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Ain't Nobody's Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton
by Martha Ackmann
A larger-than-life ... biography of country music legend and philanthropist Dolly Parton, in which Martha Ackmann chronicles the life of an American original. From her impoverished childhood in the Smoky Mountains to international stardom as a singer, songwriter, actress, businesswoman, and philanthropist, Dolly Parton has exceeded everyone's expectations--except her own. Ain't Nobody's Fool is a deep dive into the social, historical, and personal forces that made Dolly Parton one of the most beloved and unifying figures in public life and includes interviews with friends, family members, school mates, Nashville neighbors, members of her band, studio musicians, producers, and many others. It also features never before seen photographs and unearthed documents shedding light on her family's hardscrabble life.
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Me and Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Family Band
by Willie Nelson
Abandoned by their parents as toddlers, Willie and Bobbie Nelson found their love of music almost immediately through their grandparents, who raised them in a dusty small town in east Texas. Their close relationship ... is the longest-lasting bond in either of their lives. In alternating chapters, this ... dual memoir weaves together their lives as they experienced them both side-by-side and apart with powerful, emotional stories from growing up, playing music in public for the first time, and the trials they each faced in adulthood as Willie pursued a songwriting career and Bobbie faced a series of challenging relationships and a musical career that only took off when attitudes about women began to change in Texas.
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Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A '90s Rock Memoir
by Melissa Auf Der Maur
A remarkably open-hearted, clear-eyed memoir of the '90s Alternative era by the bassist of Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins. Even the Good Girls Will Cry begins with Melissa Auf der Maur's bohemian upbringing in Montreal, where her early, deep connection to art and music gave her entry to the colorful and thriving local creative scene. Working as a cassette DJ and ticket girl, she would see (and sometimes meet) the luminaries who'd pass through town--Nirvana, Jane's Addiction, Pavement, Sonic Youth. Thanks to a thrown beer bottle and a long-shot fan letter to a PO Box, her band Tinker scored a life-changing opening slot for The Smashing Pumpkins and, sensing her natural talent on bass, Billy Corgan recommended her to Courtney Love, just one of the many uncanny threads that weaves destiny throughout this riveting memoir. Whisked from her local scene and thrust into the eye of a hurricane of grief on a global stage, Melissa joined Hole for the band's 1994 Live Through This world tour just after the deaths of Kurt Cobain and Hole's prior bassist, Kristen Pfaff, with Courtney Love at the center of it all. It was a tour of passionate intensity, as a chaotic yet stunningly powerful band constantly threatened to spin out of control. Melissa brings the reader with raging intimacy into the action, offering a heroic portrait of the unforgettable Courtney Love as she howled into the darkness as if to keep grief at bay. That was only the beginning of Melissa's journey through alternative rock. Part rock memoir, part travel diary, part psychedelic scrapbook, Even the Good Girls Will Cry is a behind-the-scenes rock 'n' roll memoir with a soulful intimacy and mystic undertone that sets it apart from memoirs by her peers. It is a vivid dispatch from the last analog decade, artistically capturing that bygone era in all its messy, angsty glory.
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All You Need Is Love: The Beatles in Their Own Words: Unpublished, Unvarnished, and Told by the Beatles and Their Inner Circle
by Peter Brown
An oral history of The Beatles from never-before-seen interviews. All You Need Is Love is a groundbreaking oral history of the one of the most enduring musical acts of all time. The material is comprised of intimate interviews with Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, their families, friends and business associates that were conducted by Beatles intimate Peter Brown and author Steven Gaines in 1980-1981 during the preparation of their international bestseller, The Love You Make, which spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list in 1983 and remains the biggest selling biography worldwide about the Beatles Only a small portion of the contents of these transcribed interviews have ever been revealed. The interviews are unique and candid. The information, stories, and experiences, and the authority of the people who relate to them, have historic value. No collection like this can ever be assembled again. In addition to interviews with Paul, Yoko, Ringo and George, Brown and Gaines also include interviews from ex-wives Cynthia Lennon, Pattie Harrison Clapton, and Maureen Starkey, as well as the major social and business figures of the Beatles' inner circle. Among other sought-after information the interviews contribute definitively as to why the Beatles broke up.
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Under a Rock: A Memoir
by Chris Stein
Debbie Harry defined iconic band Blondie's look. Chris Stein -- her performing partner, lover, and lifelong friend -- was its architect and defined its sound. 'Parallel Lines', their third album, catapulted to #1, sold 20 million copies, and launched singles like 'Heart of Glass', 'Rapture,' and 'One Way or Another', providing the beat when Bianca Jagger and Halston danced at Studio 54 and the soundtrack to every 1970's punk-soundtracked romance. Chris Stein knows how to tell a story. Under A Rock is his nothing-spared autobiography. It's about the founding of the band, ascending to the heights of pop success, and the hazards of fortune. Famous names march through these pages -- Warhol, Bowie, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and more -- but you can get famous names anywhere. What you can't get anywhere else is a plunge into the moments that made a giant 1980's artistic sensation.
