Search results for ""Globe Pequot""

"Bill Westbrook's follow-up to The Bermuda Privateer is buoyed by details of history and seamanship that will delight any fan of saltwater yarns and explosive action."—Broos Campbell author of the Matty Graves Novels That dashing British privateer Nicholas Fallon is back again, helping himself to a fistful of mayhem in The Black Ring . The year is 1798. The African slave trade is in brutal flower, and the great powers are fighting for control of the Caribbean's immensely profitable sugar plantations. Nico, meanwhile, has been trying his damnedest to become a salt merchant under Ezra Somers, father of the beautiful Elinore. But when an urgent request arrives from Admiral Davies of the Leeward Island Station, Ezra and Elinore give Nico their blessing to head off in search of plunder and adventure. Sailing aboard the American-built topsail schooner Rascal , Nico takes on the job of slipping a secret agent into Cuba, but soon becomes entangled in numerous dangers—or opportunities, as he likes to call them. There's an escaped slave trying to burn every stalk of sugarcane in Cuba, a pirate running riot with a flotilla of "little wolves," an admiral's lady that needs a bit of rescuing, and a French plot that threatens Britain's very presence in the islands.

Read more less

JAMES BOND AND THE SIXTIES SPY CRAZE

Read more less

On November 20, 1983, a three-hour made-for-TV movie The Day After premiered on ABC. Set in the heartland of Lawrence, Kansas, the film depicted the events before, during, and after a Soviet nuclear attack with vivid scenes of the post-apocalyptic hellscape that would follow. The film was viewed by over 100 million Americans and remains the highest rated TV movie in history. After the premiere, ABC News aired an episode of Viewpoint, a live special featuring some of the most prominent public intellectuals of the debating the virtues of the Arms Race and the prospect of a winnable nuclear war. The response to the film proved more powerful than perhaps any film or television program in the history of media. Aside from its record-shattering Nielsen ratings, it enjoyed critical acclaim as well as international box office success in theatrical screenings.The path to primetime for The Day After proved nearly as treacherous as the film’s narrative. Battles ensued behind the scenes at the network, between the network and the filmmakers, with Broadcast Standards and Ad Sales, in the edit room and on the set, including the “nuke-mares” experienced by the cast. After the director was pushed aside, he contemplated suicide while also engineering a comeback through the press. But these skirmishes pale in comparison to the culture wars triggered by the film in the press, alongside a growing Nuclear Freeze movement, and from a united, pro-nuclear Right. Once efforts to alter the script failed, the White House conducted a full-throttled propaganda campaign to hijack the film’s message.Before The Day After features a dramatic insider’s account of the making of and backlash against The Day After. No other book has told this story in similar fashion, venturing behind-the-scenes of the programming and news divisions at ABC, Reagan officials in the White House who mounted the propaganda campaign, rogue publicists who hijacked the film to promote a Nuclear Freeze, the backlash from the conservative movement and Religious Right, the challenges encountered by film’s production team from conception to reception, and the experiences of the citizens of Lawrence, Kansas, where the film was set and shot, if also, ground zero in America’s nuclear heartland.

Read more less

UNBREAKABLE: THE ENDURING LEGACY OF BRUCE WILLIS ON FILM

Read more less

Bea Arthur as the owner of the Mos Eisley Cantina. Long scenes entirely of Wookies bleating at each other, without subtitles. Harvey Korman, in drag, as a four-armed Space Julia Child. Six minutes of Jefferson Starship performing for Art Carney and a bored Imperial Guard. Mark Hamill, fresh from his near-fatal motorcycle accident, slathered in pancake makeup. A salacious holographic burlesque from Diahann Carroll.Even by the standards of the 1970s, even compared to Jar-Jar Binks, the legendary 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special is a peerlessly cringeworthy pop-culture artifact. George Lucas, who completely disowned the production, reportedly has said, “If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it.” Just how on earth did this thing ever see the light of day?To answer that question, as Steven Kozak shows in this fascinating and often hilarious inside look into the making of the Special, you have to understand the cultural moment in which it appeared—a long, long time ago when cheesy variety shows were a staple of network television and Star Wars was not yet the billion-dollar multimedia behemoth that it is today. Kozak explains how the Special was one piece of a PR blitz undertaken by Lucas and his colleagues as they sought to protect the emerging franchise from hostile studio executives. He shows how, despite the involvement of some of the most talented people in the business, creative differences between movie and television writers led to a wildly uneven product. He gives entertaining accounts of the problems that plagued production, which included a ruinously expensive cantina set; the acrimonious departure of the director and Lucas himself; and a furious Grace Slick, just out of rehab, demanding to be included in the production.Packed with memorable anecdotes, drawing on extensive new interviews with countless people involved in the production, and told with mingled affection and bewilderment, this never-before-told story gives a fascinating look at a strange moment in pop-culture history that remains an object of fascination even today.

