This is the HARDBACK version. "This book brings back so many lovely and amusing memories of a sadly missed friend. She was unique and irreplaceable in so many ways. Joel has been thorough in his research, and his love and respect for Karen shine through. Love and thanks for the fun and the magic of her musical soul." -Petula Clark "An insightful look at the life of Karen Carpenter, a singing hero of mine. I had the pleasure of opening for the Carpenters in 1975, but it was more exciting that they recorded several of my songs, particularly 'Solitaire, ' which featured a breathtaking Karen vocal accompanied by Richard's magnificent orchestration. Mr. Samberg's book is a worthy tribute to her everlasting legacy as one of the great vocalists of all time." -Neil Sedaka The popularity of the Carpenters-Karen in particular-has never really waned. In fact, when you consider the online presence, documentaries, tributes and other projects, you might even say that an unofficial Carpenters revival has been brewing for years. Many remember the velvety voice that helped the Carpenters sell 100 million records, but not everyone knows that beyond the gifted singer was also a love-starved romantic, conflicted sister, obedient daughter, unpredictable jester, modest millionaire, optimistic dreamer, wannabe mother, emotional wreck, generous friend, and melancholy clown. How is it that someone whose stardom lasted just a dozen years, and who might have given it all up in a heartbeat, is still so beloved and still fascinates more than three decades after her untimely death?

"This book brings back so many lovely and amusing memories of a sadly missed friend. She was unique and irreplaceable in so many ways. Joel has been thorough in his research, and his love and respect for Karen shine through. Love and thanks for the fun and the magic of her musical soul." -Petula Clark "An insightful look at the life of Karen Carpenter, a singing hero of mine. I had the pleasure of opening for the Carpenters in 1975, but it was more exciting that they recorded several of my songs, particularly 'Solitaire, ' which featured a breathtaking Karen vocal accompanied by Richard's magnificent orchestration. Mr. Samberg's book is a worthy tribute to her everlasting legacy as one of the great vocalists of all time." -Neil Sedaka The popularity of the Carpenters-Karen in particular-has never really waned. In fact, when you consider the online presence, documentaries, tributes and other projects, you might even say that an unofficial Carpenters revival has been brewing for years. Many remember the velvety voice that helped the Carpenters sell 100 million records, but not everyone knows that beyond the gifted singer was also a love-starved romantic, conflicted sister, obedient daughter, unpredictable jester, modest millionaire, optimistic dreamer, wannabe mother, emotional wreck, generous friend, and melancholy clown. How is it that someone whose stardom lasted just a dozen years, and who might have given it all up in a heartbeat, is still so beloved and still fascinates more than three decades after her untimely death?

This is the HARDBACK version. "This book brings back so many lovely and amusing memories of a sadly missed friend. She was unique and irreplaceable in so many ways. Joel has been thorough in his research, and his love and respect for Karen shine through. Love and thanks for the fun and the magic of her musical soul." -Petula Clark "An insightful look at the life of Karen Carpenter, a singing hero of mine. I had the pleasure of opening for the Carpenters in 1975, but it was more exciting that they recorded several of my songs, particularly 'Solitaire, ' which featured a breathtaking Karen vocal accompanied by Richard's magnificent orchestration. Mr. Samberg's book is a worthy tribute to her everlasting legacy as one of the great vocalists of all time." -Neil Sedaka The popularity of the Carpenters-Karen in particular-has never really waned. In fact, when you consider the online presence, documentaries, tributes and other projects, you might even say that an unofficial Carpenters revival has been brewing for years. Many remember the velvety voice that helped the Carpenters sell 100 million records, but not everyone knows that beyond the gifted singer was also a love-starved romantic, conflicted sister, obedient daughter, unpredictable jester, modest millionaire, optimistic dreamer, wannabe mother, emotional wreck, generous friend, and melancholy clown. How is it that someone whose stardom lasted just a dozen years, and who might have given it all up in a heartbeat, is still so beloved and still fascinates more than three decades after her untimely death?