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Brothers
by Alex Van Halen
In this intimate and open account--nothing like any rock-and-roll memoir you've ever read--Alex Van Halen shares his personal story of family, friendship, music and brotherly love in a remarkable tribute to his beloved brother and band mate, Edward Van Halen.Told with acclaimed New Yorker writer Ariel Levy, Brothers is seventy-year-old drummer Alex Van Halen's love letter to his younger brother, Edward, (Maybe Ed, but never Eddie), written while still mourning his untimely death.In his rough yet sweet voice, Alex recounts the brothers' childhood, first in the Netherlands and then in working class Pasadena, California, with an itinerant musician father and a very proper Indonesian-born mother--the kind of mom who admonished her boys to always wear a suit no matter how famous they became--a woman who was both proud and practical, nonchalant about taking a doggie bag from a star-studded dinner. He also shares tales of musical politics, infighting, and plenty of bad-boy behavior. But mostly his is a story of brotherhood, music, and enduring love.I was with him from day one, Alex writes. We shared the experience of coming to this country and figuring out how to fit in. We shared a record player, an 800 square foot house, a mom and dad, and a work ethic. Later, we shared the back of a tour bus, alcoholism, the experience of becoming successful, of becoming fathers and uncles, and of spending more hours in the studio than I've spent doing anything else in this life. We shared a depth of understanding that most people can only hope to achieve in a lifetime.There has never been an accurate account of them or their classic rock band, and Alex wants to set the record straight on Edward's life and death.Brothers includes never-before-seen photos from the author's private archives.This landmark music biography is the only book that tells the Van Halen story from the inside, straight from the heart: Brotherly Love: Follow Alex and Ed from an 800-square-foot house in Pasadena to the biggest stages in the world, sharing everything from a record player and a work ethic to the back of a tour bus.Setting the Record Straight: For the first time, Alex shares the accurate account of the band's formation, the musical politics, the infighting, and the real story of his brother's life and death.A Rock Family Story: Meet the itinerant musician father and the proper Indonesian-born mother who shaped the brothers, admonishing them to always wear a suit no matter how famous they became.An Intimate Tribute: Written in his own rough-yet-sweet voice while still in mourning, this is Alex's love letter to Ed, featuring never-before-seen photos from his private archives.
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From the Shadow of the Blues: My Story of Music, Addiction, and Redemption
by John Lee Hooker Jr
A powerful memoir of redemption from the son of blues legend John Lee Hooker. As a teenager, junior was featured attraction at his father's shows, but a broken childhood and drug addiction led to decades in and out of prisons. Emerging sober and finding the Lord, he launched a successful career as a Grammy-nominated artist and became a minister.
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Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina
by Chris Frantz
One of the most dynamic groups of the '70s and '80s, Talking Heads, founded by drummer Chris Frantz, his girlfriend Tina Weymouth, and lead singer David Byrne, burst onto the music scene, playing at CBGBs, touring Europe with the Ramones, and creating hits like Psycho Killer and Burning Down the House that captured the post-baby boom generation's intense, affectless style. In Remain in Love, Frantz writes about the beginnings of Talking Heads--their days as art students in Providence, moving to the sparse Chrystie Street loft Frantz, Weymouth, and Byrne shared where the music that defined an era was written. With never-before-seen photos and immersive vivid detail, Frantz describes life on tour, down to the meals eaten and the clothes worn--and reveals the mechanics of a long and complicated working relationship with a mercurial frontman. At the heart of Remain in Love is Frantz's love for Weymouth: their once-in-a-lifetime connection as lovers, musicians, and bandmates, and how their creativity surged with the creation of their own band Tom Tom Club, bringing a fresh Afro-Caribbean beat to hits like Genius of Love. Studded with memorable places and names from the era--Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, Stephen Sprouse, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, and Debbie Harry among them--Remain in Love is a frank and open memoir of an emblematic life in music and in love.
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Rebel girl: my life as a feminist punk
by Kathleen Hanna
The original rebel girl and legendary front woman of Bikini Kill, which embodied the punk scene of the 90s, shares how the relationships and friendships she developed during those years reminded her that, despite the odds, the punk world could still nurture and care for its own.