Read more less

He didn’t know it at the time, but Tim Ghianni’s love affair with Nashville and its musical artists began on a steamy night in 1972, when the twenty-year-old author had unsolicited help from honky-tonkin’ legends Bobby Bare and Shel Silverstein during an after-midnight “salvation” of the city. It was the beginning of a lifelong urban romance that Ghianni would pursue during a career as a journalist in middle Tennessee, interviewing Nashville’s biggest stars and developing friendships with musicians of all kinds.Pilgrims, Pickers & Honky-Tonk Heroes is Tim Ghianni’s love letter and nostalgic swan song, recounting the storied musical history of Nashville as well as the dramatic changes the city has seen over the course of fifty years. The Nashville of today—with one hundred newcomers a day from places like Los Angeles and New York and fresh waves of musicians making up a new modern soundtrack—is not the same city he made his home in 1972, for better and for worse.Time changes everything, even a beloved American city, but this briskly told and warmly remembered book recounts the countless friends, adventures, and anecdotes that capture the essence of Music City across a half-century.

Read more less

Before she knew she was Ukranian, Soviet, or Jewish, Inna Faliks knew she was a musician. Growing up in the city of Odessa, the piano became her best friend, and she explored the brilliant, intricate puzzles of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and learned to compose under her mother’s watchful eye. At ten, Faliks and her parents moved to Chicago as part of the tide of Jewish refugees who fled the USSR for the West in the 1980s. During the months-long immigration process, she would silently practice on kitchen tables while imagining a full set of piano keys beneath her fingertips. In Weight in the Fingertips, Faliks gives a globe-trotting account of her upbringing as a child prodigy in a Soviet state, the perils of immigration, the struggle of assimilating as an American, years of training with teachers, and her slow and steady rise in the world of classical music. With a warm and playful style, she helps non-musicians understand the experience of becoming a world-renowned concert pianist. The places she grew up, the books she read, the poems she memorized as a child all connect to her sound at the piano, and the way she hears and shapes a musical phrase illuminate classical music and elite performance. She also explores how a person’s humanity makes their art honest and their voice unique, and how the life-long challenge of retaining that voice is fueled by a balance between being a great musician and being a human being. Throughout, Faliks provides powerful insights into the role of music in a world of conflict, change, and hope for a better tomorrow.

Read more less

From the dawn of silent cinema to today, sci-fi movies have been a constant presence in pop culture, with mad scientists, terrifying monsters (giant and otherwise), UFOs, and invading aliens all bursting out from some of the most brilliantly designed posters ever printed, featuring art that was sometimes lurid, always eye-catching, and often simply beautiful.Acknowledging the iconic, but with plenty of room for the rare and unfamiliar, The Art of Classic Sci-Fi Movies presents a stellar selection of imagery, charting the story of the genre from its origins in foundational works like Voyage to the Moon and Metropolis, through Cold War classics like Invasion of the Body-Snatchers and Godzilla, and on to visionary films such as 2001 and Solaris—as well as less celebrated but nonetheless infamous cultural artifacts like Barbarella and Zardoz, and genuine oddities such as Canadian Mounties vs. Atomic Invaders. The most extensive book of its type ever published, it includes ample selections from American movies as well as a range of films from Japan, Italy, Spain, France, Russia, and Eastern Europe.

Read more less

Almost thirty years after Rock Opera, his first book on Jesus Christ Superstar, Ellis Nassour returns to the world of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice to complete the fascinating story of the Broadway musical that rocked the stage and pushed boundaries. Nassour goes behind the scenes to show the evolution of Jesus Christ Superstar from an album to a Broadway musical, exploring not only the breakthroughs, but also the frustrations and pitfalls. With never-before-seen photos and new interviews, Superstar presents a detailed account of the life of the musical from 1969–1973.

Read more less

Addicted to Noise collects the best interviews, profiles, and essays Michael Goldberg has written during his forty-plus years as a journalist. From combative interviews with Frank Zappa and Tom Waits to essays on how Jack Kerouac influenced Bob Dylan and the lasting importance of San Francisco’s first punk rock club, Goldberg, as novelist Dana Spiotta wrote, “shows us how consequential music can be.”Contained within these pages: interviews with Sleater-Kinney, Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Flipper, John Fogerty, Neil Young, and Rick James, along with profiles of Robbie Robertson, John Lee Hooker, James Brown, the Clash, Prince, Michael Jackson, the Flamin’ Groovies, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, X, Laurie Anderson, Stevie Wonder, George Clinton, Devo, San Francisco punks Crime, and more. Plus short takes on Muddy Waters, Townes Van Zandt, Captain Beefheart, Professor Longhair, and others. As Greil Marcus writes in the Foreword, “You can feel the atmosphere: someone has walked into a room with a pencil in his hand—as the words go in perhaps the first song about a music critic, not counting Chuck Berry’s aside about the writers at the rhythm reviews—and suddenly people are relaxed . . . He isn’t after your secrets. He doesn’t want to ruin your career to make his. He doesn’t care what you think you need to hide. He actually is interested in why and how you make your music and what you think of it. So people open up, very quickly, and, very quickly, as a reader, you’re not reading something you’ve read before.”

