A must-have for every Boyz II Men fan, this handsome volume traces forty years of the groundbreaking group through stunning photography, fascinating facts, and interviews with fans and industry pros.
Philly's own Boyz II Men is an iconic boy band that jumped to the top of the charts (and into the hearts of millions of global fans) in the 1980s. Though the band came to prominence in a time when acts like New Kids On The Block, Backstreet Boys, and NSYNC were surging in popularity, Boyz II Men was truly a transitional group, with a unique sound that took cues from both pop and R&B and brought together audiences across the world. Today, Boyz II Men is the bestselling R&B group of all time, having sold over 60 million albums worldwide, with a highly anticipated biopic in the works. In Boyz II Men 40th Anniversary Celebration, music journalist John Morrison delves into the band's origins--from their beginning in high school and their earliest influences--to their biggest successes in the '80s and '90s, to their continued achievements today and the lasting legacy they've left in the boy-band canon. Along the way, readers will also explore the creation of Boyz II Men's biggest hits, such as End of the Road and Motownphilly; the fan culture that built up around the band, from the small gigs and mall tours of their earliest years to their national anthem performance in 2022 and tour and album plans for their anniversary year in 2025; Boyz II Men's influences, from R&B to a cappella, and their place in a boy-band history that begins with the Jackson 5 and continues in the modern day with bands like One Direction and BTS; and the lasting legacy of a band proudly celebrating their fortieth anniversary. The book features interviews with icons of the music world and leading music historians and journalists, including:
With stunning photographs and recollections from fans throughout, fans can relive their most precious memories of their favorite crossover band and learn about hidden gems and new tidbits from famous friends and collaborators. This is far from the end of the road for this groundbreaking group, and this book is the perfect companion to your everlasting love for Nate, Mike, Shawn, and Wan!
Voodoo, D'Angelo's much-anticipated 2000 release, set the standard for the musical cycle ordained as neo-soul, a label the singer and songwriter would reject more than a decade later. The album is a product of heightened emotions and fused sensibilities; an amalgam of soul, rock, jazz, gospel, hip-hop, and Afrobeats. D'Angelo put to music his own pleasures and insecurities as a man-child in the promised land. It was both a tribute to his musical heroes: Prince, Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye, J Dilla...and a deconstruction of rhythm and blues itself.
Despite nearly universal acclaim, the sonic expansiveness of Voodoo proved too nebulous for airplay on many radio stations, seeping outside the accepted lines of commercial R&B music. Voodoo was Black, it was definitely magic, and it was nearly overshadowed by a four-minute music video featuring D'Angelo's sweat-glistened six-pack abs. The Video created an accentuated moment when the shaman lost control of the spell he cast.Our new version of the classic Wax Poetics music journal
Wax Poetics Issue 67 contains all-new content featuring interviews and write-ups on a slew of Prince's albums, including 1978's For You, 1986's Parade, 1987's Sign O the Times, 1988's Lovesexy, 1991's Diamonds and Pearls, and 1995's The Gold Experience--with interviews from engineer Chris Moon, manager Owen Husney, engineer Susan Rogers, producer/engineer David Z, poet Ingrid Chavez, tour manager Alan Leeds, dancer Cat Glover, saxophonist Eric Leeds, guitarist and bandleader Levi Seacer Jr., engineer Michael Koppelman, trombonist Michael B. Nelson, and keyboardist Tommy Barbarella.
Issue 67 also includes standalone interviews with Jill Jones, Andre Cymone, and members of the Revolution: Doctor Fink, Bobby Z., Brown Mark, and Wendy & Lisa.
Also included is 12 pages of album artwork. 118 pages in all. No advertisements.
