Way more than just another book of album cover art – as this impressive volume presents countless images from the evolution of blues music in the 20th Century, alongside detailed writings that also try to explore visual trends, tropes of representation, and the larger role of the music in an American popular aesthetic! Chapters look at a range of different imagery – from early sheet music, to pre-war 78rpm labels, to blues photographs, record covers, and even film posters – but all laid out in a way that's extremely lively, given the great choice of images, and the book's glossy pages and hardcover presentation! 224 pages, with a look that's like the nicest coffee table books – but content that runs a lot deeper. Book

An insanely fantastic book on one of our favorite record labels of all time – the All Platinum family of labels from the New Jersey scene of the late 60s/early 70s – a precursor to the later Sugar Hill hip hop empire, and home to The Moments, Whatnauts, and countless other great groups! The book is way more than just the story of the label – as it's super-heavy, weighs as much as a stack of records – and features hundreds of pages with full color images, both of rare records and artists who recorded for All-Platinum too – all in support of chapters that approach the label and its related imprints in a range of different ways. The book not only looks at the big stars, but tackles the lesser-known acts too – and traces all the many sub-labels like Stang, Vibration, A1, Turbo, and Astroscope – then looks at the company's relationship to Chess Records too. The book features an illustrated discography of all the related labels after the main content – with color images of labels and covers – and the whole thing is 532 heavy, glossy pages – well worth the price! Book

Dusty Groove owes plenty to the world of college radio – and in fact, our store grew out of long years of experience on a college station on the south side of Chicago – so we're extra-pleased not just to see a really comprehensive book on the glory days of college radio, but also one that really gets the history right! Author Katherine Rye Jewell really digs deep here, and gets past the easy tales of freeform rock and alternative radio – to instead look at the larger forces that helped build, shift, and challenge the informal network of small college radio stations that had a huge impact on American music for a few key decades, starting in the 70s. The author brings together case histories of individual stations, key scenes in music, legislative shifts, regulatory changes, and music business practice – all to really illuminate just why college radio was so important in the 70s, 80s, and 90s – and why its legacy still continues so strongly today. The roots of Dusty Groove are hidden in these pages in a few key spots – and we can say that the author definitely writes from the right perspective, and takes time to focus in on all the important things that really matter. Softcover edition is 457 pages, with a small amount of charts and illustrations. Book

As any fan of the live Grateful Dead experience will tell you, improvisation is the key to the way the group puts their music over on stage – long jams that are filled with musicianship that just got better and better over the years, and which can lead to a very heavenly experience for concertgoers at their shows! Yet this book also gets past some of those overused tropes and really digs deeply – viewing their improvisation from a musical perspective, and showing the larger cultural perspective that such practice created within the subculture of their fans and listeners. There's a very strong focus on the role that improvisation played right at the start of the group's career – especially when they were in a mind-altering, spiritual mode. Softcover edition is 294 pages. Book

Amazing images from the painter of the Bitches Brew album cover – the legendary Mati Klarwein – an artist with a very colorful style of painting nude bodies! Mati's artwork has graced many albums over the years – not just work from Miles Davis, but records by Buddy Miles, Jerry Garcia, The Chambers Brothers, and many others – all of which are presented here in a really well-done book – filled with vivid, colorful reproductions of the album covers in full 12" square size! The original package was put together in a limited pressing by a French gallery – but this version is much more affordable, and also features English notes as well – but all without sacrificing any of the printing quality at all. The book is 184 pages, full color, and with nice heavy covers – and it's just the right size to stack nicely next to your classic Miles Davis records! Book

A long-overdue document of the artistic activity of Roscoe Mitchell – best known to most as a key member of both the AACM and Art Ensemble Of Chicago as a jazz musician, but a surprisingly accomplished painter too! Mitchell's artistic career is captured here in both distant chapters – his early work in the 60s, including a few famous paintings that ended up on album covers – and his more recent burst of visually creative activity in the past fifteen years, presented here in a stunning array of very vibrant images! The painting on the cover is just the tip of the iceberg – as the book features dozens of other artworks, in an edition that's 138 pages in length – complete with an interview with Mitchell on his creative activity too. Book