A fantastic reference book for all future and presently performing professionals. Contains helpful information about preparing your act, performing, vocal stamina and fatigue, selling yourself and making money!

Licia Fiol-Matta traces the careers of four iconic Puerto Rican singers—Myrta Silva, Ruth Fernández, Ernestina Reyes, and Lucecita Benítez—to explore how their voices and performance style transform the possibilities for comprehending the figure of the woman singer. Fiol-Matta shows how these musicians, despite seemingly intractable demands to represent gender norms, exercised their artistic and political agency by challenging expectations of how they should look, sound, and act. Fiol-Matta also breaks with conceptualizations of the female pop voice as spontaneous and intuitive, interrogating the notion of "the great woman singer" to deploy her concept of the "thinking voice"—an event of music, voice, and listening that rewrites dominant narratives. Anchored in the work of Lacan, Foucault, and others, Fiol-Matta's theorization of voice and gender in The Great Woman Singer makes accessible the singing voice's conceptual dimensions while revealing a dynamic archive of Puerto Rican and Latin American popular music.

At the top of her form and topping the charts, Rosemary Clooney looks back at a life of triumph and tragedy more dramatic than any work of fiction. Rosemary Clooney made her first public appearance at the age of three, on the stage of the Russell Theater in her hometown of Maysville, Kentucky, singing, "When Your Hair Has Turned to Silver," an odd but perhaps prophetic choice for one so young. She has been singing ever since: on local radio; with Tony Pastor's orchestra; in big-box-office Hollywood films; at the Hollywood Bowl, the London Palladium, and Carnegie Hall ; on her own television series; and at venues large and small across the country and around the world. The list of Clooney's friends and intimates reads like a who's who of show business royalty: Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, Tony Bennett, Janet Leigh, Humphrey Bogart, and Billie Holiday, to name just a few. She's known enormous professional triumphs and deep personal tragedies. At the age of twenty-five, Clooney married the erudite and respected actor Jose Ferrer, sixteen years her senior and light-years more sophisticated. Trouble started almost immediately when, on her honeymoon, she discovered that he had already been unfaithful. Finally, after having five children while she almost single-handedly supported the entire family and endured Ferrer's numerous, unrepentant infidelities, she filed for divorce. From there her life spiraled downward into depression, addiction to various prescription drugs, and then, in 1968, a breakdown and hospitalization. After years spent fighting her way back to the top, Clooney is married to one of her first and long-lost loves- a true fairy tale with a happy ending. She's been nominated for four Grammys in six years and has two albums at the top of the Billboard charts. In the words of one of Stephen Sondheim's Follies showgirls, she could well be singing, triumphantly, "I'm still here!"

You Oughta Be Me: How to Be a Lounge Singer and Live Like One is the hilarious guide to becoming a lounge singer, by none other than Bud E. Luv—lounge singer extraordinaire. Learn how to properly croon into a microphone and how to deal with adoring fans ("don't ever let them touch your hair"). The New York Times raves, "The humor is on target."

A singer once said "His pitch was right on the nose: his word enunciation letter perfect: his understanding of a song thorough. He will be missed very much, not only by myself, but by his fans all over the world." The singer was the legendary Frank Sinatra, the man he spoke about: Matt Monro. Matt Monro: The Singer's Singer, is the highly-anticipated story of one of Britain's most iconic singers, tracing Matt Monro's life from his poverty stricken upbringing in post-war Britain to his day job as London bus driver to the steady rise to fame that saw the singer battling the highs and lows of the entertainment industry to become one of Britain's best-loved entertainers. This is the man behind the image, the man who rubbed shoulders with some of the most famous names in the business, who recorded the very first James Bond theme song (From Russia with Love) and the international hits Softly as I Leave You, Born Free, Walk Away and Portrait of My Love. In an intimate portrait written by the singer's daughter, Michele Monro, and drawing on more than two hundred interviews from the most important characters in Matt's life, The Singer's Singer exposes the man behind the voice, telling the story of how Terry Parson overcame poverty, prejudice and alcoholism to arrive at the very heart of the post-war British entertainment industry as the unforgettable Matt Monro. Including never-before-seen photography, exclusive correspondence between Matt and some of the biggest names in the music business and a rich array of personal anecdotes, this is the first comprehensive look at the life of the man his peers dubbed 'the Singer's Singer', the irreplaceable Matt Monro.

The first time Chris Wild sees an electric guitar, it is as if he has found a long-lost friend. As soon as he touches the smooth surface of the guitar and his fingers wrap around its neck, his life changes forever. It is the mid-1950s in Australia when Chris realizes he possesses a musical gift and joins the teenage band, the Offenders never realizing he has just embarked on a life-spanning career. Forced to leave the Offenders behind when his family emigrates to Canada, Chris never hears that their first single has become an Australian chart-topping hit. In Canada, Chris receives no support for his musical talents and reluctantly studies to become an architectural technician. While assisting with the design of a recording studio, his innate musical gift is revealed during a solo midnight session overheard by the studio executives. Suddenly, Chris is launched back into the musical world and into a life of stardom. As he inspires thousands all over the world with his new album, Chris's old girlfriend from Australia resurfaces and he must determine how to reconcile his original muse, April, with his new lover, Sarah. Fate can be capricious, especially when someone lives in two different worlds.

Anthony Jahn, M.D., internationally-acclaimed for his work as an "opera doctor" with some of the most prestigious opera companies in the world, brings together some of the profession's greatest doctors, performers, and instructors in a thorough and comprehensible guidebook on all aspects of health and disease that affect the voice.

Revised and expanded, A Performer's Guide to Seventeenth Century Music is a comprehensive reference guide for students and professional musicians. The book contains useful material on vocal and choral music and style; instrumentation; performance practice; ornamentation, tuning, temperament; meter and tempo; basso continuo; dance; theatrical production; and much more. The volume includes new chapters on the violin, the violoncello and violone, and the trombone—as well as updated and expanded reference materials, internet resources, and other newly available material. This highly accessible handbook will prove a welcome reference for any musician or singer interested in historically informed performance.

The philosophy of Child Honouring is captured in this anthology of essays by leading child advocacy proponents. The introduction by Raffi and foreword by the Dalai Llama focus on the importance of looking at the world and the future through the lens of "what's best for kids is what's best for us all." Contributors from across many disciplines include renowned child development author Penelope Leach, Nobel Prize nominee Lloyd Axworthy, celebrated cultural historian Riane Eisler, bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver, and ecological economist Ron Colman.

Provides an introduction to the life and biography of Gloria Estefan, the Cuban-born singer and entertainer.