21 Best History & Criticism, Music Books

In this first of a groundbreaking multivolume set, THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL 1: 1969-73 captures the life of Paul McCartney in the years immediately following the dissolution of the Beatles, a period in which McCartney recreated himself as both a man and a musician. Informed by hundreds of interviews, extensive ground up research, and thousands of never-before-seen documents THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL 1 is an in depth, revealing exploration of McCartney’s creative and personal lives beyond the Beatles.

When Paul McCartney issued a press release in April 1970 announcing that the world’s most beloved band, the Beatles, had broken up no one could have predicted that McCartney himself would go on to have one of the most successful solo careers in music history. Yet in the years after the Fab Four disbanded, Paul McCartney became a legend in his own right. Now journalist and world-renowned Beatles’ historian Allan Kozinn and award-winning documentarian Adrian Sinclair chronicle in technicolor McCartney’s pivotal years from 1969 to 1973, as he recreated himself in the immediate aftermath of the Beatles breakup – a period when, newly married and with a growing family, he conquered depression and self-doubt, formed a new band, Wings, and recorded five epochal albums culminating in the triumphant smash, Band on the Run.

Part 1 of a multivolume set, THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL. 1 documents a pivotal moment in the life of a man whose legacy grows increasingly more relevant as his influence on music and pop culture remains as relevant as ever. It is the first truly comprehensive biography, and the most finely detailed exploration of McCartney’s creative life beyond the Beatles, ever undertaken.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

A story of youth, rebellion, and hope, ROCKING TOWARD A FREE WORLD sheds new light on two of the most powerful forces of the modern age: global democracy and rock and roll. Deeply vital and compelling, Simonyi’s memoir chronicles how one man’s tremendous connection to American and British popular music inspired him to make a difference in his country and, eventually, the world. It tells the story of a generation, as played out in song lyrics and guitar riffs.

Guitar sleuth and music-history detective Deke Dickerson tells the true tales behind 48 rare-guitar and amplifier finds that will make any player or collector green with envy.

Finding that holy grail of a guitar stashed away beneath a bed, in a closet, in the dusty corner of a guitar shop, or up in an attic is something that all guitar aficionados dream of. Strat in the Attic shares some of those real-life stories, related in spine-tingling detail by the author.

Savor these and more believe-it-or-not stories of guitarchaeology:

• A hoarder‚Äôs attic stuffed with nearly 600 vintage guitars still in their boxes.
• A mint 1954 Fender Telecaster tucked under a bed in a family friend‚Äôs house.
• Jazz legend Charlie Christian‚Äôs Gibson ES-250, spotted in a magazine ad.
• A rare-as-hen‚Äôs-teeth Shoreline Gold ‚Äô56 Fender Stratocaster hidden in attic for 30 years!

For guitar collectors, players, and admirers alike, these stories provide a satisfying way to scratch that rare guitar itch.

Universally acclaimed as a musical genius, Miles Davis was one of the most important and influential musicians in the world. Here, Miles speaks out about his extraordinary life.

Miles: The Autobiography, like Miles himself, holds nothing back. For the first time Miles talks about his five-year silence, he speaks frankly and openly about his drug problem and how he overcame it, he condemns the racism he encountered in the music business and in American society in general, and he discusses the women in his life. But above all, Miles talks about music and musicians, including the legends he has played with over the years: Bird, Dizzy, Monk, Trane, Mingus, and many others.

For many, the name Jimi Hendrix conjures up a larger-than-life image of the man who set fire to guitars, women’s hearts, and the status quo. In this groundbreaking account, music journalist Charles R. Cross takes a far deeper look. Beyond Hendrix’s legendary onstage and offstage magnetism and his excessive lifestyle was a man who struggled to accept his role as an idol and privately craved the kind of normal family life he never had.

Based on more than three hundred interviews and never-before-seen private documents, this book recounts the entire arc of Hendrix’s life, from his troubled childhood and struggle with racial prejudice to his rapid ascent in swinging London to headlining Woodstock in 1969, with his death a year later. As colorful and large as the decade of the sixties, this biography gives the real Hendrix the immortality he deserves.

A prominent conductor explores how aesthetic criteria masked the political goals of countries during the three great wars of the past century.

This book offers a major reassessment of classical music in the twentieth century. John Mauceri argues that the history of music during this span was shaped by three major wars of that century: World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

Probing why so few works have been added to the canon since 1930, Mauceri examines the trajectories of great composers who, following World War I, created voices that were unique and versatile, but superficially simpler. He contends that the fate of composers during World War II is inextricably linked to the political goals of their respective governments, resulting in the silencing of experimental music in Germany, Italy, and Russia; the exodus of composers to America; and the sudden return of experimental music–what he calls “the institutional avant-garde”–as the lingua franca of classical music in the West during the Cold War.