Read more less

The creator of Story Theater, the original director of Second City, and one of the greatest popularizers of improvisational theater, Paul Sills has assembled some of his favorite adaptations from world literature. Includes: The Blue Light and Other Stories, A Christmas Carol (Dickens), Stories of God, and Rumi.

Read more less

The story of Rent is a theatrical legend, but one that has not been properly told: the story of Jonathan Larson, the young composer working in a diner when Rent became his big off-Broadway break; the composer who was mentored by Sondheim but struggling to break through; and the young man who tragically died the night of its final dress rehearsal. Seasons of Love: Why Rent Matters is an ode to the small Off-Broadway musical that swiftly moved uptown without its composer and broke box office records and won every award in the book. Alongside that legendary romantic story is a musical that changed musical theatre. The importance of Rent is often overlooked, sometimes reduced to parody and pulled apart for its narrative in ways other classics have not been. Emily Garside has serious questions to ask about why Rent is taken less seriously than other musicals of its caliber. It may have had a "romantic" and "media friendly" subplot, but musicals do not win the Pulitzer Prize for column inches. Rent is a robust work, and one whose history and significance should be recorded.Seasons of Love concludes with a celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Rent, which falls in 2021. Garside considers that as we look to older works for inspiration, and to fill our theatres, we may well be returning to Larson's work as a reflection of our times.

Read more less

Fugitive Billy Houston, keen to bring about a Nazi-run Britain, needs money. Intent on burglary, his victim has in his possession the entire anti-invasion plans for Southern Britain. Billy must get the plans to the German delegation. Will he succeed? If he does, Hitler will lead Britain to a German invasion.

Read more less

This is the seventh novel in the Nathan Peake series of nautical historical fiction set during the wars with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. The war moves to the Americas as Captain Nathan Peake, freed from service in the Royal Navy, is secretly commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to command a naval operation in the Caribbean Sea and frustrate plans to establish a new French Empire on the North American mainland which would pose an existential threat to the infant United States.With Europe temporarily at peace, Napoleon Bonaparte has dispatched his victorious army with a vast fleet to the Caribbean. Its aim is to re-impose French authority in the region, and then occupy a vastswathe of territory stretching from New Orleans to the Canada border and westward from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. But first they must re-conquer Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) where they are opposed by rebel slaves led by the African general Toussaint L'Ouverture. Nathan is sent from England with a small squadron crewed by British and American sailors tasked with disrupting French supply lines at sea and running guns to the rebel forces. But if they are caught they will be disowned by the British and US governments and very likely hanged by the French as pirates.This adventure will lead Nathan into a running battle with the French Navy in the troubled waters off Saint-Domingue, an increasingly desperate involvement in one of the most brutal colonial conflicts in history, a dangerous liaison with Pauline Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon and wife of the French commander, and a battle of ideas and ideologies that persists to the present-day.

Read more less

Riley Fitzhugh is recruited by the OSS for temporary duty as a naval spy in Morocco. Riley’s assignment is to kidnap a French river pilot and extract him from Casablanca. Riley meets an old flame from his days in Hollywood and these two have some surprises waiting for them.

Read more less

Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Paula Vogel once said that theater helps us learn how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable with each other. Revolving around the theme of 'this is who we are," the one-act plays in this latest edition of the Best American Short Plays series (now in its ninth decade) explore the thoughtful ways in which playwrights are wrestling to make sense of our world today. The selected plays reflect how we perform our identities (private and public) and how we negotiate who we are with others who often have different perspectives, perspectives that make us uncomfortable. The theme of this collection is topical and apt—as our country continues to shore up its borders along party lines, from pride parades to strict abortion laws, from inclusivity in education curricula to children in detention centers at the US–Mexico border. Each of the plays presents a clear reflection of who we are (and who we aspire to be) as individuals and as a nation. The styles of the plays also reflect different approaches to storytelling: two characters, four characters, a single setting, multiple settings, or a utopian "nowhere." The rich and compelling characters try to work out their differences and overcome obstacles using humor and a sense of magic that comes with simple moments of human connection. This is who we are: people who are grappling with the desire to be understood, the hope to be loved and accepted, and to allow that hope to shape a larger sense of who we could be if we continue to work and listen.

Read more less

Renowned editor Larry Harbison brings together approximately one-hundred never-before-published women’s monologues for actors to use for auditions and in class, all from recently produced plays. The selections include monologues from plays by both well-known playwrights and future stars, including Michael Ross Albert, Don Nigro, Daniel Damiano, Molly Goforth, Seth Svi Rosenfeld, Brian Dykstra, Michael A. Jones, Sam Graber, Penny Jackson, Christi Stewart-Brown, George Sapio, Sarah M. Chichester, Constance Congdon, Steven Hayet, and Ashlin Halfnight. There are terrific comic pieces (laughs) and terrific dramatic pieces (no laughs), and all represent the best of contemporary playwriting. This collection is an invaluable resource for aspiring actors hoping to ace their auditions and impress directors and teachers with contemporary pieces.

