Kansas

Author: Kevin Cummings
Publisher: On Track
ISBN: 9781789520576
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
Progressive rock is generally considered an English affair, focusing on the likes of Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, King Crimson. However, in America, the best-known exponents of progressive rock are Kansas. Though the band is known mainly for their radio staples 'Carry On Wayward Son' and 'Dust in the Wind, ' the band's musical range runs much deeper. A unique blend of European prog rock and American blues, Kansas are capable of an extended symphonic epic followed by a shorter, gritty blues song. Yet even those songs are never simple three-chord tunes. Virtually everything the band recorded has a progressive touch. Such is the beauty of Kansas' music. Despite personnel changes, including the departure of three lead singers, they continue to flourish. Recent years have brought a new line up, a new album, and a rejuvenated outlook, resulting in acclaimed live shows. Their legacy will no doubt continue as they approach their half-century mark. Kansas: On Track follows the band from their first album to their most recent. Each song is carefully considered in context, along with comments from the author and key figures in the band's history. Hardcore fans and casual listeners alike will gain a renewed appreciation of America's premier progressive rock band

Genesis

Author: Stuart MacFarlane
Publisher: On Track
ISBN: 9781789520057
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
From schoolboy band to sold-out stadium tours and worldwide album sales of over 100 million, Genesis were one of the defining progressive rock bands of the seventies, playing a huge part in shaping the genre. Over a career spanning forty years from formation to the world reunion tour of 2007, they developed and adapted through many changes, some of which polarized their existing fans but attracted countless new ones. While Foxtrot and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway helped define progressive rock, it was the three-piece line up of Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins that became the real hit-makers, with albums like Invisible Touch and We Can't Dance and massive hit singles like 'No Son of Mine' and 'Land of Confusion'. Fifteen studio and six live albums later, including five consecutive number ones and five consecutive top tens in the USA, fans still live in the hope of yet another reunion tour which so far hasn't been ruled out. This book takes the reader on a journey through their entire catalogue, taking each album in turn and examining every track. It is compiled from the viewpoint of a lifelong fan, and it is hoped that the book stirs many old memories, as it has done for the author, as well as providing some insight for more recent fans of the band.

David Bowie's Diamond Dogs

Author: Glenn Hendler
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501336592
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 163

Book Description
After his breakthrough with Ziggy Stardust and before his U.S. pop hits "Fame" and "Golden Years" David Bowie produced a dark and difficult concept album set in a post-apocalyptic "Hunger City" populated by post-human "mutants." Diamond Dogs includes the great glam anthem "Rebel Rebel" and utterly unique songs that combine lush romantic piano and nearly operatic singing with scratching, grungy guitars, creepy, insidious noises, and dark, pessimistic lyrics that reflect the album's origins in a projected Broadway musical version of Orwell's 1984 and Bowie's formative encounter with William S. Burroughs. In this book Glenn Hendler shows that each song on Diamond Dogs shifts the ground under you as you listen, not just by changing in musical style, but by being sung by a different "I" who directly addresses a different "you." Diamond Dogs is the product of a performer at the peak of his powers but uncomfortable with the rock star role he had constructed. All of the album's influences looked to Bowie like ways of escaping not just the Ziggy role, but also the constraints of race, gender, sexuality, and nationality. These are just some of the reasons many Bowie fans rate Diamond Dogs his richest and most important album of the 1970s.

DIRE STRAITS

Author: LAURA. SHENTON
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781915246417
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description

Lucky Man

Author: Greg Lake
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1472126475
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Book Description
Greg Lake first won acclaim as lead vocalist, bass guitarist and producer when, together with Robert Fripp, he formed King Crimson. Their first album, the landmark In the Court of the Crimson King, co-produced by Greg, featured the iconic song '21st Century Schizoid Man'. King Crimson pioneered progressive rock and paved the way for many famous bands that followed, from Yes and Genesis to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. In 1970 Greg met fellow legend Keith Emerson during a North American tour; the two shared common bonds: European musical influences and a desire to reinterpret classical works while creating a new musical genre. After being introduced to drummer Carl Palmer, they formed the first progressive rock supergroup Emerson, Lake and Palmer. To date ELP has sold over 50 million records. Lake produced Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Tarkus, Pictures at an Exhibition, Trilogy, Brain Salad Surgery, Works Vol. 1 and 2, and two different live albums. All went platinum and featured a series of hit singles, most written and all sung by Lake. The three created a unique live theatrical performance which featured Emerson attacking his keyboards with knives, Palmer playing a 2.5 ton stainless steel kit and Lake performing on a £6,000 Persian rug which had its own roadie. One of their very first performances was at the historic Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 and they went on to headline California Jam, one of the biggest concerts of the 1970s, attended by 350,000 people. Probably the voice of his generation, Greg fronted the greatest rock supergroup of the 1970s but never held with the 'progressive' tag that attached itself to both the music and the excess. Lucky Man not only charts the highs and lows of a career in rock music but also reflects on the death of Keith Emerson last year, living with terminal cancer and the end of life. Greg can best be summed up by his now-famous line: 'Material wealth is a very fleeting pleasure ... when you can buy anything you want and do anything you want, you soon discover that you actually don't want any of it.'

