A “fascinating, intimate” oral history of the golden age of the rock concert based on nearly 100 interviews with musicians, fans, and others (Publishers Weekly). Decades after the rise of rock music in the 1950s, the rock concert retains its power as a unifying experience—and as a multi-billion-dollar industry. In Rock Concert, acclaimed music writer Marc Myers delves into the history of this cultural phenomenon, weaving together ground-breaking accounts from the people who were there. Myers combines the tales of icons like Joan Baez, Ian Anderson, Alice Cooper, Steve Miller, Roger Waters, and Angus Young with the disc jockeys, audio engineers, and music journalists, and promoters who organized it all, like Michael Lang, co-founder of Woodstock, to create a rounded and vivid account of live rock’s stratospheric rise. Rock Concert offers a backstage view of rock ‘n’ roll as it evolved through live performance—from the rise of R&B in the 1950s, to the hippie gatherings of the ‘60s, and the growing arena tours of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Elvis Presley’s gyrating hips, the “British Invasion” of the Beatles, the Grateful Dead’s free flowing jams, and Pink Floyd’s The Wall are just a few of the defining musical acts that drive this rich narrative.

A rip-roarin’, rock ’n’ roll picture book by international music star Kevin Jonas and his wife, Danielle Jonas, about the joy of music, the power of family, and facing your fears. Emma loves music. She loves the boom boom boom of a good bass beat. She loves the stomp stomp stomp her feet make when she dances. She loves to rock out with her mom, her dad, and her little sister. And she loves to twang, strum, and thrum on her guitar. So when the sign-up sheet for the school talent show is posted, she adds her name right away! But the more Emma hears about the amazing talents her classmates will bring, the more nervous she gets. What if her guitar playing is more of a plink, plonk, squeak? She’s suffering from a bad case of stage fright, and it’s up to her family to show her that performing can be fun too, and that she’s already a star.

The definitive book on The Station nightclub fire on the 10th anniversary of the disaster

“A winning look at the stories behind 45 pop, punk, folk, soul and country classics” in the words of Mick Jagger, Stevie Wonder, Cyndi Lauper and more (The Washington Post). Every great song has a fascinating backstory. And here, writer and music historian Marc Myers brings to life five decades of music through oral histories of forty-five era-defining hits woven from interviews with the artists who created them, including such legendary tunes as the Isley Brothers’ Shout, Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love, Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz, and R.E.M’s Losing My Religion. After receiving his discharge from the army in 1968, John Fogerty did a handstand—and reworked Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to come up with Proud Mary. Joni Mitchell remembers living in a cave on Crete with the mean old daddy who inspired her 1971 hit Carey. Elvis Costello talks about writing (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes in ten minutes on the train to Liverpool. And Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Rod Stewart, the Clash, Jimmy Cliff, Roger Waters, Stevie Wonder, Keith Richards, Cyndi Lauper, and many other leading artists reveal the emotions, inspirations, and techniques behind their influential works. Anatomy of a Song is a love letter to the songs that have defined generations of listeners and “a rich history of both the music industry and the baby boomer era” (Los Angeles Times Book Review).

The conventional way of understanding what musicians do as performers is to treat them as producers of sound; some even argue that it is unnecessary to see musicians in performance as long as one can hear them. But musical performance, counters Philip Auslander, is also a social interaction between musicians and their audiences, appealing as much to the eye as to the ear. In Concert: Performing Musical Persona he addresses not only the visual means by which musicians engage their audiences through costume and physical gesture, but also spectacular aspects of performance such as light shows. Although musicians do not usually enact fictional characters on stage, they nevertheless present themselves to audiences in ways specific to the performance situation. Auslander’s term to denote the musician’s presence before the audience is musical persona. While presence of a musical persona may be most obvious within rock and pop music, the book’s analysis extends to classical music, jazz, blues, country, electronic music, laptop performance, and music made with experimental digital interfaces. The eclectic group of performers discussed include the Beatles, Miles Davis, Keith Urban, Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Frank Zappa, B. B. King, Jefferson Airplane, Virgil Fox, Keith Jarrett, Glenn Gould, and Laurie Anderson.

Readers for Teens provide engaging fictional stories with important themes for young learners of American English. Twelve-year-old Monique has a band with four of her friends. She also has an e-pal in India. One day, there is a big flood in India. Monique's band gives a concert to raise money to help the people in India. The concert is a big success, so the band decides to have a concert for charity every month. This reader is about 1400 words long.

The Arena Concert: Music, Media and Mass Entertainment is the first sustained engagement with what might said to be - in its melding of concert and gathering, in its evolving relationship with digital and social media, in its delivery of event, experience, technology and star - the art form of the 21st century. This volume offers interviews with key designers, discussions of the practicalities of mounting arena concerts, mixing and performing live to a mass audience, recollections of the giants of late twentieth century music in performance, and critiques of latter-day pretenders to the throne. The authors track the evolution of the arena concert, consider design and architecture, celebrity and fashion, and turn to feminism, ethnographic research, and ideas of humour, liveness and authenticity, in order to explore and frame the arena concert. The arena concert becomes the “real time” centre of a global digital network, and the gig-goer pays not only for an immersion in (and, indeed, role in) its spectacular nature, but also for a close encounter with the performers, in this contained and exalted space. The spectacular nature of the arena concert raises challenges that have yet to be fully technologically overcome, and has given rise to a reinvention of what live music actually means. Love it or loathe it, the arena concert is a major presence in the cultural landscape of the 21st century. This volume finds out why.

Tens of thousands of Americans die from substance abuse and suicide each year. Millions more suffer from mental health disorders. Rock to Recovery -- an innovative, therapeutic music program serving more than one hundred addiction treatment and mental health facilities in the USA -- steps into the breach to offer participants help and hope. By writing, playing, and recording music as a group, non-musicians are able to build a community of support, find enthusiasm for treatment, and realize that recovery is possible. Veterans, trauma survivors, and those struggling with substance abuse or mental health issues can recover with connection. This book contains eighteen stories of people who have used Rock to Recovery's music program to live a better life. You too can use music to heal. "Music Is the Medicine!"

"Waksman brings a new understanding to familiar material by treating it in an original and stimulating manner. This book tells 'the other side of the story.'"—Philip Auslander, author of Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music "While there are a number of histories of punk and metal and numerous biographies of important bands within each genre, there is no comparable book to This Ain't the Summer of Love. The ultimate contribution the book makes is to provoke the reader into rethinking the ongoing fluid relationship between punk, a music that enjoyed considerable critical support, and metal, a music that has been systematically denigrated by critics. This book is the product of superior scholarship; it truly breaks fresh ground and as such it is an important book that will be regularly cited in future work."—Rob Bowman, Professor of Music at York University and author of Soulsville USA: The Story of Stax Records "Debunking simplistic assumptions that punk rebelled and heavy metal conformed, Steve Waksman demonstrates with precisely chosen examples that for decades the two shared strategies and concerns. As a result, this important volume is among the first to extend to rock history the same much-needed revisionism that elsewhere has transformed our understanding of minstrelsy, blues, country music, and pop."—Eric Weisbard, author of Use Your Illusion I & II

This book provides facts and statistics about the economics of rock concerts, covering such topics as cost breakdowns, fan demand, and branding.