Read more less

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 musical leader and guitarist, Lindsey Buckingham, threatened to quit if he didn t get things his way, resulting in clashes not only with his band but especially Caillat, who had been essential to the band s Grammy-winning sound. Hernan Rojas s story recounts a young man who leaves Chile after General Pinochet s coup to seek his future in the music industry of Los Angeles, where he finds success at one of the hottest studios in town. When Fleetwood Mac arrives, Rojas falls in love with its star singer, Stevie Nicks, and the two of them become romantically involved. Throughout the book, both Caillat and Rojas d.

Read more less

In the 1840s and 50s, the Jicarilla Apache were the terror of the Santa Fe Trail and the Rio Arriba. They repeatedly clashed with the cavalry and raided wagon trains, and there was bad blood between the band and the Army after the Battle of San Pasqual, when they were on opposite sides during the Mexican American War. In 1854, as traffic was on the increase along the historic trade route, the Jicarilla soundly defeated the 1st United States Dragoons in the Battle of Cieneguilla. Cieneguilla was the worst defeat of the US Army in the West up to that time, and it was just one of the first major battles between the US Army and Apache forces during the Ute Wars. According to one version of events, the 60 dragoons, under the direction of a Lt. Davidson, had engaged in an unauthorized attack on theJicarilla while they were out on patrol. Others claimed that the Jicarilla either ambushed the Army or taunted them into attack. Kit Carson, who was agent for the Jicarilla, would defend Davidson’s actions—and after this fight, he served as a scout against the Jicarilla. Much like the Sioux defeat of Custer at Little Big Horn, the Jicarilla’s victory over the Army led to retribution and disaster. The Jicarilla were defeated and faded from memory before the Civil War. These are the events that brought them to ruin.

Read more less

In this series, private investigators pick up where the historians left off, taking on a series of major cold cases in history, starting with the mishandling of evidence relating to the life and times of Billy the Kid. Cold Case: Billy the Kid tackles the myths and legends about the misadventures and eventual killing of the notorious outlaw one by one, considering the evidence surrounding his life, death, and crimes from contemporary sources and looking at the physical evidence still extant today to consider the veracity of historical claims and considering the evidence through the lens of a legal investigation. In this first book, the writers tackle the evolution of an outlaw in myth and lore, claiming that Billy the Kid as a notorious outlaw is a manufactured concept. They offer evidence that the Kid was little more than one of several small time cattle and horse thieves whose rustling netted him only a small amount of intermittent income. He killed no fewer, and probably no more, than four or five men. For the most part he worked on ranches, notably those of John Chisum and John Henry Tunstall. The Kid, as a cattle thief, was known to many in southern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle, along with a number of other troublesome rustlers.

Read more less

Before Herzog and Kinski, before Simon and Garfunkel, there was Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. Despite their shared nickname, writer-producer Charles Brackett and writer-director Billy Wilder were not, in fact, the “happiest couple in Hollywood.” Actually, they disliked each other intensely, even as they collaborated on some of the most iconic films of Hollywood’s Golden Age, including Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, and A Foreign Affair.Just how two men who found each other so irritating could together make such enduring contributions to cinematic history is the subject of Double Solitaire, a joint biography of a fascinating and explosive creative collaboration. In the course of making their mark on genres ranging from film noir to the screwball comedy, they achieved an almost inexplicable alchemy that highlights the paradoxical nature of shared genius. Author Donald Brackett—whose grandfather was Charles Brackett’s cousin—delves into family lore, correspondence, contemporary media reports, and all other manner of historical records to reconstruct the strange magic of Brackett & Wilder’s combustible partnership, showing how their creative tensions yielded one classic film after another, and how their entrepreneurial drive pushed against the constraints of the studio system, anticipating the independent-producer models of today.

Read more less

In an age of ubiquitous music and countless new songs releasing every minute, the Great American Songbook endures. After all, the Songbook—that sprawling canon of popular songs, standards, and show tunes from roughly the 1920s through the 1950s—is a foundational text of American pop music. Rare indeed is the song that doesn’t in some way draw on this magnificent corpus, and rare is the person who hasn’t heard at least a few of its most enduring melodies.Nonetheless, the Songbook is broader and deeper than most listeners can imagine, and on the margins, the question of whether this or that song should be included is the source of regular arguments among scholars and buffs alike. Attempting to plumb its depths can be a daunting prospect.Enter Steven Suskin, who has been writing about music since the days that Rodgers, Arlen, and Berlin still roamed the streets of Manhattan. In this carefully curated and cheerfully opinionated guidebook, Suskin surveys 201 of the most significant selections from the Songbook, ranging from celebrated masterpieces to forgotten gems. Year by year, he puts songwriters and their contributions in their context, and explains what makes each song such a distinctive treat—whether felicitous melody, colorful harmony, compositional originality, or merely the sheer, irreducible joy of listening to it. Old and new favorites await all readers of this painstakingly compiled, enthusiastically written catalog.

