I STARTED OUT WITH NOTHIN', AND I’VE STILL GOT MOST OF IT LEFT'. It remains one of the most remarkable breakthroughs in music history. Until New Year's Eve, 2006, former hobo Steven Gene Wold, a 65 year-old blues musician, playing a beat-up, three-string guitar (aka The Three-String Trance Wonder, or 'the biggest piece of shit in the world') and stomping on a wooden box with a Mississippi motorcycle plate stuck on (aka The Mississippi Drum Machine), was hardly known outside his tiny community of fans. That performance of 'Dog House Boogie' before Jools Holland and his dumbstruck Hootenanny audience projected Seasick Steve into the big league. Dog House Music sold out overnight. 2007 brought a MOJO, Reading and Glastonbury, and 2008 worldwide success and his major label debut. The rest, as they say, is history. Behind this unique and authentic performer's rise is sixty-five years of fascinating life story: he left home at thirteen to escape his stepfather's beatings, and his professional career only began after decades on the road. But blues guitar was in his blood: he learned from blues legend KC Douglas in his grandfather's garage. Part of Steve, the hollerin', stompin' blues, and the gorgeous homemade guitars (Jeremy Clarkson described Steve's Morris Minor hubcap instrument as the best use of a Morris Minor ever) is magical musical history. But he's also a modern, versatile musician, who can rock as hard as Dave Grohl, and who's rubbed shoulders with the likes of Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell and Kurt Cobain. Larger than life, and a legend in his own lifetime – an incredible true story, told in this, the first full biography of Seasick Steve.

Listen to the Blues! Exploring A Musical Genre provides an overview of this distinctly American musical genre for fans of the blues and curious readers alike, with a focus on 50 must-hear artists, albums, and subgenres. Unlike other books on the blues, which tend to focus on musician biographies, Listen to the Blues! devotes time to the compositions, recordings, and musical legacies of blues musicians from the early 20th century to the present. Although the author references musical structure, harmony, form, and other musical concepts, the volume avoids technical language; therefore, it is a volume that should be of interest to the casual blues fan, to students of blues music and its history, and to more serious blues fans. The chapters on the impact of the blues on popular culture and the legacy of the blues also put the genre in a broader historical context than what is found in many books on the blues. The book opens with a background chapter that provides an overview of the history and structure of blues music. A substantial, encyclopedic chapter that focuses on 50 must-hear blues musicians follows, as does a chapter that explores the impact on popular culture of blues music and musicians and a chapter that focuses on the legacy of the genre. A bibliography rounds out the work.

The hidden meanings of the Beatles’ most esoteric lyrics and sounds are revealed by a rare insider who spent two decades with the man who made “meditation,” “mantra,” and “yoga” household words: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. “I absolutely love this book. Between the stories and the pictures, many I’ve not seen before, this is truly a spiritual journey.” —Chris O’Dell, author of Miss O’Dell, My Hard Days and Long Nights with The Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan, and the Women They Loved The spiritual journey of the Beatles is the story of an entire generation of visionaries in the sixties who transformed the world. The Beatles turned Western culture upside down and brought Indian philosophy to the West more effectively than any guru. The Inner Light illumines hidden meanings of the Beatles’ India-influenced lyrics and sounds, decoded by Susan Shumsky—a rare insider who spent two decades in the ashrams and six years on the personal staff of the Beatles’ mentor, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. “With clarity, depth, and impeccable research, an exceptionally comprehensive book filled with engaging tales and fresh insights that even diehard Beatles fans will find illuminating.” —Philip Goldberg, author of American Veda: From Emerson and The Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West This eye-opening book draws back the curtain on the Beatles’ experiments with psychedelics, meditation, chanting, and Indian music. Among many shocking revelations never before revealed, we discover who invented "raga rock" (not the Beatles), the real identity of rare Indian instruements and musicians on their tracks, which Beatle was the best meditator (not George), why the Beatles left India in a huff, John and George’s attempts to return, Maharishi’s accurate prediction, and who Sexy Sadie, Jojo, Bungalow Bill, Dear Prudence, Blackbird, My Sweet Lord, Hare Krishna, and the Fool on the Hill really were. “This book reminds us in illuminating fashion why Susan is the premier thinker about India’s key influence upon the direction of the Beatles’ art. In vivid and stirring detail, she traces the Fabs’ spiritual awakening from Bangor to Rishikesh and beyond.” —Kenneth Womack, author of John Lennon 1980: The Last Days in the Life Half a century later, the Beatles have sold more records than any other recording artist. A new generation wants to relive the magic of the flower-power era and is now discovering the message of this iconic band and its four superstars. For people of all nations and ages, the Beatles’ mystique lives on. The Inner Light is Susan Shumsky’s gift to their legacy.

