of Champions") to a level that would likely be absurd in another story and purpose.

And Harriet Beecher Stowe did have a purpose - a daring, countervailing, completely forward-thinking challenge to the complacency of the day. The action of the story concludes in the second-to-last chapter. In the last chapter, called simply "Concluding Remarks," Stowe, referring to herself in third person, explains how she came to write the book, and in so doing pulls the reader beyond the realm of fiction in order to cap off her sermon. And a 500-page sermon is exactly what "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was and is.

To quote Stowe from the last chapter, "For many years of her life, the author avoided all reading upon or allusion to the subject of slavery, considering it as too painful to be inquired into, and one which advancing light and civilization would certainly live down. But, since the legislative act of 1850, when she heard, with perfect surprise and consternation, Christian and humane people actually recommending the remanding escaped fugitives into slavery, as a duty binding on good citizens,- when she heard, on all hands, from kind compassionate and estimable people, in the free states of the North, deliberation and discussions as to what Christian duty could be on his head,- she could only think, These men and Christians cannot know what slavery is; if they did, such a question could never be open for discussion. And from this arose a desire to exhibit it in a LIVING DRAMATIC REALITY [emphasis the author's]. She has endeavored to show it fairly, in the best and worst phases. In its BEST [emphasis the author's] aspect, she has, perhaps, been successful; but, oh! Who shall say what yet remains untold in that valley and shadow of death, that lies the other side?"


Within the narrative arts can be found a gray area between complete fiction and straightforwrad documenting. Within this area itself is a fine line of storytelling that sheds the fluff factor of fiction and the yawn factor of documentation. A story told along this line is not only compelling but offers to the receiver of the story a glimpse of what a life in the world depicted by the story must have been like. Or at the very least might have been like. This glimpse, whatever else it is, will be visceral, allowing the reader an actual emotional link. Finding this line is hard, staying on it harder and pulling off a finished work while remaining true to the line harder still. This is what Stowe did, a century before such a point of view emerged again in Americam media.

As such, Stowe explains that many of the characters are based on real people - yes, there really was a man as horrible as Simon Legree - and that most of the events in the book were based on true events known to her personally or through trusted reporting. This novelizing of reality was so compelling the book would be translated into twenty-two languages.


It would be relatively easy to take sentences and paragraphs out of context and reach the conclusion that Stowe decried slavery while holding the black race paternalistically. It's very possible to find any number of passages and label them as apologetic and paternalistic. There is, in fact, paternalism throughout the story, but this is a reflection of America ten years before the Civil War; and by the end of Stowe's "Concluding Remarks" this paternalism is gone.

I would describe the main apologist, St. Clare, who is keenly aware of the state of his own culture, as more of a rationalist. By making this character so, Stowe is able to open our eyes, as she opened many eyes of the day, to the subtler forms of defacto slavry - not at all to excuse slavery in general as some kind of natural order, but to bear witness to those toiling in other forms of captured work.

In 1851 the scullery maid of an English country home was not a slave, of course. Her employment was voluntary, after all, and at the end of a year she would have a few schillings to her name. But economically, perhaps even geographically, her freedom was largely unavailable to her, and so while not a slave under the law, the other side of her employment was the delivery of herself to twelve- or fifteen-hour days of scrubbing pots and pans. The delivery of herself to, at the end of any of those days, climbing three or four flights of a rear stairs to a garret; to a social life limited to the kitchen staff, which itself was a hierarchy that lorded over her; to little hope of marriage, if that's what she wanted, or to any sort of a life she might call her own. Why? To keep from starving to death.

And think about this today. Are you watching a 27" color TV with full remote that cost $199? Do you honestly think that set could have been made, boxed, shipped to a port in Asia, shipped by boat to the US, shipped by train and truck to your local StuffMart and sold to you profitably for one or two day's wages while every worker along the way was treated fairly? Do you care?


For the vast majority of those reading this review slavery is an abstracted and distant topic. It is a practice from a long ago past that might be given two meetings in a high school American History class, a cursory survey from which students might understand the concept of the economics of buying, selling and breeding human beings, from which they might be encouraged to imagine the suffering implicit to such practices.

