Booked On Rock

Jude Southerland Kessler, the world’s leading authority on the life of John Lennon, will release Volume 5 in "The John Lennon Series" titled "Shades of Life Part 1". "Shades of Life Part 1" follows The Beatles through the first half of 1965, including the making of the "Help!" movie and soundtrack, their European Tour, The Beatles' MBE nomination and the first fissure in The Beatles unity as Paul...

When rock legend Eddie Van Halen died of cancer on October 6, 2020, the entire world seemed to stop and grieve. Since his band Van Halen burst onto the scene with their self-titled debut album in 1978, Eddie had been hailed as an icon not only to fans of rock music and heavy metal, but to performers across all genres and around the world. Van Halen’s debut sounded unlike anything that listeners ha...

With extensive, first-hand reflections from Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart, as well as from family, friends, and fellow musicians, "Anthem: Rush in the ’70s" is a detailed portrait of Canada’s greatest rock ambassadors. The first of three books in the "Rush Across The Decades" series, "Anthem" puts the band’s catalog, from their self-titled debut to 1978’s 'Hemispheres' into both Canadian...

"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...

From their earliest gig in a Denmark school gymnasium on September 7, 1968, through to the last gig that Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones ever performed with John Bonham, in Berlin on July 7, 1980, this is the Led Zeppelin story told from where their legend was forged—live on stage. Deploying impeccable research spread over many years, Dave Lewis and Mike Tremaglio bring clarity, auth...

Was John Lennon meeting Paul McCartney more significant than John Lennon meeting Yoko Ono? 'Rubber Soul' or 'Revolver'? Which Wings album was Paul McCartney’s solo pinnacle? In 100 brief chapters, John M. Borack discusses and ranks the greatest moments in Beatles history. An avid Fab Four fan since childhood and a music journalist for more than thirty-five years, Borack has created a book to agree...

Throughout the 1990s, Dave Thompson was the Seattle-based contributing editor to Alternative Press magazine—America's biggest-selling and most influential alternative rock monthly—and a regular contributor to other publications both nationally and internationally. Throughout this decade, grunge music ruled the world and Seattle was its birthplace and focal point. Thompson was an eyewitness to it a...

If Genesis, according to British comedian and fan, Al Murray "were the progressive rock band who progressed", then Peter Gabriel, once solo, would be the one who progressed the most. Who would have thought listening to early Genesis would eventually take the listener to Senegal, Armenia, South Africa and beyond via the artistic endeavors of their former vocalist? This is a journey through Peter Ga...

It all started in London. More than fifty years ago, a generation of teens created something that would change the face of music forever. London, Reign Over Me immerses us in the backroom clubs, basement record shops, and late-night faint radio signals of 1960s Britain, where young hopefuls like Peter Frampton, Dave Davies, and Mick Jagger built off American blues and jazz to form a whole new soun...

There is a common misconception about KISS, one of the greatest hard-rock/heavy metal-bands of all-time: that their ‘non-makeup’ era of 1983-1996 is not as enduring as the period when they stalked stages as the Starchild, the Demon, the Spaceman, and the Cat. This is untrue. In fact, this period helped resuscitate KISS’s career, as they reestablished themselves in arenas, on the charts, and via MT...

At the Hollywood Bowl, California on September 25th 2017 the final song of the final concert of the Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers 40th Anniversary tour was, almost inevitably, "American Girl", the classic from the bands 1976 debut album. Seven days later Thomas Earl Petty was dead. When Petty died, we lost one of the great singer-songwriters of our era. His songs touch people of all ages and posse...

Prince Rogers Nelson was a musical phenomenon who constantly reinvented himself throughout his long and colorful career, changing his style and even his name to keep his artistic output fresh and funky. Eccentric and flamboyant with an impressive vocal range, Prince influenced many other musicians with his trademark mix of funk, rock and R&B. In addition to his remarkable musical output, Prince he...

The Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet from 1968 is one of the seminal albums in rock history. Arguably it not only marks the advent of the ‘mature’ sound of the Rolling Stones but lays out a new blueprint for an approach to blues-based rock music that would endure for several decades. From its title to the dark themes that pervade some of its songs, "Beggars Banquet" reflected and helped define a mo...

