Books — Recently Added

A love letter to modern music – written by the same author who gave us High Fidelity – certainly one of the greatest texts ever about the record store! Hornby's prose is always wonderful – and here, he really gets to the heart of his love of music – by serving up essays on ... Book

A very well-written account of one of the most important musical streets in America – and one that get way past all the tourist hype and trappings of contemporary Beale Street in Memphis today! Instead, the author really goes back – to some of the much earlier years of the city, and ... Book

Louvin Brother Charlie tells the tale of his famous duo with brother Ira – a match that was almost a Cain and Abel of country music – given that Charlie and Ira Louvin sometimes sat at opposite moral poles on the spectrum! The story's as tragic as any of the best early songs by the ... Book

The story of one of greatest soul singers of all time, and also one who is living a fascinating journey, to say the very least – the great Al Green! The Arkansas born, Memphis soul legend tells his story to music writer Davin Seay, from his years reinventing southern soul music through his ... Book

A very cool book on Brazilian music – one that serves up a well-chosen array of very hip records, all laid out in decade-by-decade chapters – along with color images of the album cover art, label, date, and style information in regular text – and a review of the record in Japanese! ... Book

A beautiful book on the legendary Prestige Records label – some of the hippest hardbop of the 50s, the coolest soul jazz of the 60s, and the funkiest grooves of the 70s! The book is similar to some of the Blue Note discographies we've stocked from Japan over the years – in that it ... Book

The story of Charlie Parker is often draped in hyperbole and exaggeration – which is why it's extra great that this biography is handled by Stanley Crouch – one of the few writers we could trust to get past the hype and really find a way to link Parker's life and music! As you might ... Book

The legendary Iceberg Slim has given us plenty of his own story over the years – but this book is the first to look at the man behind the man – writer Robert Beck, who started as a pimp and became a surprisingly successful author – as well as an underground figure who inspired a ... Book

The story of Soul Train, brought to us by an author we trust more than most when it comes to music writing! Nelson George has already given us great books on Motown, hip hop, James Brown, and the decline of rhythm and blues – and he does an equally great job here with his examination of Soul ... Book

One of the few English language looks we've ever seen at the music of Serge Gainsbourg – a well-penned biography that covers all of his classic years in a fair bit of detail! Author Alan Clayson does a good job of paying as much attention to the music as he does to Serge's celebrity – ... Book

The roots of house music and beyond – a mighty cool discography that does a special job of locating the music many years before it first exploded in Chicago and Detroit, then following it for many years after that, through a host of global scenes and styles! The publication is a discography, ... Book

A fantastic book released in conjunction with an Italian exhibition dedicated to Marino Zuccheri – the legendary sound engineer who helped composers like Luigi Nono, John Cage, and Bruno Maderna realize their musical visions in the recording studio! The book is in English throughout, and ... CD

A stunning selection of rare jazz photographs, most of which have never been seen before – all shot at the Newport and Monterey Jazz Festivals during the 1960s, with a span across the decade that really shows a shift in sound and style! The book has way more than just shots of big name ... Book

A beautiful set of images from artist Kehinde Wiley – a project that explores the global legacy of French colonialism in the years 1980 through 1960 – but through a series of portraits that provide a more abstract approach! Most of these images are quite colorful – paintings of ... Book

A hefty book that explores the wonderful collision of art and music in the form of records – those important moments when a visual artist helped illustrated a musical text – often with results that have become legendary over the years! The volume is way more than just a record cover ... Book

A really cool look at albums that never happened – planned projects that were almost produced, but which fell apart at some point in the creative process – leading to a surprisingly large legacy of lost albums by some of rock music's biggest stars! Sure, everyone knows a few of these ... Book

A surprisingly insightful Richard Pryor biography from interesting pair of biographers – brothrers David and Joe Henry! David Henry is a screenwriter, his brother Joe Henry is from the music world – known for his own artful singer-songwriter work, and especially his production work, ... Book

A massive look at the world of western swing in the 30s and 40s – a huge book that really gets past the big names, as you might guess from the "other" in the title! The first big part of the volume looks at southwestern swing bands up to the end of WWII – with individual ... Book

A very cool book that compiles a long-running feature that's delighted Chicago music fans for years – the Secret History Of Chicago Music column from the Chicago Reader – a force that's possibly done more for the history of music in our city than most other larger institutions put ... Book

For most of the early years of cinema, soundtracks were dominated by orchestrations that were composed for the movies – or by publisher catalog tunes that were packaged for the films. But as the rock years approached, film scoring took on a whole different aspect – as performers were ... Book

The music of Goblin has wowed American audiences for years – from their first few soundtracks for classic Italian giallo films, to their recent revival and concert performances! Yet the full story of the group's never been told in English – until the arrival of this huge and well-resear ... Book

An incredible document of the legendary Mingering Mike – the self-styled 70s soul superstar who never recorded any music, but created a huge body of work on hand-drawn record sleeves and 45s! Mike's story has been told briefly before in Wax Poetics, but this book really gets to the full ... Book

One of the coolest books we've ever seen to deal with the Detroit music scene – and one of the few that really gets at the complexity that's made the city one of the most important contributors to American music over the past 50 years! The book was done in conjunction with a gallery show ... Book

A stunning look at the great Mary Wells – one of Motown's first female acts of the 60s, and one of the decade's most important early soul figures as well! Mary's work on record is very well-known, but the story behind the music is completely different, and surprisingly dark at times – ... Book

A stunning book of photographs to stand alongside the excellent album art books done by the Soul Jazz label – a treasure trove of hardly-seen images of some of the best underground musicians of the 60s and 70s – and a great antidote to the sorts of jazz books that are only just filled ... Book

Amazing images galore – some classic covers from the Jamaican scene of the 60s and 70s, and lots more obscure images too – all presented in very vivid color, with a lot more clarity than any of the beat up original copies we have in our collection! The book really does full justice to ... Book

Fantastic images of New York City from Jamel Shabazz – the photographer you may know from his classic hip hop shots in the book Back In The Days – working here in very similar territory, but with a more wide-ranging approach! Shabazz is still very close to the streets here – and ... Book

A beautiful book that brings together two different collaborations between these two key figures in postwar African-American culture – writings by Ralph Ellison, with supporting photographs from Gordon Parks – the award-winning journalist who also went onto a much larger role in film ... Book

That's Brazilian jive, instead of Brazilian music – as the author here shows just how much the larger Brazilian culture helps shape the sound of it's songs – a wonderful interplay between urban and rural, modern and ancient, popular and intellectual – forces that have come ... Book

A fantastic book on books about UFOs – one that's put together with all the verve and vibrant imagery you'd expect from the cover! Jack Womack has been collecting materials on UFOs for decades – and this lavish, full-color book provides an amazing overview of publications from the ... Book