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The Lives of Brian: A Memoir
by Brian Johnson
One of SPIN'S Best Music Memoirs of 2022!Brian Johnson's memoir from growing up in a small town to starting his own band to ultimately replacing Bon Scott, the lead singer of one of the world biggest rock acts, AC/DC. They would record their first album together, the iconic Back in Black, which would become the biggest selling rock album of all time.Brian Johnson was born to a steelworker and WWII veteran father and an Italian mother, growing up in New Castle Upon Tyne, England, a working-class town. He was musically inclined and sang with the church choir. By the early '70s he performed with the glam rock band Geordie, and they had a couple hits, but it was tough going. So tough that by 1976, they disbanded and Brian turned to a blue-collar life.Then 1980 changed everything. Bon Scott, the lead singer and lyricist of the Australian rock band AC/DC died at 33. The band auditioned singers, among them Johnson, whom Scott himself had seen perform and raved about. Within days, Johnson was in a studio with the band, working with founding members Angus and Malcolm Young, Cliff Williams, and Phil Rudd, along with producer Mutt Lange.When the album, Back in Black, was released in July--a mere three months after Johnson had joined the band--it exploded, going on to sell 50 million copies worldwide, and triggering a years-long worldwide tour. It has been declared the biggest selling hard rock album ever made and the best-selling heavy-metal album in history.The band toured the world for a full year to support the album, changing the face of rock music--and Brian Johnson's life--forever.
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Cruel to Be Kind: The Life and Music of Nick Lowe
by Will Birch
The definitive biography of singer-songwriter Nick Lowe, best-known for Cruel to Be Kind and (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding Described as Britain's greatest living songwriter, Nick Lowe has made his mark as a pioneer of pub rock, power-pop, and punk rock and as a producer of Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, the Damned, and the Pretenders. He has been a pop star with his bands Brinsley Schwarz and Rockpile, a stepson-in-law to Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, and is the writer behind hits including Cruel to Be Kind and (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding. In the past decades, however, he has distinguished himself as an artist who is equally acclaimed for the second act of his career as a tender yet sharp-tongued acoustic balladeer. Biographer Will Birch, who in addition to being a music writer was a drummer and songwriter with The Records, has known Lowe for over forty years and melds Lowe's gift as a witty raconteur with his own authoritative analysis of Lowe's background and the cultural scenes he exemplifies. Lowe's parallel fame as one of the best interviews in the business will contribute to this first look into his life and work--and likely the closest thing fans will get to an autobiography by this notoriously charming cult figure.This is not an authorized biography, but Lowe has given it his spiritual blessing and his management and label are fully on board. Cruel to Be Kind will be the colorful yet serious account of one of the world's most talented and admired musicians.
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Madonna: A Rebel Life
by Mary Gabriel
In this riveting biography, award-winning author Mary Gabriel chronicles the meteoric rise and enduring influence of the greatest female pop icon of the modern era: Madonna.
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Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run
by Paul McCartney
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER-Financial Times: Best Books of 2025. We made what seemed like an impossible dream come true. --Paul McCartney
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The Rolling Stones: The Biography
by Bob Spitz
All great music is a threat. What left is there to say about The Rolling Stones? A hell of a lot, it turns out. Bob Spitz has brought his indefatigable energy and five decades of experiences in the fields and hollows of rock 'n' roll to bear on his five-year journey to reexamine one of popular music's greatest stories. There are myriad revisions to the conventional narrative which underscore just how in control of that narrative the band has been up to now--small example: no, Muddy Waters was not mopping the floors at Chess Records when the Stones showed up. But in a larger sense, as with the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, Spitz's greatest gift is for the big picture. He knows where the magic is, and why it is. He is as clear-eyed a connoisseur of the show business, the spectacle and the collateral damage of this whirlwind as anyone alive, and that lucid gaze pierces a lot of incrusted bullshit, but the ultimate goal is to connect with a creative force whose power shows no signs of fading, over sixty years on. At its heart the story is about two boys, Mick and Keith, and their unique, fraught, alchemical bond, often tested, never sundered. The Glimmer Twins. The bandmates, like Charlie Watts, who found their groove in relation to this double star made the trip intact, while those who struggled, like Brian Jones and Mick Taylor, were chewed up and spit out. This is a story with many dark corners, including a surprising number of deaths. But whether Jagger and Richards sold their souls to the devil is at the crossroads for blues greatness or just squeezed their heroes for every drop of inspiration, in the end their connection to their music and to each other put them in a category of one, where they very much remain.
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Billie Eilish
by Billie Eilish
The legendary recording artist shares an inside look at her life both on and off the stage through hundreds of never-before-seen photos.
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