Read more less

A Young Actor Prepares provides a constructive form for young people to create with their own life experiences, imagination, and emotions through acting. It provides a step-by-step approach to help kids tackle emotionally challenging roles and portray complex characters at a very young age. For over thirty years, author Jeff Alan-Lee has worked with thousands of young people, teaching the work presented in this book. It has been the springboard for award-winning artists in acting, directing, playwriting, screenwriting, and music.Artistic director of the Young Actor's Studio in Los Angeles, Alan-Lee shares his experience training many top young actors. A Young Actor Prepares is written for teachers and students alike. Presented in play form, the book gives teachers the insight to help work with a multitude of personalities and provides a fun and easy way to help children and teens learn to apply Stanislavski-based exercises. Inspired by Stanislavski's An Actor Prepares, Alan-Lee has developed engaging and exciting ways to create great acting using this unique version of the Stanislavski system, reworked for the young actor. Discover the incredible journey that can take both teachers and young actors to the next level.

Read more less

Includes a code for free CD download of many of the bands featured in this book!Nirvana, the White Stripes, Hole, the Hives – all sprang from an underground music scene where similarly raw bands, enjoying various degrees of success and hard luck, played for throngs of fans in venues ranging from dive bars to massive festivals, but were mostly ignored by a music industry focused on mega-bands and shiny pop stars. We Never Learn: The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1988-2001 tracks the inspiration and beautiful destruction of this largely undocumented movement. What they took, they fought for, every night. They reveled in '50s rock 'n' roll and '60s garage rock while creating their own wave of gut-busting riffs and rhythm.The majority of bands that populate this book – the Dwarves, the Gories, the Supersuckers, the Mummies, Rocket from the Crypt, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the Muffs, and the Donnas among them – gained little long-term reward from their nonstop touring and brain-slapping records. What they did have was free liquor, good drugs, guilt-free sex, and a crazy good time, all the while building a dedicated fan base that extends across America, Europe, and Japan. Truly, this is the last great wave of down-and-dirty rock 'n' roll.

Read more less

It is well known that many musicians, from amateurs to famous professionals, are largely and sometimes exclusively self-taught. Most of the time, these musicians tend to put music theory aside, but there comes a time when many become curious about this science and understand its utility and potential. Unfortunately, they often get discouraged and think it’s too late to learn theory, that they needed to start early, and of course, know how to read. Fortunately, this turns out to be completely untrue. Most self-taught musicians will also turn to books and realize many are written for specialists and those who can already read music. They talk about scales and how to write chords on a staff, but if you are not sure what a note is and it takes you twenty minutes to figure out where a C is, it just adds to the frustration. Yet I promise that a late start in learning theory has no impact on the quality of musician you can become and your future ability to understand it. It is not too late! I have also felt this frustration, which is why I wrote this book. It was originally written for my "former self," who not too long ago was desperate to learn theory in a way that would finally be clear, coherent, and understandable, while not having to read notes. This is the book I wish I had back then! I know there are many people who share this feeling, and my main goal is to provide help and clarity. This book is based on simple, day-to-day common sense, and if you know your alphabet and can count to seven, I promise you will understand theory. You may actually find it surprisingly easy, and I can guarantee it will considerably improve your playing and appreciation for music.

Read more less

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 of the twentieth century. 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 Records, Schnee began his quest to learn everything he could about making records. Mentored by recording legend Richie Podolor at his American Recording Studio and mastering guru Doug Sax, he immediately began recording the top acts of the day as a freelance engineer/producer in Hollywood. Clive Davis soon hired him to work for CBS where he partnered with famed music producer Richard Perry. Schnee went on to record and/or mix most of Perry's biggest albums of the '70s and '80s, including those by Barbra Streisand, Carly Simon, Ringo Starr, Art Garfunkel, and the Pointer Sisters. With his deft personal touch with musicians, he continued to engineer and produce the likes of Marvin Gaye, Thelma Houston (the Grammy-nominated, direct-to-disc album I've Got the Music in Me), Pablo Cruise, Neil Diamond, Boz Scaggs, the Jacksons, Huey Lewis & the News, Dire Straits, and Whitney Houston. With over 125 gold and platinum records, and two Grammys for Steely Dan's Aja and Gaucho, Schnee has been called a living legend—recognized and respected in the industry as the consummate music man with an incomparable career that he lovingly shares with his readers in humorous detail.

Read more less

Hot Rats, the second solo album by Frank Zappa, is considered by his fans and critics alike to be a groundbreaking, important record, as well as one of his most innovative efforts of all time. The first recording project after the dissolution of the original Mothers of Invention, Zappa composed, arranged, and produced all of the music on Hot Rats while playing electric guitar on all tracks. The album contains the song "Peaches en Regalia," widely recognized as a modern jazz-fusion standard. This entire groundbreaking and historical record including using new sixteen-multitrack recording and overdub technics for the first time ever was captured in photos by Bill Gubbins, who shot the recording sessions and live performances of the record immediately following its release. Most of these images have never before been published in book form, appearing here for the first time. The "Hot Rats" Book: A Fifty-Year Retrospective of Frank Zappa s "Hot Rats": also contains essays by author Bill Gubbins; Ian Underwood, who was involved in working with Zappa on the recording sessions; Steve Vai; David Fricke; and Matt Groening.

