Search results for ""author charles shaar murray""

'You the funkiest man alive.' Miles Davis' accolade was the perfect expression of John Lee Hooker's apotheosis as blues superstar: recording with the likes of Van Morrison, Keith Richards and Carlos Santana; making TV commercials (Lee Jeans); appearing in films (The Blues Brothers); and even starring in Pete Townshend's musical adaptation of Ted Hughes' story The Iron Man. His was an extraordinary life. Born in the American deep south, he moved to Detroit and then, in a career spanning over fifty years, recorded hypnotic blues classics such as 'Boogie Chillen', rhythm-and-blues anthems such as 'Dimples' and 'Boom Boom' and, in his final, glorious renaissance, the Grammy-winning album The Healer. Charles Shaar Murray's authoritative biography vividly, and often in John Lee Hooker's own words, does magnificent justice to the man and his music.

Read more less

Jimi Hendrix 'transgressed many boundaries; both arbitrary musical definitions separating blues and soul or jazz and rock, and also those fundamental divides between the archaic and the avant-garde, between individualist and collectivist philosophies,between blacks and whites, between America and Britain, between passive acquiescence and furious resistance,between lust for life and obsession with death.' Charles Shaar MurrayCrosstown Traffic charts the routes Hendrix took to arrive at his 'unique musical formulation'. The result is a bravura study of his art and life that has become established as the definitive work on 'the most eloquent instrumentalist ever to work in rock.'Winner of the Ralph Gleason Music Book Award on first publication, this brilliant and ambitious book, hailed as 'the most compelling and literate essay on rock since Greil Marcus' Mystery Train, is being reissued with an updated introduction.

Read more less