Omnibus Press

Written and Illustrated by Students of the Special Music School at the Kaufman Music Center, NY

Florence loved her mother’s piano playing and wanted to be just like her. When she was just four years old she played her first piano concert and as she grew up she studied and wrote music hoping one day to hear her own music performed by an orchestra.

The story of a brilliant musician who prevailed against race and gender prejudices to become the first Black woman to be recognised as a symphonic composer and be performed by a major American orchestra in 1933.

This is a day-by-day account of Bowie's life from the start of 1970 to the end of 1980, his golden era that defined his work as a major artist a dozen inspired studio albums, five major tours, two feature films and critically acclaimed theatrical performances in Chicago and New York. He reinvented stage presentation in rock and revived the careers of Mott The Hoople, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop.

David Bowie: The Golden Years chronicles in fascinating detail how it all unfolded, tracking Bowie s creative life from post- Space Oddity London in 1970, through the genesis of Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, his withdrawal to West Berlin and New York in 1980.

Informed by recollections from Bowie himself and his many collaborators, friends and associates of the time, the book illustrates how Bowie's influences and experiences shaped his extraordinary body of work, which in turn has inspired generations of musicians. David Bowie: The Golden Years features rare, unpublished and iconic photographs from a unique era in the private and professional life of one of rock s greatest and most enduring heroes.

The first in-depth biography of one of music's most fascinating, colourful and innovative characters. This book is the most comprehensive history yet of the life, music and cultural significance of the last of the great black music pioneers and the era which spawned him. Clinton stands alongside James Brown, Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone as one of the most influential black artists of all time who, along with his vast P-Funk army took black funk into the US charts and sold out stadiums by the mid 1970s with his mind-blowing shows and legendary Mothership extravaganzas. The book contains first hand interview material with Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Jerome Bigfoot Brailey, Junie Morrison, Bobby Gillespie, Afrika Bambaataa, Jalal Nuriddin (Last Poets), Juan Atkins, John Sinclair, Rob Tyner (MC5), Ed Sanders (The Fugs), Chip Monck ("The Voice of Woodstock ) plus other P-Funk associates and friends. The book presents an insiders' view of the rise of Parliament and Funkadelic from the doowop era and LSD-crazed early shows through to P-Funk s huge rise, the era of the Mothership and beyond.

The Sex Pistols, The Damned and The Clash were the originators of British punk rock. In 1976, they were a three-pronged attack on the self-satisfied rock elite and the inspiration to a new generation of music fans: the fans that would define the future. Putting The Dammed in context for the first time, Smashing It Up is the history of this important band and their original members. It's also packed with their encounters with Marc Bolan, America, members of Pink Floyd, and their always strained relationship with the music business. Smashing It Up draws on interviews by the author with the original band members, as well as its associates and eye witnesses to their chaotic journey.

With an eclectic blend of country, alternative rock and classic pop, Wilco was born out of the influential alt-country group Uncle Tupelo in 1994. Led by Jeff Tweedy, Wilco then made a series of albums that won varying levels of acceptance. From the relatively unsuccessful A.M. through the praised but contentious Mermaid Avenue collaboration with Billy Bragg and the troubled Yankee Hotel Foxtrot that eventually became their best-selling album, Wilco and Tweedy have kept the show on the road for two decades, winning Grammys, inspiring countless other bands and taking the flak on the way. This is their extraordinary story. Sunken Treasure is a fascinating look at one of the most interesting and, perhaps under-appreciated, bands of recent years. Despite being musically very talented, they can often be difficult to accommodate, with feuds with record labels, collaborators and even themselves marring their undeniably brilliant musical output. In Sunken Treasure, Tim Grierson has managed to actually unearth a lot of valuable information, through interviews with artists, producers and engineers. This re-evaluation of their back catalogue is an essential read for any fan of great music. For new and old fans, Wilco: Sunken Treasure offers a great deal of interest. In an authoritative and trustworthy account of this band, Tim Grierson offers the new fan an incredibly detailed introduction to the band, while the experienced fan will be served a lot of food for thought and previously-unknown information.

Million Dollar Quartet is the name given to recordings made on Tuesday December 4, 1956 in the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. The recordings were of an impromptu jam session among Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash. This thorough account of the session includes: The events of the session. Very few participants survive; Includes interviews with the drummer and the sound engineer; A detailed analysis of the music played – and its relevance to subsequent popular music; The early lives and careers of the quartet – where they were in 1956; Relevant social and economic factors which meant that a massive audience of young people were keenly looking for a new kind of music they could call their own; The “reunions” of surviving members of the quartet; The emergence of the tapes, first on bootleg and then on legitimate CDs; The genesis of the stage show and its reception – the enduring appeal of the music.

Meticulously researched, this is the definitive account of the momentous year that sent John, Paul, George, and Ringo to stratospheric heights.

At the start of 1963, The Beatles were a successful local Liverpool band with one hit single; twelve months, two albums, and the arrival of Beatlemania later, they were on the cusp of world domination.

Featuring daily entries covering every pivotal event, The Beatles 1963 draws on hundreds of new eyewitness accounts and provides numerous unseen photographs.