Read more less

James L. Nelson's Revolution at sea saga has brought to life a never-before-seen side of America's war for independence. With the expertise of a seasoned mariner, a historian's vivid attention to detail, and a natural gift for sensational storgtelling, "the American counterpart to Patrick O'Brian" (David Brink) carries us along on his bold and stirring course through history. After ferrying General George Washington's troops across the East River and through the hell known as the Battle of Long Island, Captain Isaac Biddlecomb receives a monumental order. He is to transport to France the most powerful secret weapon in the country's arsenal -- scientist, philosopher, and spirit of the enlightenment Dr. Benjamin Franklin. With a new team of men forging through the wintry North Atlantic, and braving the cordon of the Royal Navy, Biddlecomb's seemingly simple mission is just the first volley in a grand scheme: to topple France's neutrality by gaining its vital support, and turn the colonial uprising into a full-scale world war for freedom.

Read more less

Although most credit Wilbur and Orville Wright with America's first powered flight, two months before the brothers lifted off the sands of Kitty Hawk, a French immigrant named August Greth flew theCalifornia Eagle, an airship of his own design, across the skies of San Francisco. While the Wrights claimed they had invented a flying machine, Greth and the California aviators proved it in front of thousands of spectators at state fairs and festivals across the country.L.A. Birdmenis the fascinating and forgotten story of America's first aviatorsCalifornians like August Greth, Tom Baldwin, Roy Knabenshue, John Montgomery, and James Zerbe. Possessing a rare blend of ingenuity, creativity, and bravery, these pilots captured the world's attention in 1910 when Los Angeles hosted America's first international airshow. Inspired by a flying exhibition held in Reims, France, Los Angeles promoter Dick Ferris convinced the city to host a competing eventa show that feature

Read more less

The Doors, James Brown, the Grateful Dead, the Sir Douglas Quintet, David Bowie—the list goes on. . . . From 1967 to 1973, Michael Oberman interviewed more than three hundred top musical artists. Collected together for the first time, Fast Forward, Play and Rewind presents more than one hundred interviews Oberman conducted with the most important musical artists of the day.Along the way, Oberman touches on the influence of his brother, who interviewed the Beatles and other top artists from 1964 to 1967. He also recounts stories from his later career working for the major Warner-Elektra-Atlantic recording company, where he produced concerts for Cellar Door Productions and managed recording artists. Want to know the true story of how David Bowie became Ziggy Stardust? That and dozens more true tales that might seem like fiction are waiting inside the pages of Fast Forward, Play and Rewind. Each short interview is an invitation for readers to relive (or live for the first time) one of the greatest periods in rock 'n' roll history.

Read more less

From John C. Payne, one of the foremost international authorities on marine electrical systems and electronics, comes an easy-to-understand yet thorough treatment of boat wiring and the technical issues facing every boat owner, whether sail or power.Concise, compact, and fully illustrated for easy reference, Understanding Boat Wiring: 2nd Edition has been fully revised throughout. This guide offers a comprehensive coverage of the following major topics: Boat wiring standards Basic electrical principles System voltages How to plan and install boat wiring Circuit protection and isolation Switchboards and panels Bilge pump wiring Mast and external wiring Grounding systems

Read more less

The movie High Fidelity is sacred ground for music lovers and cinephiles alike. The story of Rob Gordon and his coterie of vinyl snobs made it cool to let your geek flag fly and embrace your irrational enthusiasm. In Top Five, journalist Andrew Buss offers a rollicking oral history of the making of the film and its continued influence on popular culture.Usually, when a book that is as universally praised as Nick Hornby’s original novel, a film adaptation is a tricky thing. Top Five examines the difficulties that went into making it: although the book was set in London, the screenwriting team (which included star John Cusack) adapted it to fit their shared Chicago upbringing and to reflect their own experiences. As faithful as they remained to the book, the little tweaks allowed the material to feel authentic to the artists telling it. Despite the feeling that this might be an Americanized dilution of the source material, those doubts quickly subsided when fans of the book saw just how true the film stayed to Rob’s story.Buss draws on interviews with actors like John Cusack, Jack Black, and Iben Hjejle, along with all the key principals behind the scenes, including director Stephen Frears and the movie’s screenwriter, producers, and composer. Taken together, they offer a multi-perspectival picture that captures the legacy of the film, showing how it brilliantly captured a cross-section of ‘90s culture while anticipating the current era of cultural surfeit and content overload.