The Global Southern Music Issue enhanced eBook includes all the tracks on Traveling Shoes, our special free CD and: The South meets Senegal as hip-hop goes Trans-Atlantic. Hawaiian steel guitar sways the Southern musical landscape. Poet Allen Ginsberg and bluesman James "Son" Thomas trade verses. Aussie Elvis impersonators keep the king alive. A U.K. scholar offers a new perspective on the study of the blues. Music pirates keep alive another tradition of bootlegging in the South. And much more. Southern Cultures is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, winter) by the University of North Carolina Press. The journal is sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for the Study of the American South.

This book explores the diversity of meanings that accrue around the terms 'hobo', 'tramp', and 'vagabond'.

(Guitar Recorded Versions). 16 songs transcribed note for note from the live album that captured Joe's tribute to Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf at the iconic Colorado theater. Includes: All Aboard * The Ballad of John Henry * Evil (Is Going On) * Hey Baby (New Rising Sun) * How Many More Years * I Can't Be Satisfied * Killing Floor * My Home Is on the Delta * Sloe Gin * You Shook Me * and more.

Tom Waits, even with his barnyard growl and urban hipster yawp, may just be what the Daily Telegraph calls him: &“the greatest entertainer on Planet Earth.&” Over a span of almost four decades, he has transformed his music and persona not to suit the times but his whims. But along with Bob Dylan, he stands as one of the last elder statesmen still capable of putting out music that matters. Journalists intent upon cracking the code are more likely to come out of a Waits interview with anecdotes about the weather, insects, or medieval medicine. He is, in essence, the teacher we wished we had, dispensing insights such as: &“Vocabulary is my main instrument;&” &“We all like music, but what we really want is for music to like us;&” &“Anything you absorb you will ultimately secrete;&” &“Growth is scary, because you're a seed and you're in the dark and you don't know which way is up, and down might take you down further into a darker place . . .;&” and &“There is no such thing as nonfiction. . . . People who really know what happened aren't talking. And the people who don't have a clue, you can't shut them up.&” Tom Waits on Tom Waits is a selection of over fifty interviews from the more than five hundred available. Here Waits delivers prose as crafted, poetic, potent, and haunting as the lyrics of his best songs.

This collection surveys the contemporary landscape of audiovisual media. Contributors from image and sound studies explore the history and the future of moving-image media across a range of formats including blockbuster films, video games, music videos, social media, experimental film, documentaries, video art, pornography, theater, and electronic music.

First published in 1965 by Cassell and Co, this classic and unique text in blues history, Conversation with the Blues has now been re-issued in a new, larger format. The book takes a slice across blues traditions of all kinds, which were still thriving side by side in 1960. Compiled from transcriptions of interviews with blues singers made by Paul Oliver in 1960, the book tells in the singers' own words of the significance of their music and the turbulent lives it reflects. It is accompanied by a fascinating CD, slipcased on the inside back cover of the book, which captures the stark, ironic but moving narratives of the singers themselves. Included are guitarists, pianists and other instrumentalists from the rural South and the urban North, from famous blues singers who recorded extensively to singers known only to their local communities. Copiously illustrated with Paul Oliver's photographs, the book provides a rare glimpse of African American music at a time when the South was still segregated.

One of the greatest collections of acoustic guitar songs, all in one book, The Great Acoustic Guitar Chord Songbook contains over 100 classic favourites, all authentically arranged for Guitar with full lyrics and chord boxes! As well as offering superb value for money, this is an absolute must-have for any working or busking guitarist's collection.The songlist includes: - A Little Respect [Wheatus] - American Pie [Don Mclean] - Angels [Robbie Williams] - Angie [The Rolling Stones] - Faith [George Michael] - Forever Young [Bob Dylan] - God Only Knows [The Beach Boys] - Half The World Away [Oasis] - Have A Nice Day [Stereophonics] - In My Life [The Beatles] - Ironic [Alanis Morissette] - Jolene [Dolly Parton] - Killing Me Softly With His Song [Roberta Flack] - Space Oddity [David Bowie] - Stuck In The Middle With You [Stealers Wheel] - The Man Who Sold The World [Nirvana] - The Sound Of Silence [Simon & Garfunkel] - Torn [Natalie Imbruglia] - Waterloo Sunset [The Kinks] - Why Does It Always Rain On Me? [Travis] - Wichita Lineman [Glen Campbell] - Wild World [Cat Stevens] - Woodstock [Joni Mitchell] And many, many more