With an introduction by Martyn Ware (of Heaven 17 and The Human League)

Tina Turner: singer, trailblazer, icon. One of the best-known and most-beloved performers of all time, Simply Tina documents her life, career, and relationship with celebrated music photographer Paul Cox.

When Paul Cox captured Tina’s legendary 1983 comeback performance with Heaven 17, it was the beginning of a friendship that would last for over two decades. During that time, Paul was commissioned to photograph Tina for numerous video shoots and live performances.

This unique and intimate collection contains a variety of never-before-seen images, telling the story of Tina’s career through a mixture of live photos, video shoots, promo shots, candid images and sessions in the recording studio, as well as photographs with such high-profile friends as David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams and many more.

"He wasn't dead and gone to Heaven. He was alive and still in Graceland. Cursed to live another year on God's earth as Elvis Presley. The man from yesterday trapped in a today of tomorrows..." As 1968 dawns, the once King of Rock 'n' Roll faces cultural oblivion. While elsewhere the Sixties are swinging, for Elvis they're sinking - in terrible films, drug addiction, paranoia, religious mania and the mercenary wiles of his psychopathic manager. At 33 the legend who once had it all is lost, lonely and slowly going insane. Until thrown a last lifeline. His own one-hour TV special: a do-or-die final chance to remind the world who, and what, Elvis Presley really is. The Comeback plots the incredible true story of Elvis' fall and rise from Army discharge to iconic black leather resurrection. Simon Goddard takes the reader inside the life, music and mind of Elvis: a 24/7 delirium of women, pills, midnight movies and holy mumbo jumbo, isolated from an America unravelling in its own Sixties chaos of war, racism, riots and assassinations, until his world and theirs collide in the greatest performance of his life. A genre-busting modernist rock 'n' roll fable unlike any music biography you've ever read, The Comeback is the definitive account of how it took Elvis eight years on the big screen to lose his crown - but just one magical hour on a small one to win it back.

A Story of Three Mice Trying to Succeed in the Car Repair Business

In Waiting For The Man, Jeremy Reed focuses on Lou Reed as rock's principal literary avatar, paying special attention to his controversial lyrics and prototypical garage sound. Lou Reed influenced generations of copyists that took note of his outlaw status, ambiguous sexual orientation characterised by his seventies relationship with the transvestite Rachel, his implacable mystique, cool and defiant attitude as the narrator of subcultures. Finally the book examines the transcendent, if reluctant calm, that Reed arrived at in later life. Taking in the sweep of Reed's career from Velvet Underground to the variants of forty years of resistant solo pioneering, Waiting For The Man accesses the man and his music, with the extraordinary perception and attention to detail.

The only biography of Jack White, widely considered the twenty-first century's most vital rock star. Jack White is the "coolest, weirdest, savviest rock star of our time" (The New York Times Magazine). White is best known as the frontman for The White Stripes, where his guitar virtuosity and shrieking rock vocals outstripped speculation about his relationship with his drummer and ex-wife Meg White, who he often insisted was his sister. Not content with launching a blues-rock revival in the early 2000s, White went on to collaborate with famous artists, including Loretta Lynn, Tom Jones, and Bob Dylan. In 2006, White founded The Raconteurs with Brendan Benson, and in 2009 founded The Dead Weather with Alison Mosshart. He starred in the Academy Award-winning film Cold Mountain, married (and split up with) supermodel Karen Elson, and rejuvenated a flagging Detroit art scene by making his hometown the headquarters of his record label, Third Man Records. But White is also a master of reinvention, trying on personas as they fit his changing tastes and priorities. The real Jack White--born John Anthony Gillis in 1975--can be difficult to pin down. Citizen Jack is the only book yet to tell the full story of the 21st century's most influential rock star, based on interviews from people close to White, including former bandmate Brendan Benson and Third Man artists such as Neil Young and Seasick Steve. Not only that, it is the definitive history of the Detroit scene in which The White Stripes first flourished. No other book goes as deep into the lore of Jack White and The White Stripes. Hasted gets mythology, and this biography is peppered with details that make for alluring rock lore. ... It s a thorough and intelligent piece of music journalism Cara Lennon, BMA Mag.

When the anarchic vocalist of Can left the celebrated German band in late 1973, the ensuing decade-long absence was taken by many to be the end of his personal story. But it was just the beginning.

In I Am Damo Suzuki, Kenji Damo Suzuki and co-author Paul Woods illuminate a life in music driven by the principle of randomness. The book spans the influence of western music on Suzuki growing up in post-WWII Japan, his rejection of national traditions and a lifelong journey of exploration.

After his hippie-influenced beginnings as a provocative street musician, Suzuki s story took an unlikely turn after a chance recruitment into Can, one of the most innovative bands of the seventies.

A stint of family life and the role of Japanese salaryman preceded his return to the music world with The Damo Suzuki Band and later with Damo Suzuki's Network, an international vehicle for musical communication using sound instead of words. With contributions from family members, lifelong friends, musical collaborators and Damo's long-term partner, I Am Damo Suzuki is an absorbing portrait of a musical catalyst and enigmatic icon.