Read more less

For decades, British stage musicals struggled to compete against the dazzling Broadway productions that came roaring in from across the pond. But that tide was turned at last in 1978, when Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production of Evita brought the West End back into contention with Broadway. It was just the first of several blockbuster productions that helped Britain dominate musical theater all over the world.In this revealing behind-the-scenes narrative, journalist and author Robert Sellers gives a definitive account of how Evita, Cats, Starlight Express, Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera, Chess, and Miss Saigon changed the business of musical theater in the 1980s. These mega productions of the were larger than life, colorful, and spectacular. Sellers collects insightful, personal stories from cast members, set designers, musical supervisors, dancers, lighting designers, production managers, singers, and choreographers from the shows that finally put Broadway on its back foot. He also describes the backstage drama, production nightmares, and financial woes that threatened to derail the shows at multiple points. Whatever obstacles they faced, though, these productions swept the world and transformed the face of musical theater in ways that still resound today.

Read more less

The Way We Were is the definitive inside story of a landmark movie and its troubled making. Starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, this iconic movie won multiple Academy Awards, but its success followed a variety of financial challenges, creative disputes, and the demands of the passionate individuals who fought to bring it into the world.With mingled reverence and wry humor, best-selling author Tom Santopietro embarks on an investigation to decode the enduring power of the movie. He analyzes the mysterious chemistry between Streisand and Redford, showing how their talents combined for an enthralling, once-in-a-lifetime blend that is cited in television shows and feature films to this day. Filled with first-hand accounts by actors, film historians, and members of the creative team, The Way We Were is the ultimate fiftieth anniversary account of a beloved movie that has remained an emotional touchstone for generations.

Read more less

KSAN!: The Hippie Radio Revolution that Rocked America is an oral history of America’s first hippie underground FM station which broadcasted the countercultural consciousness of the ‘60s and ‘70s to a new generation. A communal radio band of intrepid hellraisers, pranksters, and drug-enlightened geniuses defined this psychedelic era, from the Summer of Love in Golden Gate Park, to the rebellion and bitter end of the late 1970s, which launched the Reagan Revolution.Founded in San Francisco by Tom Donahue, a 1996 inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, an entire generation of Americans discovered a new musical universe among dance clubs, light shows and street fests––the original pop-ups. Almost overnight, KSAN became an audio clubhouse, where anyone could belong with friends and the cool cats and hipsters they just met.Rock gods, political stars, and literary celebrities, including Jerry Garcia, Ken Kesey, Sly Stone, and John Lennon were all interviewed by founder Tom Donahue and his cohorts, whose listeners “tuned in and turned on” to bands like Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Quicksilver, Country Joe and the Fish, Hot Tuna, The Beatles and Santana, among others.Folk journalist Hank Rosenfeld was there during those final years––writing, producing, and announcing. His warm, funny voice presents a behind-the-mic experience at KSAN, the beloved, “Jive 95,” whose delicious dose of enlightened sunshine and 33 rpm LP dreamscapes ignited a radio explosion from coast to coast.So, how did KSAN go from a liberating voice to a corporate cliché? It’s all here in Rosenfeld’s insightful, hilarious account, which includes countless exclusive interviews with iconic performers and never before available in print or audio form.

Read more less

Roman Polanski: Behind the Scenes of His Classic Early Films is a rare portrait of the artist in the act of creation. Journalist, film historian, and playwright Jordan Young takes Polanski watchers onto the set of a movie made under the worst possible conditions, by a crew who hated each other and a cast barely on speaking terms.

Read more less

April 1945: Europe is in ruins and Berlin is burning. As the Red Army closes in on the last few blocks surrounding the Fuhrerbunker, a famous aviatrix lands her light aircraft in the center of the shattered German capital. Two days later she takes off again. With her is a man called Heinrich Bechmann, SS mass killer and personal bodyguard of the German chancellor Adolf Hitler—and with Bechmann is a file of documents.Nearly a century later, in the spring of 2020, Pope Francis announces that he intends to open the Vatican Secret Archives to the public. A week later, masked gunmen kill five people at an isolated Jesuit retreat in the mountains of Sicily. And two weeks after that, the body of a celebrated British historian is discovered in a beach house on Long Island. Aiden Blake, ex-Royal Marine and brother of the dead historian, believes there is a mysterious link between these events, stretching across seventy-five years of history.He’s right—and history itself will provide the clues. The trail will lead him and his brother’s New York-based researcher, Hannah Harper, across the Atlantic to the hidden bunkers of Berlin, a Gothic castle in the South Tyrol, Rome, Sicily, and deep into the past in a bid to find his brother’s killers—and expose a neo-Fascist plot to kill the present Pope and replace him with one more conducive to the party’s own political views and ambitions.

