Browsing: book

“This book wrote itself,” says Cary Baker about ‘Down On The Corner: Adventures in Busking and Street Music.’ Reflecting on life’s transitions — from closing his PR firm to moving to the desert — he delves into the colorful, often untold stories of buskers, from icons like Elvis Costello to street performers like Grandpa Elliott.

He discusses his deep love for the written word, recounts a remarkable tale of Mick Jagger thanking Ramblin’ Jack Elliott for playing in a subway station during a school field trip, and more. It’s these serendipitous moments that make both Baker’s book and his career truly unique.

First book by music industry veteran Cary Baker traces development of blues, doo-wop, folk and even jazz and classical music on the streets. Features interviews with Lucinda Williams, Billy Bragg, Violent Femmes, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Mary Lou Lord, Peter Case, Poi Dog Pondering, Madeleine Peyroux, Old Crow Medicine Show, Mojo Nixon, Satan & Adam, and more, plus eyewitnesses of busking through two centuries.

Joel Selvin, author of 20 books on music and a veteran music journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle, supplies the back stories to more than 200 pages of Chris Strachwitz’s photographs that jump off the pages.

If Robert Johnson had lived long enough to play Carnegie Hall, renowned musicologist Scott Ainslie thinks we would have had rock and roll 10 years earlier than we did.

His books include Chicago Blues: Portraits and Stories, Southern Soul-Blues, Blues Legacy: Tradition and Innovation in Chicago, and Always the Queen: The Denise LaSalle Story.

The Byrds: 1964-1967, a new large-format 400-page book is out now via BMG. Curated by the band’s three surviving founding…

‘Whose Blues?’ empathetically confronts racial issues within the contemporary blues music community and blues music of the past. 

McLean has referred to the song as “an indescribable photograph of America that I tried to capture in words and music.” He is currently on a 50th Anniversary American World Pie World Tour that has him booked into 67 venues, and he’s also just released a children’s book called ‘American Pie: A Fable.’

Wightman brings to his memoir a lawyer’s attention to detail and a promoter’s understanding of the often-rare combination of artists with both talent and a viable fan base for that talent

Along with his partners Ken Irwin and Marian Leighton, Bill Nowlin built the world’s most prolific and unique indie record label