The story of Stax Records unfolds like a Greek tragedy. A white brother and sister build a monument to racial harmony in blighted south Memphis during the civil rights movement. Their success soon pits the siblings against each other, and the brother abandons his sister for a visionary African-American partner. Under integrated leadership, Stax explodes as a national player until, Icarus-like, the heights they achieve result in their tragic demise. They fall, losing everything, and the sanctuary they created is torn to the ground. A generation later, Stax is rebuilt brick by brick and is once again transforming disenfranchised youth into stellar young musicians.
Set in the world of 1960s and '70s soul music, Respect Yourself is a character-driven story of racial integration, and then of black power and economic independence. It's about music and musicians--Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, the Staple Singers, and Booker T. and the M.G.'s, Stax's interracial house band. It's about a small independent company's struggle to survive in an increasingly conglomerate-oriented world. And always at the center of the story is Memphis, Tennessee, an explosive city struggling through volatile years. Told by one of our leading music chroniclers, Respect Yourself is the book to own about one of our most treasured cultural institutions and the city that created it.Our new version of the classic Wax Poetics music journal
Wax Poetics Issue 67 contains all-new content featuring interviews and write-ups on a slew of Prince's albums, including 1978's 'For You, ' 1986's 'Parade, ' 1987's 'Sign O the Times, ' 1988's 'Lovesexy, ' 1991's 'Diamonds and Pearls, ' and 1995's 'The Gold Experience'--with interviews from engineer Chris Moon, manager Owen Husney, engineer Susan Rogers, producer/engineer David Z, poet Ingrid Chavez, tour manager Alan Leeds, dancer Cat Glover, saxophonist Eric Leeds, guitarist and bandleader Levi Seacer Jr., engineer Michael Koppelman, trombonist Michael B. Nelson, and keyboardist Tommy Barbarella.
Issue 67 also includes standalone interviews with Jill Jones, Andre Cymone, and members of the Revolution: Doctor Fink, Bobby Z., Brown Mark, and Wendy & Lisa.
Also included is 12 pages of album artwork. 118 pages in all. No advertisements.
In the tumultuous decade following World War II, the civil rights movement began transforming Black lives and American society. The era also proved momentous for African American popular music: new record labels, new styles, and exciting new sounds in the form of electrified blues combos, rhythm and blues shouters and balladeers, gospel and doo wop quartets. By the late-1950s, with rock 'n' roll dominating the American soundscape, much of the phenomenal Black music of the postwar decade began to drift into relative obscurity.
This book brings a remarkable body of African American music, excluding jazz, back into sharp focus, and explores its connections to the socio-political dreams of Black America during that period of frustrated hopes and great expectations. With close attention to the singers, musicians, and lyrics in hundreds of recordings from 1946 to 1956, it offers for the first time a detailed examination of four musical genres along the blues continuum: blues, rhythm & blues, gospel, and secular harmony (better known as doo wop). Meet the artists and listen to the sounds and themes of Black America in the musically explosive decade before rock 'n' roll.
The music of Motown defined an era. From the Jackson 5 and Diana Ross to Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson, Berry Gordy and his right-hand man, Barney Ales, built the most successful independent record label in the world. Not only did Motown represent the most iconic recording artists of its time and produce countless global hits--it created a cultural institution that redefined pop and gave us the vision of a new America: vibrant, innovative, and racially equal.
This new paperback edition of the first official visual history of the label includes a dazzling array of images, and unprecedented access to the archives of the makers and stars of Motown. Extensive specially commissioned photography of treasures extracted from the Motown archives, as well as the personal collections of Barney Ales and Motown stars, lends new insight into the lives of the legends. Motown also draws on interviews with key players from the label's colorful history, including Motown founder Berry Gordy; Barney Ales; Smokey Robinson; Mary Wilson, founding member of the Supremes; and many more.
Daniel Bedrosian has done a wonderful job of a seemingly impossible task of reconstructing this history--finding everybody who's been a part of, involved with, or in any way left their fingerprint on what has become the P-Funk.-- George Clinton
George Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic collective (P-Funk) stands as one of the most iconic and important groups in popular music history, with an impressively large discography, enormous number of members, and long history. For the first time, this authorized reference provides the official P-Funk canon from 1956 to 2023: every project, album, collaboration, song, details of personnel for songs, and tidbits about each act and select songs, as well as dozens of rare photos and a color photospread.