Read more less

This is the Golden Age of comic-book blockbusters. Since his introduction in August 1962, Spider-Man's pop culture reach has extended from comic books and clothing to video games, toys, and television shows. His strongest impact, however, is in the feature-film realm, where eight different Spider-Man movies collectively boast more than $7.2 billion in worldwide tickets sold. If Hollywood had a superhero throne, Spider-Man would be sitting on it. Of the five highest-grossing film franchises in Hollywood history, Spider-Man now plays a pivotal role in three: the Marvel Cinematic Universe; the four-film Avengers franchise; and the Spider-Man series. This ranks the character ahead of James Bond, the Transformers, every on-screen Batman, and Peter Jackson's complete Tolkien series in Hollywood's box-office hierarchy. Marvel's wall-crawler has come a long way since his earliest days, but his cinematic journey has yet to be documented. Unusual, since Spider-Man's Hollywood history is littered with A-list names (such as James Cameron and Leonardo DiCaprio), behind-the-scenes squabbles, franchise reboots, and Tom Holland preventing Disney from booting Spidey out of the MCU. The prized creation of Marvel guru Stan Lee has helped create and cultivate the current Golden Age of comic-book blockbusters, and lessons learned on the Spider-Man franchises are applied to all comic-book movies today. Veteran film reporter and author Sean O'Connell uses his exclusive access to directors, actors, producers, and screenwriters to get the inside angles on Spider-Man's climb to the top of the superhero heap in With Great Power.

Read more less

The sixth volume in the award-winning series profiling the
American perspective in the Age of Sail, No Sacrifice Too Great, chronicles the swashbuckling adventures of 
the Cutler family as the United States takes on Great Britain 
in the War of 1812. Richard Cutler and his two 
sons, William and James, serve in the US Navy, weak in 
number of ships but strong in experience and fighting
spirit. Battles in which the family participates include high 
seas drama between Constitution and HMS Guerriere, fleet 
engagements on Lake Erie and Lake Champlain, the siege 
of Baltimore, and the epic Battle of New Orleans.

Read more less

The narrative of Tumult! The Incredible Life and Music of Tina Turner is an extended exploration of the magical transformation of shy country girl Anna Mae Bullock into the boisterous force of nature we know today as Tina Turner. This is creative alchemy in action: turning into Turner is actually also the captivating tale of someone who was already precociously there, a stellar talent just waiting to emerge and grab the global spotlight. Far from the early myths attached to her name by association with her talented but tormenting producer-husband, she was not a Svengali-like creation at all, but rather a fully formed, if vulnerable, young musical prodigy who was going to burst out of the creative shell imposed upon her one way or the other. Even though it took sixteen years to do so, her second career as a solo pop artist is the achievement for which she is rightly remembered. In Turner, we have a case study in triumph over adversity and sheer creative will power: singer, songwriter, dancer, actress, feminist icon. Often referred to as the Queen of Rock and Roll, she has sold over two hundred million records and sold more live concert tickets than any other solo performer in history. In 2019, she celebrated her eighieth birthday and was also lionized in the live Broadway version of her incredible life story, Tina: The Musical, starring Adrienne Warren. In Tumult!, we unearth and examine what uncanny skills enabled her to connect with so many people at such a deep heart-to-heart level. She is, in fact, a beating human heart in high heels.

Read more less

Narrated by Barry Singer—one of contemporary musical theater’s most authoritative chroniclers—Ever After was originally published in 2003 as a history of the previous twenty-five years in musical theater, on and off Broadway. This new, second edition extends the narrative, taking readers from 2004 to the present. The book revisits every new musical that has opened since the last edition, with Barry Singer once again as guide. Before Ever After appeared in 2003, no book had addressed the recent past in musical theater history—an era Singer describes as “ever after musical theater’s many golden ages.” Derived significantly from Singer’s writings about musical theater for the New York Times, New York magazine, and the New Yorker, Ever After captured that era in its entirety, from the opening of The Act on Broadway in October 1977 to the opening of Avenue Q Off-Broadway in March 2003. This new edition brings Ever After up to date, from Wicked through The Book of Mormon to Hamilton and beyond. Once again, Ever After is the first book to cover this new age. And, once again, utilizing his recent writing about musical theater for Huffington Post and Playbill, Barry Singer’s viewpoint is comprehensive and absolutely unique.

Read more less

Phil Ochs is known primarily as a songwriter; however, his oeuvre extends far beyond that—to short stories, poetry, criticism, journalism, and satire, all of which are included in I’m Gonna Say It Now: The Writings of Phil Ochs, which represents the majority of what Ochs wrote outside of his large circle of songs. This comprehensive tome presents another side of the famous topical songwriter, showcasing his prose and poetry from across the full span of his life. From prizewinning stories and clear-eyed reporting while a journalism major in college to music criticism, satires, and political pieces written while part of the burgeoning folk scene of New York City in the early 1960s and during the tumultuous Vietnam War era; from sharp and lyrical poems (many previously unpublished) to reviews, features, and satires written while living in Los Angeles and the final, elegiac coda writings from near the end of his life—I’m Gonna Say It Now presents the complete picture. The book includes many rare or nearly impossible to find Ochs pieces, as well as previously unpublished works sourced from the unique holdings in the Ochs Archives at the Woody Guthrie Center. Additionally, never-before-seen reproductions from Ochs’s journals, notebooks, and manuscripts provide a closer look at the hand of the artist, giving a deeper context and understanding to his writings. Never before published photographs of Ochs bestow the visual cherry on top.

Read more less