Stowe's great achievment in writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was to belie the nuts and bolts, the mere logistics and schematics of slavery. She established for the reader the point of view of the slave, of a human life set against the legally sanctioned bureaucracy of slavery. She successfully depicted a person - an individual, a human being - sold as a product, warehoused as a product, transported as a product, and then set to use as an organic machine that was discarded and replaced when it broke. More to the point, she allows us glimpses into the inner lives, thoughts and prayers of those sold, warehoused, transported and used up while their ties to family and place, while their smallest hopes, are given credence only as an afterthought that may never coalesce. Only if, after having purchased a brother or a mother, there should be enough money remaining to buy the sister or the child. Only if it should be convenient and expedient for the planter to do so, only if it should strike that planter's fancy one particular afternoon but
not another.

This book is as meaningful today, in new ways, as it was in 1851, and that is wholly remarkable.

Editorial Review:

The first American novel to sell over a million copies. By calling attention to the issue of slavery, it has become a part of our country's literary and historical heritage.

Taylor Swift (Piano/Vocal/Guitar)

Taylor Swift

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Good stuff 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The piano perfectly matches up with the tune, the vocals are 100% accurate. I don't know about the guitar part, but I can imagine that is correct as well. If your looking to play the TUNE of the song, this is a great book, The piano is can be a little tricky with timing at times, but once you get the main beat of the song, it's a real fun book to play!

great!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

great!! i love her voice so being able to play her songs was great. not to much of a singer but the sheet music lets her melody shine.

A fan of Taylor and a piano player... 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

IF you want to learn how to play Taylor Swift music then this book is great..moderate playing level was perfect! (good for beginners as well)

Great song book, but not for beginner guitarist 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

As an adult parent who began learning guitar almost a year ago, I have been looking for more song books to expand my playing. I selected this one also hoping to give my daughter some motivation to pick up the guitar also. While I've found this book to be complete and accurate, including song intros and the correct key to play along with Taylor's CD if you want, most of the material is beyond my intermediate skills. It is definitely not for an actual beginner. Don't get me wrong: I still give the book 4 stars. I will keep it and one day I will be able to play the songs effectively, and maybe my daughter will also. I just wanted to point out that this is not a good book for a beginner or maybe even intermediate guitarist. Based on the other reviews, maybe I'll break out my electronic keyboard and see if I can re-learn the piano, as well as guitar.

Editorial Review:

This matching folio features 11 songs from the 16-year-old country-pop singer's debut album: Cold as You * Mary's Song (Oh My My My) * Our Song * The Outside * Picture to Burn * A Place in This World * Should've Said No * Stay Beautiful * Teardrops on My Guitar * Tied Together with a Smile * Tim McGraw.

A Personal Stand: Observations and Opinions from a Freethinking Roughneck

Trace Adkins

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 37 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Country music superstar Trace Adkins isn’t exactly known for holding back what’s on his mind. And if the millions of albums he’s sold are any indication, when Trace talks, people listen. Now, in A Personal Stand, Trace Adkins delivers his maverick manifesto on politics, personal responsibility, fame, parenting, being true to yourself, hard work, and the way things oughta be.

In his inimitable pull-no-punches style, Trace gives us the state of the union as he sees it, from the lessons of his boyhood in small-town Louisiana to what he’s learned headlining concerts around the world. Trace has worked oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, been shot in the heart, been inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, and braved perhaps the greatest challenge of all: being the father of five daughters. And shaped by these experiences, he’s sounding off.

• I’m incredibly frustrated with the state of American politics. If there were a viable third party, I’d seriously consider joining it.
• If anybody wonders who the good guys are and who the bad guys are in this world, just look at the way we teach our children as opposed to the way the fundamentalist Muslims teach their children.
• Organized labor now exists for the sake of organized labor, and not for the workers it once protected.
• I believe the easiest way to solve the illegal immigration enforcement problem is to go after the employers who hire illegal aliens.
• As a society, we’re unwilling to sacrifice our luxuries and our conveniences in order to conserve. We won’t change until we’re forced to.
• The war on terror is like herpes. People can live with it, but it’ll flare up from time to time.

Brash, ballsy, persuasive, and controversial, A Personal Stand isn’t just the story of Trace Adkins’s life; it’s the story of what life can teach all of us.