Unearth a piece of music history with this definitive, no-holds-barred biography of John Entwistle, The Who’s legendary bass guitarist.

It is an unequivocal fact that in terms of rock bands, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who represent Year Zero, the beginning of all things, ground-breakers all. To that incontrovertible end, John Entwistle–The Who’s beloved bassist–remains an enigmatic yet undeniably influential figure. However, unlike his fellow musicians, Entwistle has yet to be the subject of a major biography. In the years since his death, his enduring legacy has been carefully guarded by his loved ones, preventing potential biographers from writing the definitive account of his life-until now. For the first time, and with the full cooperation of the Entwistle family, The Ox shines a long overdue light on one of the most important figures in rock history.

Drawing on his own notes for his unfinished autobiography, as well as his personal archives and interviews with his family and friends, The Ox gives readers a never-before-seen glimpse into Entwistle’s two very distinct poles. On the one hand, he was the rock star incarnate–larger than life, self-obsessed to a fault, and proudly and almost defiantly so. Extravagant with money, he famously shipped vintage American cars across the Atlantic without having so much as a driver’s license, built progressively bigger and more grandiose bars into every home he owned, and amassed an extraordinary collection of possessions, from armor and weaponry to his trademark Cuban-heel boots. But beneath this fame and flutter, he was also a man of simple tastes and traditional opinions. He was a devoted father and family man who loved nothing more than to wake up to a full English breakfast or to have a supper of fish, chips, and a pint at his local pub.

After his untimely death, many of these stories were shuttered away into the memories of his family and friends. At long last, The Ox introduces us to the man behind the myth–the iconic and inimitable John Entwistle.

A dynamic and expansive tour through 40,000 years of music, from prehistoric instruments to modern-day pop songs

Music is an intrinsic part of everyday life, and yet the history of its development from single notes to multilayered orchestration can seem bewilderingly complex.

In his dynamic tour through forty thousand years of music, from prehistoric instruments to modern-day pop, Howard Goodall leads us through the story of music as it happened, idea by idea, so that each musical innovation–harmony, notation, sung theater, the orchestra, dance music, recording–strikes us with its original force. Along the way, he also gives refreshingly clear descriptions of what music is and how it works: what scales are all about, why some chords sound discordant, and what all postwar pop songs have in common.

The story of music is the story of our urge to invent, connect, rebel–and entertain. Howard Goodall’s beautifully clear and compelling account is both a hymn to human endeavor and a groundbreaking map of our musical journey.

A rollicking look at 1971 – the busiest, most innovative and resonant year of the 70s, defined by the musical arrival of such stars as David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Joni Mitchell On New Year’s Eve, 1970, Paul McCartney told his lawyers to issue the writ at the High Court in London, effectively ending The Beatles. You might say this was the last day of the pop era. The following day, which was a Friday, was 1971. You might say this was the first day of the rock era. And within the remaining 364 days of this monumental year, the world would hear Don McLean’s “American Pie,” The Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar,” The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May,” Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” and more. David Hepworth, an ardent music fan and well regarded critic, was twenty-one in ’71, the same age as many of the legendary artists who arrived on the scene. Taking us on a tour of the major moments, the events and songs of this remarkable year, he shows how musicians came together to form the perfect storm of rock and roll greatness, starting a musical era that would last longer than anyone predicted. Those who joined bands to escape things that lasted found themselves in a new age, its colossal start being part of the genre’s staying power. Never a Dull Moment is more than a love song to the music of 1971. It’s also an homage to the things that inspired art and artists alike. From Soul Train to The Godfather, hot pants to table tennis, Hepworth explores both the music and its landscapes, culminating in an epic story of rock and roll’s best year.

A one-of-a kind survey of rap and hip hop history from 1973 to today by Chuck D, arguably the most influential rapper in the world.

In the more than 40 years since the days of DJ Kool Herc and “Rapper’s Delight,” hip hop and rap have become a billion-dollar worldwide phenomenon. Yet there is no definitive history of the genre-until now.

Based on Chuck’s long-running show on Rapstation.com, this massive compendium details the most iconic moments and influential songs in the genre’s recorded history, from Kurtis Blow’s “Christmas Rappin'” to The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill to Kendrick Lamar’s ground-breaking verse on “Control.” Also included are key events in hip hop history, from Grandmaster Flash’s first scratch through Tupac’s holographic appearance at Coachella.

Throughout, Chuck offers his insider’s perspective on the chart toppers and show stoppers as he lived it. Illustrating the pages are more than 100 portraits from the talented artists specializing in hip hop.

