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In Hip-Hop Is History, Questlove skillfully traces the creative and cultural forces that made and shaped hip-hop, highlighting both the forgotten but influential gems and the undeniable chart-topping hits--and weaves it all together with the stories no one else knows. It is at once an intimate, sharply observed story of a cultural revolution and a sweeping, grand theory of the evolution of the great artistic movement of our time. And Questlove, of course, approaches it with not only the encyclopaedic fluency and passion of an obsessive fan but also the expertise of an innovative participant.

Hence this is a story without precedent, a story in which Elton John plays a royal funeral, Mick Jagger gets a knighthood, Bob Dylan picks up the Nobel Prize, the Beatles become, if anything, bigger than the Beatles and it's beginning to look as though all of the above will, thanks to the march of technology, be playing Las Vegas forever.

Drawing on eighty-six interviews with key architects of this jazz renaissance and those who came before them—from Shabaka Hutchings, Nubya Garcia and Moses Boyd to Gilles Peterson, Courtney Pine and Cleveland Watkiss — Unapologetic Expression captures the radical spirit of a vital British musical movement.

When Miranda Sawyer interviewed Liam Gallagher in 1994, his gag wishing Damon Albarn would die of AIDS became front-page news all over the world. This fascinating pop history, exploring the moment British music suddenly meant everything, explains why. Picking out twenty key songs, delving into the surprising stories behind them and their unlikely creators, UNCOMMON PEOPLE takes us back to when Jarvis Cocker became a national hero, films like Trainspotting were international hits, rave became what everybody did - and it felt like the revolution was happening.

By the early 1960s nearly everybody paying attention to country music agreed that George Jones was the greatest country singer of all time. After taking honky-tonk rockers like “White Lightning” all the way up the country charts, he revealed himself to be an unmatched virtuoso on “She Thinks I Still Care,” thus cementing his status as a living legend. That’s where the trouble started.

From 1993 to 2021, Daft Punk were the world's most influential electronic group. But how much of the cultural landscape did they change, and how much changed around them? After Daft draws on new interviews with over 100 groundbreaking and commercially dominant artists, creative teams, record labels and concert promoters to illustrate how dance & electronic music transformed from a fringe concern to the indispensable pulse of 21st century culture.

Evoking a pivotal moment at the birth of modernity, a time of fear, conspiracy and uprising, and featuring some of the most unusual and brilliant personalities of the eighteenth century, Every Valley tells the story behind the creation of Handel’s Messiah: a cinematic and moving drama of hope in the darkness and the entangled lives that shaped a masterpiece.

Millions of people know the name of the iconic country music artist, George Jones, but few people know that behind the man and his golden voice was a strong, feisty woman who not only saved his life from cocaine addiction, alcoholism, and other abusive and self-destructive behaviors, but also was instrumental in saving his soul. For the first time, in Playin' Possum, Nancy Jones reveals the true “insider” perspectives and little known poignant and as well as humorous stories about the country music icon.

The definitive, no-holds-barred oral history of 1990s alt-rock festival Lollapalooza―told by the musicians, roadies, and industry insiders who lived it. From the New York Times bestselling authors of Nothin’ But A Good Time.

Although Greenwich Village takes up less than a square mile in downtown New York, rarely has such a concise area supported and nurtured so many groundbreaking artists and genres. Musician used the Village’s smokey coffeehouses and clubs to chronicle the tumultuous Sixties, rewrite jazz history, and take rock & roll into eclectic places it hadn’t been before. Based on new interviews with surviving participants, previously unseen and unheard archives, and author David Browne's years immersed in the scene, Talkin’ Greenwich Village lends the saga the epic, panoramic scope it has long deserved.

Pete Crighton came of age in the early/mid 1980s in the shadow of HIV/AIDS. Growing up in Toronto, he was terrified that his friends and schoolmates would find out that he was “different” at a time when being gay felt like a death sentence. His only comfort was music, the songs a balm to his painful adolescence. Struggling to make sense of his sexuality and fear of the disease stifled Crighton as a sexual being. Instead of exploring sex, he began curating a massive music library.

Cello is a group biography that weaves together four narratives of cellists who suffered various forms of persecution, injury, and misfortune. Interwoven with their remarkable and often moving stories are a series of interludes that offer a foil to the group biographies. These examine the themes explored in the narratives from different perspectives, drawing together essay-like musings, historical research, personal experience, and the author’s many interviews and encounters with contemporary cellists.

Highways & Byways has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

And the Roots of the Rhythm Remain is like no other. It shows how personalities, events and politics in Havana, Lagos, Buenos Aires, Soweto, Rio and Seville are as colourful and fascinating as anything that took place in Storyville, Harlem, Laurel Canyon or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, r&b and rock 'n' roll would never have happened if it wasn't for sounds emanating from over the horizon and below the equator.

Of all the musical developments of rock in the 1960s, one in particular fundamentally changed the music's structure and listening experience: the incorporation of extended improvisation into live performances. While many bands—including Cream, Pink Floyd, and the Velvet Underground—stretched out their songs with improvisations, no band was more identified with the practice than the Grateful Dead. In Get Shown the Light Michael Kaler examines how the Dead's dedication to improvisation stemmed from their belief that playing in this manner enabled them to touch upon transcendence.

The unforgettable story, decades before Ted Lasso, of the real-life Watford Football Team, transformed into a powerhouse by coach Graham Taylor and owner Elton John.

After Baz Luhrmann’s movie, Elvis, hit theaters in the summer of 2022, audiences and critics alike couldn't help but question the Black origins of Elvis Presley’s music and style, reigniting a debate that has been circling for decades. In Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King​, author Preston Lauterbach answers these questions definitively, based on new research and extensive, previously unpublished interviews with the artists who blazed the way and the people who knew them.

Discovered at last, the legendary lost manuscript of Grateful Dead co-founder and primary lyricist Robert Hunter, written in the early 1960s-a wry, richly observed, and enlightening remembrance of "the scene" in Palo Alto that gave rise to an incredible partnership of Hunter and Jerry Garcia, and then to the Grateful Dead itself-with a Foreword by John Mayer, an Introduction by Dennis McNally, and an Afterword by Brigid Meier.

Eric Krasno Plus One is an interview-style series that brings listeners backstage and deep into the lives of incredible musicians. After twenty years on the road, Eric Krasno has spent time sharing stories with countless artists—and these conversations have become some of his most cherished memories. In Eric Krasno Plus One, the audience is invited to join moments like these in podcast form—topics range from early inspirations to discussions about the state of the music industry, to the challenges of life on the road, backstage shenanigans, and much more.

Eric Krasno Plus One is an interview-style series that brings listeners backstage and deep into the lives of incredible musicians. After twenty years on the road, Eric Krasno has spent time sharing stories with countless artists—and these conversations have become some of his most cherished memories. In Eric Krasno Plus One, the audience is invited to join moments like these in podcast form—topics range from early inspirations to discussions about the state of the music industry, to the challenges of life on the road, backstage shenanigans, and much more.