The definitive biography of guitar icon and Grammy Award-winning artist Bill Frisell. FEATURING EXCLUSIVE LISTENING SESSIONS WITH: Paul Simon; Justin Vernon of Bon Iver; Gus Van Sant; Rhiannon Giddens; The Bad Plus; Gavin Bryars; Van Dyke Parks; Sam Amidon; Hal Willner; Jim Woodring; Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill 'A beautiful and long overdue portrait of one of America's true living cultural treasures.' JOHN ZORN 'The perfect companion-piece to the music of its subject.' MOJO 'Outlines the subject's life in a series of scrupulous strokes and intimate interviews that are rare in such undertakings . . . a cool, casual victory.' IRISH TIMES Over a period of forty-five years, Bill Frisell has established himself as one of the most innovative and influential musicians at work today. A quietly revolutionary guitar hero for our genre-blurring times, he connects to a diverse range of artists and admirers, including Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens, Gus Van Sant and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, all of whom feature in this book. A vital addition to any music lover's book collection, Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer tells the legendary guitarist's story for the first time. 'Stuffed with musical encounters, so many that every couple of pages there's an unheard Frisell recording for the reader to chase down.' NEW YORKER ' Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer is the definitive biography.' BILL MILKOWSKI, DOWNBEAT 'Superb . . . the book races along like Sonny Rollins in full sail. Like subject, like writer: this is super-articulate, adventurous prose.' PERSPECTIVE '[Watson's] writing balances unbridled passion and dispassionate research nearly as deftly as Mr. Frisell's playing does sound and silence . . . compelling.' WALL STREET JOURNAL

Lifts the lid on an artistic ferment which has defied every known law of the music business.

Metallica: The $24.95 Book features an in-depth look at Metallica's cultural significance with chapters devoted to each member, each album, touring, fashion, books, film, influences, fandom, and more, exploring the band's ideologies along the way. With over 125 million records sold worldwide, Metallica is the biggest metal band of all time. Four decades into their unparalleled career, Metallica is a massive cultural force who drastically changed the sound of popular music by creating their own rules. Yet for all their popularity, Metallica can seem impenetrable, raising more questions and inspiring more discourse as their mythos grows. Metallica questions run deeper than what people find on the internet. Metallica questions deserve a book. Metallica, by dedicated fan and music journalist Ben Apatoff (including a foreword by What Are You Doing Here? author Laina Dawes), is that book, honoring Metallica’s history of fighting retail price gouging in the title. Metallica provides an in-depth look at the band and their music that both die-hard fans and Metallica beginners can enjoy.

The quintessential depiction of 1980s New York and the downtown scene from the artist, actor, musician, and composer John Lurie “A picaresque roller coaster of a story, with staggering amounts of sex and drugs and the perpetual quest to retain some kind of artistic integrity.”—The New York Times In the tornado that was downtown New York in the 1980s, John Lurie stood at the vortex. After founding the band The Lounge Lizards with his brother, Evan, in 1979, Lurie quickly became a centrifugal figure in the world of outsider artists, cutting-edge filmmakers, and cultural rebels. Now Lurie vibrantly brings to life the whole wash of 1980s New York as he developed his artistic soul over the course of the decade and came into orbit with all the prominent artists of that time and place, including Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry, Boris Policeband, and, especially, Jean-Michel Basquiat, the enigmatic prodigy who spent a year sleeping on the floor of Lurie’s East Third Street apartment. It may feel like Disney World now, but in The History of Bones, the East Village, through Lurie’s clear-eyed reminiscence, comes to teeming, gritty life. The book is full of grime and frank humor—Lurie holds nothing back in this journey to one of the most significant moments in our cultural history, one whose reverberations are still strongly felt today. History may repeat itself, but the way downtown New York happened in the 1980s will never happen again. Luckily, through this beautiful memoir, we all have a front-row seat.