Karen Carpenter was the instantly recognisable lead singer of the Carpenters. The top-selling American musical act of the 1970s, they delivered the love songs that defined a generation. Karen's velvety voice on a string of 16 consecutive Top 20 hits from 1970 to 1976 – including Close to You, We've Only Just Begun, Rainy Days and Mondays, Superstar, and Hurting Each Other – propelled the duo to worldwide stardom and record sales of over 100 million. Karen's musical career was short – only 13 years. During that time, the Carpenters released 10 studio albums, toured more than 200 days a year, taped five television specials, and won three Grammys and an American Music Award. But that's only part of Karen's story. As the world received news of her death at 32 years of age in 1983, she became the proverbial poster child for anorexia nervosa. Little Girl Blue is an intimate profile of Karen Carpenter, a girl from a modest Connecticut upbringing who became a Superstar. Based on exclusive interviews with nearly 100 friends and associates, including record producers, studio musicians, songwriters, television directors, photographers, radio personalities, classmates, childhood friends, neighbours, personal assistants, romantic interests, hairdressers, and housekeepers.'...thorough and affectionate biography of a singer who's been constantly undervalued by the music industry.' MOJO 'Schmidt cannot be faulted... carefully factual, sensitively pitched book.' The Word 'The first truly convincing account of her nightmarish story.' The Guardian

This is the true story of one small boy, me, Will Sergeant, navigating the 60's and 70's, a woolly-back (hick) spawned one drunken night on the outskirts of a Nazi pocked and battered Liverpool, growing up with the spectre of WW2 still creeping about most adults padlocked minds. I trudge on into a piss wet 1970s, just as the pustules of teenage years approach popping point. It is a heady time of power cuts, strikes, flying pickets, bread shortages, skinhead gangs, IRA bomb scares, nuclear war fears, rock gigs, glam clothes, drowned motorbikes, explosives, dead-end jobs and the usual school lessons of chicken strangulation. With the help of music, I manage to navigate myself through the sinking sand of prog rock and into the safety of punk. My boots still muddy with a bad attitude, I head into the winter of discontent to become a post-punk trailblazer worshipped all over the world as a god. Well? An inventive and influential guitarist of some note at the very least.

"An album-by-album retrospective of the legendary duo's recordings. Randy L. Schmidt has assembled a team of commentators, journalists, authors, musicians, and other entertainment industry figures for a series of in-depth, insightful, and opinionated conversations on every release"--Back cover.

Using articles, interviews, essays, and reviews written by numerous pop journalists and historians, Schmidt provides insight into the music and lives of Karen and Richard Carpenter, one of the most successful pop music acts of the 1970s.

An intimate, coming-of-age memoir by legendary guitarist Kid Congo Powers, detailing his experiences as a young, queer Mexican-American in 1970s Los Angeles through his rise in the glam rock and punk rock scenes. Kid Congo Powers has been described as a “legendary guitarist and paragon of cool” with “the greatest resume ever of anyone in rock music." That unique imprint on rock history stems from being a member of not one but three beloved, groundbreaking, and influential groups—Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the Cramps, and last but not least, The Gun Club, the wildly inventive punk-blues band he co-founded. Some New Kind of Kick begins as an intimate coming of age tale, of a young, queer, Chicano kid, growing up in a suburb east of East LA, in the mid-‘70s, exploring his sexual identity through glam rock. When a devastating personal tragedy crushes his teenage dreams, he finds solace and community through fandom, as founder (‘The Prez’) of the Ramones West Coast fan club, and immerses himself in the delinquent chaos of the early LA punk scene. A chance encounter with another superfan, in the line outside the Whiskey-A-Go-Go to get into a Pere Ubu concert, changes the course of his life entirely. Jeffrey Lee Pierce, a misfit Chicano punk who runs the Blondie fan club, proposes they form a band. The Gun Club is born. So begins an unlikely transition from adoring fan to lauded performer. In Pierce, he finds brotherhood, a creative voice, and a common cause, but also a shared appetite for self-destruction that threatens to overwhelm them both. Quirky, droll, and heartfelt, with a pitch-perfect evocation of time and place, and a wealth of richly-drawn supporting characters, Some New Kind of Kick is a memoir of personal transformation, addiction and recovery, friendship and belonging, set against the relentless creativity and excess of the ’70s and ’80s underground music scenes.

Time-travel back to an era of Cadillac tail fins, T-Bird opera windows, jukeboxes, malt shops, and cottage country dance pavillions. The inside story of how 1950s rock and roll invaded Canada from the U.S. and set the stage for the British invasion of the 1960s.

When Kyon arrives at school, it seems like another average day--until he realizes Sasaki has wrapped North High in a closed space. Led to the SOS Brigade clubroom by Sasaki and Tachibana, Kyon knocks (just in case) and is surprised to find not a costumed Asahina, but instead a girl he's never seen before...and a very familiar face!