"Two Steps Forward, One Step Back" tells the extraordinary story of a maverick manager, promoter, label owner, and all-round legend of the music industry. It opens in the Middle East, where Miles grew up with his father, a CIA agent who was stationed in Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon. It then shifts to London in the late 60s and the beginnings of a career managing bands like Wishbone Ash and Curved Air...

The 1970s was the decade that saw the arrival of Alice Cooper as a major force across the media. In "Alice Cooper in the 1970s" Chris Sutton explores the story of Alice Cooper the band and Alice the solo performer from their early years through to the end of the decade. A roller-coaster ride of classic albums and singles, the songs recorded in the 1970s still dominate his live sets to this day. Th...

George Harrison and Eric Clapton embarked upon a singular personal and creative friendship that impacted rock's unfolding future in resounding and far-reaching ways. "All Things Must Pass Away: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Other Assorted Love Songs" will trace the emergence of their relationship from 1968 though the early 1970s. In particular, authors Womack and Kruppa devote close attention...

In this behind-the-scenes look at the making of Fleetwood Mac’s epic, platinum-selling double album, 'Tusk', producers and engineers Ken Caillat and Hernan Rojas tell their stories of spending a year with the band in their new million-dollar studio trying to follow up 'Rumours', the biggest rock album of the time. Following their massive success, the band continued its infamous soap opera when its...

"Leonard, Marianne, and Me" chronicles forty years of Judy Scott's frequent summers on the Greek island of Hydra with a diverse artistic community and her friendship with singer-songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen and his legendary muse Marianne Ihlen. This memoir, based on Scott’s notebooks and journals, includes incidents in their lives and their relationship to one another—at a point when it was...

"Chairman at the Board" is an intimate, funny, and absorbing look at the music business by an insider who has recorded a host of the greatest musical artists from the 1970s to today. Bill Schnee takes the reader inside the studio—behind the curtain—and through the decades with a cavalcade of famous artists as he helped them to realize their vision. After his high school band was dropped by Decca R...

"Hold On World" revisits John Lennon and Yoko Ono's love affair and startling collaborations. 'John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band' was arguably the most emotionally honest album ever made. It wasn't merely another record but more like a sonic exorcism, a spiritual, public bloodletting. Lennon's album drove a stake through the heart of the Beatles' myth while confronting everything else in John's life,...

In "Babysitting A Band On The Rocks", G.D. Praetorius tells the story of a chaotic youth producing concerts during the late 1970s and early 1980s, the summit of rock god excess. He offers humorous and insightful reflections on the excitement and insanity of the era from the eyes and ears of a fan who hit the jackpot, leaping from the back row to backstage, promoting, pacifying and occasionally par...

The year 1979 was an amazing time for UK post-punk pop. At the end of March, a fresh new sound entered the British top 20. "Sultans of Swing", a very wordy song with lots of driving guitar, a tight rhythm section and some killer musicianship. Dire Straits, unlikely pop stars led by a balding 29-year-old Geordie who could play guitar brilliantly, had finally arrived. Six years later, they were, for...

The conclusion to the definitive biography of the rock ’n’ roll kings of the North. "Rush In The 90s" includes two full-colour photo inserts, with unearthed photos of the band. In this conclusion to his trilogy of authoritative books on Canada’s most beloved and successful rock band, Martin Popoff takes us through three decades of “life at the top” for Rush’s Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Pear...

This week the late great Levon Helm of The Band would have turned 81. He was born May 26th, 1940 in Elaine Arkansas. He sadly passed away in April of 2012. This is an interview I did for my last podcast DISCovery. It’s with author Sandra B. Tooze, who released a book last summer on Levon. The book is called "Levon: From Down in the Delta to the Birth of The Band and Beyond". He sang the anthems of...

Throughout the remarkable twenty-two-year career of the Ramones the seminal punk rock band, Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famers, Recording Academy Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners and inductees into The Library of Congress' National Recording Registry, Monte A. Melnick saw it all. He was the band's tour manager from their 1974 CBGB debut to their final show in 1996. In his book "On The Road With...