White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day

White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day is by far the most comprehensive book on the Velvet Underground ever published. The 368-page, 8 1/2" X 11"-sized book details the group's recording sessions, record releases, concerts, press reviews, and other major events shaping their career with both thorough detail and critical insight. Drawing on about 100 interviews and exhaustive research through documents and recordings rarely or never accessed, it unearths stories that have seldom been told, and eyewitness accounts that have seldom seen print, from figures ranging from band members to managers, producers, record executives, journalists, concert promoters, and fans.

Though White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day has plenty of information about what happened when, it's not just a reference book. This chronologically sequenced overview of the band's life and times also offers weaves a wealth of passionate analysis  and musical description into the research. The result is not just a document of their perpetually fascinating performances, hirings, and firings, but also insight into the creation of their music—the aspect of the Velvet Underground's legacy, after all, that's by far the most enduring.

White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day includes not only basic nuts-and-bolts facts, but also many behind-the-scenes stories as to how their songs were written and recorded; how their strikingly original stage shows were devised; how the band were perceived by reviewers at the time of their 1965-70 heyday, not just in retrospect; and how the group as a whole underwent a most improbable, incessantly unpredictable evolution from the most avant-garde of bohemian origins into a highly accessible, yet still boldly creative, rock band by the time Lou Reed left the group he'd co-founded with John Cale in early 1965.

While the bulk of White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day documents the period from 1965 to 1970 in which Lou Reed was the group's chief singer and songwriter, it also offers in-depth coverage of the individual members' surprisingly extensive (if mightily obscure) pre-1965 activities; the solo or non-VU projects in which they were involved between 1965 and 1970, which were numerous and often quite intimately related to what the group themselves were doing; and the ways in which the band's legacy was both influential and expanded upon after 1970, not only via the numerous releases of unissued Velvets material, but also through how the stature of their achievements grew and grew with a wealth of posthumous honors and tributes. Along the way, many unreleased concert and studio recordings are vividly described; many obscure and unlikely concerts delineated; and many myths that have grown up around this most legendary of all cult bands untangled and dissected.

The Unreleased Beatles: Music and Film

A mammoth 400-page, 300,000-word guide to the incredible wealth of music the Beatles recorded that they did not release, as well as musical footage of the group that hasn't been made commercially available. Just published by Backbeat Books, the 8 1/2" X 11"-sized, illustrated volume examines all unreleased studio outtakes, BBC radio recordings from 1962-65, live concert performances, home demos, private tapes, fan club Christmas recordings, and other informal recordings done outside of EMI studios that have escaped into circulation. Chronologically sequenced entries for all the Beatles' unreleased recordings of note from 1957 to 1970 are here, as well as all the unreleased Beatles musical video footage of note from 1961 to 1970.

Also included are overviews of songs composed by the Beatles that were never recorded by the group, but given away to other artists; recordings known or rumored to have been made by the group that haven't yet circulated; Beatles compositions never recorded by anyone; coverage of music the group didn't release while active, but later put out on albums such as The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl, Live! At the Star-Club, Live at the BBC, Let It Be...Naked, and the Anthology volumes; and a history of Beatles bootlegs.

The Unreleased Beatles: Music and Film is written with lively critical, descriptive analysis emphasizing the music and its most human, artistic qualities—and not just where and when the recordings were made. Click here for excerpts from the book, a table of contents, and various Beatle-rarity-related lists of items covered in the volume.

Eight Miles High: Folk-Rock's Flight from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock

The second half of the two-volume history of 1960s folk-rock, which saw the movement branch off into folk-rock-psychedelia, singer-songwriters, country-rock, a distinctively British form of folk-rock, and more. While the Byrds, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, and other folk-rock originals continued to blaze innovative paths, space also opened for new talents like Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and the folk-rock supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Equally fine music was also made by underrated greats (Phil Ochs, Tim Buckley), artists who took decades to find cult followings (Nick Drake, Skip Spence), and others who remain virtually unknown (Blackburn & Snow).  Published by Backbeat Books in 2003, this (like its predecessor, Turn! Turn! Turn! ) includes material from first-hand interviews with more than 100 of folk-rock's key players, from stars like Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, Donovan, John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful, and Judy Collins to behind-the-scenes producers and cult artists. Click here for excerpts from the book; transcripts of interviews with folk-rockers; links to web pages devoted to folk-rock musicians and folk-rock in general; lists and descriptions of the author's favorite folk-rock recordings, both famous and obscure; and a user-friendly guide to folk-rock's most pivotal performers, songs, and innovations. 

Turn! Turn! Turn!: The 1960s Folk-Rock Revolution

The first half of a two-volume history of the thrilling musical movement that blended folk and rock in the mid-1960s, injecting social consciousness into popular music and creating some truly unequaled sounds by the likes of both stars (the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield), underrated greats (Richard & Mimi Fariña, Fred Neil), and the wholly unknown (the Blue Things). Published by Backbeat Books in 2002, it includes material from first-hand interviews with more than 100 of folk-rock's key players, from stars like Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, Donovan, John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful, and Judy Collins to behind-the-scenes producers and cult artists. The second half of the story (Eight Miles High), picking up where Turn! Turn! Turn! leaves off in mid-1966 and following folk-rock all the way to the end of the 1960s, was published by Backbeat in 2003. Click here for excerpts from the book; transcripts of interviews with folk-rockers; links to web pages devoted to folk-rock musicians and folk-rock in general; lists and descriptions of the author's favorite folk-rock recordings, both famous and obscure; and a user-friendly guide to folk-rock's most pivotal performers, songs, and innovations. 

Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll

Published in 1998 by Miller Freeman Books, Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll profiles 60 underappreciated cult rock artists of all styles and eras, drawing extensively upon first-hand interviews. Click here for a list of the artists covered; excerpts from the book; links to web pages devoted to the musicians, mini-genres of cult rock, and other sites with a bounty of info on obscure and unusual rock; reviews of new reissues of various unknown legends; and a rotating selection of author favorites. 

Urban Spacemen & Wayfaring Strangers: Overlooked Innovators and Eccentric Visionaries of '60s Rock

The sequel to Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll,documenting twenty cult rockers from the 1960s. No repeats from Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll, and just as long, with each chapter running about three times as long as the average chapter in Unknown Legends,allowing for extremely detailed investigation of the careers of greats like the Pretty Things, Arthur Brown, Richard & Mimi Fariña, and Tim Buckley. Click here for a list of the artists covered; excerpts from the book; links to web pages devoted to the musicians, mini-genres of '60s cult rock, and other sites with a bounty of info on obscure and unusual '60s rock; reviews of new '60s reissues of various unknown legends; and various odds and ends illuminating hidden corners of rock's greatest decade. 

Music USA

A guide to the regional popular music of the United States, published by Penguin as part of the Rough Guides' music reference series in 1999. Chapters on twenty cities and areas of the country, from New York and Louisiana to San Francisco and Hawaii, provide an overview of the evolution of all forms of twentieth-century American music, including rock, jazz, blues, country, folk, Cajun, Tex-Mex, soul, Native American, rap, zydeco, and more. Includes capsule reviews of several hundred of the most crucial recordings, and guides to the best venues and radio stations in each region, as well as to the best books and videos for further investigation. Click here for excerpts from the book; transcripts of interviews of various musicians, incorporated into feature sidebars in the book; and lists of recommended listening for various American musical genres. 

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