Secrets of master guitarists, revealed in conversation. Guitar Talk offers interviews with many of the most creative guitarists of our time. This new book presents these conversations, between Joel Harrison and Nels Cline, Pat Metheny, Fred Frith, Bill Frisell, Julian Lage, Elliott Sharp, Michael Gregory Jackson, Ben Monder, Anthony Pirog, Henry Kaiser, Mike and Leni Stern, Vernon Reid, Mary Halvorson, Nguyên Le, Rez Abbasi, Ava Mendoza, Liberty Ellman, Brandon Ross, Wayne Krantz, Dave Fiuczynski, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Miles Okazaki, Sheryl Bailey, Rafiq Bhatia, and Ralph Towner—twenty-seven great guitarists in all. An enormous range of approaches and sounds exist in the modern guitar. The instrument can howl, scrape, scratch, scream, sing, pluck, and soothe. What stands out in this book is not so much the instrument itself, rather the wonderful and idiosyncratic personalities of these bold souls, their sometimes wild, often zigzagging, and ultimately profound journeys toward beauty, meaning, and excellence in their work. We find out that jazz icon Bill Frisell won a high school band contest playing R&B tunes, beating out future members of Earth Wind and Fire. We learn which of Nels Cline's compositions he wishes to have played at his funeral. Michael Gregory Jackson recounts painful episodes of racism as he stretched between the chasm of avant jazz, rock, and blues in the 1980s. Many more revelations, amusements, and philosophies abound.

Describes Winnicott's theories of child development, the mother-child relationship, and human sexuality.

Twelve characteristics of healthy Christian communities and the congregational and personal practices that develop them. Congregations have been the bedrock of mainline Christian life and practice for centuries but in recent years many have dwindled in energy and impact. Leaders conclude that change is needed, that they can’t keep applying the same models and practices that have served in the past but no longer seem to work. At a time when all kinds of institutions are being buffeted by swift and strong cultural forces, Brochard and Newton believe the congregation to be a primary site for the transformation of individuals, communities, and the world and that the measures for congregational vitality begin with health, faithfulness, and effectiveness as local expressions of the Church. The authors offer readers insights into developing a sense of purpose, building trust, encouraging curiosity, becoming more collaborative, appreciating productive conflict, and other vital skills.

Eileen Battersby is the chief literature critic of The Irish Times and is, in the words of John Banville, 'the finest fiction critic we have'. But her first full-length book is not about international literature or the state of the novel. It is about dogs. Two dogs in particular, with the unlikely names of Bilbo and Frodo. She adopted the first from a horrible dog pound, and the second decided he liked her and moved in to join the family. She was in her very early twenties, an intensely serious student and runner who had just moved to Ireland from California. The dogs became her most loyal companions for over twenty years, witnesses to an often difficult human life and more important to her than most other humans. This book is about two animals with personalities, emotions and prejudices. It is unlike any other book ever written about dogs. It is not sentimental or twee. Battersby became intimately involved in the lives of these intelligent, shrewd creatures, and brings them to life with rare passion and insight. She writes honestly and movingly about the reasons why, for certain people - especially women - there is more integrity in the mysterious relationship with a mammal who cannot speak than there is in most of the relationships that human society has to offer.

By age 16, Pat Martino was already working as a member of R&B star Lloyd Price's touring musical revue. By age 18, Martino moved to Harlem, where he quickly earned a reputation as a hard-bopping six-stringer with formidable chops through a series of apprenticeships with the likes of honking tenor saxophonist Willis “Gaitor Tail” Jackson and Hammond B-3 organ master Jack McDuff. Martino made his auspicious debut as a leader at age 22 with 1967's El Hombre on Prestige and followed with a string of potent recordings for the label that further established him as one of the most distinctive guitar voices on the jazz scene. Then, at the peak of his powers, the bottom fell out. In 1980, he underwent surgery as the result of a nearly fatal brain aneurysm. The surgery left him without any memory of the guitar or his musical career. From that point, Martino undertook the long process of recovery, eventually learning how to play the guitar again; but more important, learning to transcend the instrument itself and live his life completely in the moment. More than just the remarkable story of one of the most original and profoundly influential guitarists in jazz history, this extraordinarily revealing autobiography is also a survival manual, of sorts, in overcoming incredible adversity and learning to live in the here and now.

From the photographer of the critically acclaimed 108 Rock Star Guitarscomes a new collection of beautifully shot guitar photos, documenting the legendary instruments of B.B. King, Kurt Cobain, St. Vincent, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and more than one hundred and fifty icons of rock.