Veteran rock journalist Mick Wall unflinchingly tells the story of the band that pushed the envelope on both creativity and excess, even by rock ’n’ roll standards. Led Zeppelin was the last great band of the 1960s and the first great band of the 1970s—and When Giants Walked the Earth is the full, enthralling story of Zep from the inside, written by a former associate of both Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. Rich and revealing, it bores into not only the disaster, addiction, and death that haunted the band but also into the real relationship between Page and Plant, including how it was influenced by Page’s interest in the occult. Comprehensive and yet intimately detailed, When Giants Walked the Earth gets into the principals’ heads to bring to life both an unforgettable band and an unrepeatable slice of rock history.

No singer has been more mythologized and more misunderstood than jazz legend Billie Holiday, who helped to create much of the mystique herself with her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. This authentic biography sets the record straight. Donald Clarke was given unrivaled access to a treasure trove of interviews from the 1970s with those who knew Lady Day in all stages of her short, tragic life–from her childhood in the streets and good-time houses of Baltimore, through the early days of success in New York and the years of fame, to her tragic decline and death at the age of forty-four. This biography separates fact from fiction to reveal the true Billie Holiday.

Iggy Pop’s legendary career has been tumultuous, reaching great heights, producing mega-hits, while at times hitting rock-bottom lows in jail and mental institutions. Along the way, he’s become a cult rock hero, an inspiration for dozens of other famous rockers, and has had a pretty good time of it, too. But the image of Iggy Pop versus the man behind that image, James Newell Osterberg, Jr., are surprisingly contradictory. As the author deftly reveals in this first-ever biography of Iggy, the “nude and rude” punk rocker was the vice-president of his high-school class and is considered an intellectual by many.

Living in Ann Arbor among Iggy’s childhood friends and pre-fame lovers and interviewing dozen of musicians including Iggy himself, Trynka has created a sincere and fascinating portrayal of the real man behind the rock star.

Cowboys and Indies is the definitive record-business bible, chronicling the pioneers who set the stylus on the most important labels and musical discoveries of the last century. The narrative follows all the musical trends and developments from the phonograph to the Internet age as it delves behind the big business of corporate hit machines and the diligent industry of small, curated labels. Drawing from memoirs, archives, and over one hundred exclusive interviews with legends of the record industry–including the founders and CEOs of Virgin, United Artists, Atlantic, and A&M Records–this book reveals the secrets behind the hit-making craft.

Cowboys and Indies focuses on the game changers–the indie founders, talent scouts, legendary A&R men–believers who understood the music business was two distinct parts: first music, then business. An industry insider himself, Gareth Murphy culls numerous behind-the-scenes anecdotes to bring together a clear genealogical map of the record industry’s 130-year international history. Among its revelations, Cowboys and Indies highlights the remarkable similarities between the industry crash of the 1920s and ’30s and the recent CD crash.

Witty and evocative, Cowboys and Indies offers a fresh panoramic view of the cycles and grooves of pop music and is sure to top the charts with music industry classics like Hitmaker and The Mansion on the Hill.

From revered music critic David Hajdu comes a personal, idiosyncratic history of popular music.

David Hajdu begins Love for Sale, his personal history of recorded pop music, in an unexpected place–not with nostalgic reminiscences of the 45s of his youth but with the sheet music era at the end of the nineteenth century. It was not so much the beginning of popular music–many songs were already popular–as it was the beginning of the popular music industry. And if he’s going to understand what his 45s meant to him, this is the place to start: the rise of Tin Pan Alley, of minstrelsy, of million-copy sellers and one-hit wonders, and of cultural arbiters decrying the baseness, simplicity, and signs of the end of times in popular music.

From there, Hajdu takes us on more unexpected routes through the history of pop music–back to Alexander Graham Bell and the invention of records … and to his grandmother’s collection of Italian crooners on shellac records that young Hajdu liberated from her New Jersey basement. And neither Italians nor New Jersey are incidental to his story–not just because of Frank Sinatra but because Hajdu’s mom, a waitress in a chrome-clad diner on Route 22, helped shape the fate of a budding young music critic by introducing him to one of the diner’s most prominent patrons, the writer of the timeless song “I’m from New Jersey.”

Love for Sale does ultimately spin through more familiar territory–the Cotton Club, the rise of radio, the battle of disco versus punk for the soul of New York as Hajdu made his chops as a critic, the rise of hip-hop, and the current atomization of the music landscape–but it is always with a unique, insightful, and eloquently presented point of view, as one would expect from one of our most celebrated music critics.

A Juilliard-trained musician and professor of history explores the fascinating entanglement of classical music with American foreign relations.

Dangerous Melodies vividly evokes a time when classical music stood at the center of American life, occupying a prominent place in the nation’s culture and politics. The work of renowned conductors, instrumentalists, and singers―and the activities of orchestras and opera companies―were intertwined with momentous international events: two world wars, the rise of fascism, and the Cold War.