Pictures of an Exhibitionist

Author: Keith Emerson
Publisher: Metro Publishing, Limited
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
Keyboard legend Keith Emerson is one of the most important figures to emerge from the thriving rock scene of the sixties and seventies. Fusing rock ‘n' roll with classical, jazz, and world music, he has set a standard by which others are judged. With Greg Lake and Carl Palmer, he formed the hugely successful Emerson, Lake and Palmer, who, between 1970 and 1977, released six platinum albums. Now in this insightful and irreverent memoir, Emerson tells uproarious tales of life on the road, tales of the high lifestyle that goes with being a rock star, and of course, tales of the outrageous, barrier-shattering music he produced.

Deep Purple & Rainbow 1968-1979

Author: Steve Pilkington
Publisher: On Track
ISBN: 9781789520026
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
Few would deny that Deep Purple were one of the most influential and popular heavy rock bands to emerge from the melting pot of the late '60s. They went through several line-up changes, and stylistic shifts, before splitting up for the first time in the mid 1970s. Talismanic guitarist Ritchie Blackmore carried the spirit on when he formed Rainbow after leaving Purple in 1975, particularly through his partnership with legendary singer Ronnie James Dio. Deep Purple reformed some years later, of course, but many consider this original, sometimes turbulent, decade to be their most significant. Steve Pilkington puts his focus on the period from Shades Of Deep Purple in 1968 through to the first dissolution of the band after Come Taste The Band in 1976, via such classics as Machine Head and in Rock. He also discusses the first four Rainbow studio albums, including the classic Rainbow Raising and the hit-laden Down To Earth album in 1979, taking a look at every song from every album in detail. He also discusses live recordings plus DVD and video releases. The result is the most exhaustive guide to the band's music yet produced, as critical opinion rubs shoulders with facts, trivia and anecdotes to provide a fascinating 'alternative history' of these revered bands . Whether you are a hardcore fan or simply want a guide through the world which lies beyond Smoke On The Water, this book is for you.

Porcupine Tree: Every Album, Every Song

Author: Nick Holmes
Publisher: Sonicbond Publishing
ISBN: 9781789521443
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description

Pink Floyd Solo

Author: Mike Goode
Publisher: On Track
ISBN: 9781789520460
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
Although multi-million selling albums such as Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall are justifiably at the forefront of the Pink Floyd canon, the solo work of all five members - Syd Barrett, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters and Rick Wright - is a largely undocumented and fascinating aspect of the band's ongoing history. It is certainly diverse, from Barrett's mercurial early-70s album, The Madcap Laughs, through Waters' ever-acerbic solo concepts, to Gilmour's mainstream post-Millennium releases such as Rattle That Lock. And lest we forget the often under-appreciated contribution Mason and Wright made to Pink Floyd, their solo works are also represented, along with the session and production duties each Floyd member has undertaken over the years - some of which may raise an eyebrow or two! The ground-breaking nature of Pink Floyd's music has been kept alive and well in the releases of all solo members and has long been screaming out for analysis - something this book provides with compelling enthusiasm and insight. Listing every studio track they have released - placing them in chronological order - this is the perfect book for those who wish to delve deeper into Pink Floyd.

Endless Enigma

Author: Edward Macan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 874

Book Description
"Throughout the 1970s, no style of popular music was more controversial than progressive rock, and no progressive rock band was more controversial than Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Initially attracting attention for their unusual keyboards-bass-drums configuration, ELP became hugely popular on both sides of the Atlantic. Fans saw ELP as fulfilling the promise of post-Beatles rock, imaginatively fusing rock, jazz, and classical elements with cutting-edge technology, breathtaking virtuosity, and a monumental stage show. Critics saw ELP as a bombastic assault on rock's working-class and oppositional roots. In this, Edward Macan unravels the enigma that is Emerson, Lake and Palmer."--BOOK JACKET.