Ultimate Christmas: 100 Seasonal Favorites: Easy Piano

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Perfect mix of Christmas and Holiday music 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Excellent arrangements at about the intermediate level, with the perfect mix of what you could call "traditional" in Christmas/Holiday music. One of the very best in print. Big, crazy thumbs up from CleverJoe.

A must have 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This is an awesome collection of Christmas music for all ages. Mostly easy arrangement and a few challenging ones.

Editorial Review:

The ultimate collection of Christmas classics just got better with this third edition that includes even more of your favorites. 100 songs, including: Auld Lang Syne * Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella * Carol of the Bells * The Chipmunk Song * Christmas Time Is Here * Do You Hear What I Hear * The First Noel * Gesu Bambino * Happy Holiday * Happy Xmas (War Is Over) * Hymne * I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm * Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring * Jingle-Bell Rock * A Marshmallow World * Merry Christmas, Darling * My Favorite Things * The Night Before Christmas Song * Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer * Silver and Gold * Silver Bells * The Star Carol * Suzy Snowflake * What Child Is This? * Wonderful Christmastime * The Wonderful World of Christmas * and more.

Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas (Inspirio/Zondervan Miniature Editions)

Ace Collins

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Sloppy research 1 out of 5 stars.
11 of 13 people found this review helpful.

For someone with 50 books to his credit--as per the dust jacket--Collins is highly sloppy in the research of this book. As has been previously noted, he just presented a common story about the origins of "Silent Night" without necessarily having done any deep research. And the comments about "The Twelve Days of Christmas" come straight from a silly internet piece, with no basis in fact.

This is common throughout this book. It seems more often than not, Collins has just done some cursory internet research and then slapped it all together and called it good.

Some other screw-ups: Irving Berlin was worried that "White Christmas" wasn't really a good song. Actually Berlin, upon introducing it to his office staff and musical secretary, refered to it as "not only the greatest song I've ever written, but the greatest song ever written." Berlin at one point had plans to make White Christmas the main production number in a major Broadway revue. In performing it for Crosby and studio execs, Berlin got nervous with himself and choked in performing it. You can read about this in Jody Rosen's excellent book on White Christmas, called "White Christmas."

As for his assertions about the meaning and origin of the term Merry in merry Christmas, he gets it wrong again. Ten minutes in the Oxford English Dictionary, available at any decent public library, would have given him the answers.

Better Books on this subject are Rosen's afforementioned book and "The Penguin Book of Christmas Carols" ed. Ian Bradbury.

Editorial Review:

Following in the successful footsteps of our Christmas Carols Miniature Edition™ (more than 300,000 sold), this lovely little adaptation of a popular book about the origins of more than 30 of the most beloved Christmas songs, both secular and religious, promises to be a strong seller as well. “Collins is an ace at song history . . .” notes Booklist.

Broadway Musicals: Show by Show: Sixth Edition (Broadway Musicals Show by Show)

Stanley Green, Kay Green

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A true must-have book for all musical theatre fans! 5 out of 5 stars.
48 of 49 people found this review helpful.

This book has proven and indispensable part of my theatre library, and if you get it, it will become one for you as well. Want to know what date the original production of Show Boat opened on Broadway? This book will tell you. Who the original stars of Mexican Hayride were? That's in here, too. You will be able to find the answer to just about any question you could ever ask of Broadway's hit musicals. A perfect companion piece to Ken Mandelbaum's Not Since Carrie (which chronicles the flop musicals this book mostly excludes), and a wonderful way of tracking the history of the Broadway musical, Broadway Musicals: Show by Show is as comprehensive, helpful, and essential as reference books on Broadway come.

Editorial Review:

The long-awaited update of this acclaimed, best-selling title. The most comprehensive and widely used Broadway reference book has been expanded and updated to include more than 300 of the most important and memorable productions of the American musical theatre, including revivals. Chronologically arranged beginning with The Black Crook in 1866, the sixth edition adds entries on numerous musicals from recent years, including The Lion King, Hairspray, The Producers, Wicked, The Boy from Oz, Mamma Mia!, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Avenue Q, and others. Features a wealth of statistics and inside information, plus critical reception, cast lists, and pithy commentary about each show.