No volume has ever attempted to provide such details from this collective and its many dozens of acts, collaborations, and offshoot projects from its inception in the 50s as The Parliaments to the present day. Daniel Bedrosian, keyboardist for P-Funk, accomplishes that in this volume, the culmination of nearly thirty years of careful research, interviews, and access to exclusive archival material. Song entries are organized under artist / group names and contain definitive listings of players for each song. Select entries shed light on the inner workings of the recording process, singles chartings, controversies, inside information about process, and more.
This authorized volume demystifies one of the most unique and influential popular musical groups in history.
The story behind the making of the album that signaled the descent of Sylvester Sly Stone Stewart into a haze of drug addiction and delirium is captivating enough for the cinema. In the spacious attic of a Beverly Hills mansion belonging to John and Michelle Phillips (of the Mamas and the Papas) during the fall of 1970, Sly Stone began recording his follow-up to 1969's Stand! the most popular album of his band's career.
These are just a few of Willie Dixon's contributions to blues, R&B, and rock'n'roll--songs performed by artists as varied as the Rolling Stones, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, ZZ Top, the Doors, Sonny Boy Williamson, the Grateful Dead, Van Morrison, Megadeth, Eric Clapton, Let Zepplin, Tesla, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Jeff Healey.I Am the Blues captures Willie Dixon's inimitable voice and character as he tells his life story: the segregation of Visksburg Mississippi, where Dixon grew up; the prison farm from which he escaped and then hoboed his way north as a teenager; his equal-rights-based draft refusal in 1942; his work--as songwriter bassist, producer, and arranger--with Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry which shaped the definitive Chicago blues sound of Chess Records; and his legal battles to recapture the rights to his historic catalog of songs.
In January of 1979, the great soul artist Donny Hathaway fell fifteen stories from a window of Manhattan's Essex House Hotel in an alleged suicide. He was 33 years old and everyone he worked with called him a genius. Best known for A Song for You, This Christmas, and classic duets with Roberta Flack, Hathaway was a composer, pianist, and singer committed to exploring music in its totality. His velvet melisma and vibrant sincerity set him apart from other soul men of his era while influencing generations of singers and fans whose love affair with him continues to this day.
The first nonfiction book about Hathaway, Donny Hathaway Live uses original interviews, archival material, musical analysis, cultural history, and poetry to tell the story of Hathaway's life, from his beginnings as a gospel wonder child to his final years. But its focus is the brutally honest, daringly gorgeous music he created as he raced the clock of mental illness-especially in the performances captured on his 1972 album Donny Hathaway Live. That album testifies to Hathaway's uncanny ability to amplify the power and beauty of his songs in the moment of live performance. By exploring that album, we see how he generated a spiritual experience for those present at his shows, and for those with the privilege to listen in now.The Temptations are an incomparable soul group, with dozens of chart-topping hits such as My Girl and Papa Was a Rollin Stone. From the sharp suits, stylish choreography, and distinctive vocals that epitomized their onstage triumphs to the personal failings and psycho-dramas that played out behind the scenes, Ain't Too Proud to Beg tells the complete story of this most popular-and tragic--of all Motown super groups.
Based on in-depth research and interviews with founding Temptations member Otis Williams and many others, the book reveals the highly individual, even mutually antagonistic, nature of the group's members. Venturing beyond the money and the fame, it shares the compelling tale of these sometime allies, sometime rivals and reveals the unique dynamic of push and pull and give and take that resulted in musical genius.
Ain't Too Proud to Beg takes a cohesive and penetrating look at the life and enduring legacy of one of the greatest groups in popular music. It is essential reading for fans of the Temptations, music lovers, and anyone interested in the history of American popular culture over the last fifty years.