Jonathan Rosenberg exposes the politics behind classical music, showing how German musicians were dismissed or imprisoned as the country’s music was swept from American auditoriums during World War I―yet, twenty years later, those same compositions could inspire Americans in the fight against Nazism while Russian music was deployed to strengthen the US-Soviet alliance. During the Cold War, Van Cliburn’s triumph in the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow became cause for America to celebrate. In Dangerous Melodies, Rosenberg delves into the singular decades-long relationship of classical music and political ideology in America.

Lifelong fans and interested newcomers will love this stunning biography of Duran Duran by the bestselling author of Gold Dust Woman and Hammer of the Gods.

“Nolan Gasser is brilliant at explaining the beautiful machinery behind your favorite songs without taking away any of the magic.” –Conan O’Brien

This program is read by the author.

From the chief architect of the Pandora Radio’s Music Genome Project comes a definitive and groundbreaking examination of how your mind, body, and upbringing influence the music you love.

Everyone loves music. But what is it that makes music so universally beloved and have such a powerful effect on us?

In this sweeping and authoritative audiobook, Dr. Nolan Gasser–a composer, pianist, and musicologist, and the chief architect of the Music Genome Project, which powers Pandora Radio–breaks down what musical taste is, where it comes from, and what our favorite songs say about us.

Dr. Gasser delves into the science, psychology, and sociology that explains why humans love music so much; how our brains process music; and why you may love Queen but your best friend loves Kiss. He sheds light on why babies can clap along to rhythmic patterns and reveals the reason behind why different cultures across the globe identify the same kinds of music as happy, sad, or scary. Using easy-to-follow notated musical scores, Dr. Gasser teaches music fans how to become engaged listeners and provides them with the tools to enhance their musical preferences. He takes listeners under the hood of their favorite genres–pop, rock, jazz, hip hop, electronica, world music, and classical–and covers songs from Taylor Swift to Led Zeppelin to Kendrick Lamar to Bill Evans to Beethoven–and through their work, introduces the musical concepts behind why you hum along, tap your foot, and feel deeply.

Why You Like It will teach you how to follow the musical discourse happening within a song and thereby empower your musical taste, so you will never hear music the same way again.

“A sprawling, packed-to-the-brim study of the art and science of music, as monumental and as busy as a Bach fugue… Gasser’s enterprise has a pleasingly mad-scientist feel to it, one that will attract music theory geeks as much as neuroscientists, anthropologists, psychologists, and Skynyrd fans.” — Kirkus Reviews

One Day University presents a series of audio lectures recorded in real-time from some of the top minds in the United States. Given by award-winning professors and experts in their field, these recorded lectures dive deep into the worlds of religion, government, literature, and social justice. Music is so important because it has no purpose. Its only utility is to remind each of us as human beings about the power of our own imagination. Music matters because it is so completely a human invention. But not a useful one–its only purpose is existential and ethical. It reminds us of what we are capable of; that each of us brings something a little bit different to the experience. An experience that can only strengthen our respect for the dignity and lives of others. As the musicologist and pianist Charles Rosen so eloquently put it, “The death of classical music is perhaps its oldest continuing tradition.” Critics often blame the business (“It’s a charity case!” “Ticket sales will never account for all of its costs!”) and the culture (“Why all the abstruse rules of conduct?” “Why can’t I wear shorts?”) without having a clear grasp on either. Such moments of mockery go back at least as far as the Marx Brothers’ “A Night at the Opera.” Classical music was for pretentious snobs in 1935, according to the movies; classical music is for pretentious snobs in 2014, according to television. In between, Americans built Lincoln Center and the Walt Disney Concert Hall; penned hundreds of memorable works, and sold millions of classical records.

All You Need Is Myth is a timely philosophical conversation about ancient concepts that continue to reverberate in the modern age of mass media and global communication. Author Steve Wagner proposes that the Beatles and the iconic stars of the classic rock era function as modern forms of classical archetypes familiar in mythologies and religious traditions throughout history. The book establishes a persuasive argument that these “Rock Gods” have not only achieved the status of mythic deities but were chosen and nurtured for these roles by the culture itself because of their inherent resonance with archetypal characters, narratives, and symbolism. The thesis is bolstered by a fulcrum of philosophical perspectives connecting separate academic studies, synthesizing theories by Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Marshall McLuhan, and Mircea Eliade, among many others.

Wagner’s thoughtful inquiry makes original contributions to the field of mythology as it is understood in the modern day, inspires the listener to see artistic expression and modern culture through a mythic lens, and deepens our understanding of how mythic transmissions both emerge from and shape our collective consciousness.