From the Author's Preface:"I believe that in his greatest music Beethoven was primarily concerned to express his personal vision of life. This vision was, of course, the product of his character and his experience. Beethoven the man and Beethoven the...

In 1933, George Balanchine arrived in the United States, brought by even younger sponsors who had dreamed of inventing an American ballet. He came with extraordinary skills: he had trained as a child in Russia's imperial dance academy, he had absorbed...

Alice Gerrard, an award-winning and storied folk and bluegrass musician for over 50 years, is one of the notable few women in a heavily male genre. Custom Made Woman tells Gerrard's story through the music, the folk festivals, the kids, and the...

Lit Up Inside & Keep 'Er Lit is the collected lyrics of Van Morrison, carefully selected by singer songwriter himself.Featuring the lyrics to over two-hundred songs, and with a foreword by John Cooper Clarke, this is the work of a contemporary master,...

While other kids were enjoying the head-bashing pleasures of tackle football, a freshly bar mitzvahed Steven Blier was inhaling operas and getting his first taste of accompanying professional singers. Beginning with impromptu piano gigs in the 1960s,...

An engrossing oral history of a band that came to define a generation, Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run tells the madcap story of Paul McCartney and his newly formed band, from their humble beginnings in the early 1970s to their dissolution barely a...

The rock legend tells the story of his wild ride with Martin Scorsese—as friends, adventure-seekers, and boundary-pushing collaborators—with all the heart of his New York Times bestselling memoir Testimony.For four decades, Robbie Robertson produced...

Portrays the personalities and careers of the great dancers against the general history of the ballet

Jane Eisner traces the professional accomplishments and personal challenges of pop icon Carole King, exploring her unique contribution to American music Carole King's extraordinary career has defined American popular music for more than half a century...

An electrifying journey through the history of rock and roll, told through the lives of fifteen iconic drummers and their percussion rivals—from John Bonham and Charlie Watts to Ringo Starr and Questlove.Rock and roll thrives on rhythm, but the drummers...

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • A Best Book of the 21st Century (So Far)—Kirkus Reviews“A fascinating read about a true genius and his unrelenting thirst for beauty in art and in life.”—MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOVWinner of the Plutarch Award for Best Biography and the...

The first history of the fanzines that emerged from Washington, DC's highly influential punk communityDIY culture has always been at the heart of DC's thriving punk community. As Washington, DC's punk scene emerged in the mid-1970s, so did the...

A Variety best music book of 2024A FLOOD best music book of 2024A Clash best music book of 2024A Mother Jones best book of 2024"In a career and life full of fictions, the truth—as this excellent, detailed biography makes clear—was often as mind-boggling...

A 50th anniversary edition of the music classic, with fully updated discographies and new introductions from Greil Marcus and Dwight GarnerIn this special 50th anniversary edition of the beloved Plume backlist staple first released in 1975, Mystery...

NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE • From the bestselling historian and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, the moving untold story of the eighteenth-century men and women behind the making of Handel’s...

Embark on an extraordinary journey through the life, music and spiritual adventures of Yusuf/Cat Stevens, one of the most iconic figures of our time. CAT ON THE ROAD TO FINDOUT is more than a memoir - it's a profound exploration of identity, faith, and...

"The long-awaited memoir by Cameron Crowe--one of America's most iconic journalists and filmmakers--revealing his formative years in rock and roll and bringing to life stories that shaped a generation, in the bestselling tradition of Patti Smith's Just...

THE ROYAL WE is a poetic survey of a time set in a magical city that once was and is no more. It is a memoir written by Roddy Bottum, a musician and artist, that documents through prose his coming of age and out of the closet in 1980s San Francisco, a...

By 1960, musicians, critics, record buyers, and club patrons in New York City agreed that a "new thing" in jazz had arrived. That new thing was what we in the twenty-first century call free jazz, and it represented a significant change within and, for...

"Richie is refreshingly open in the book, which functions as both a fun memoir and a love letter to music and his beloved Tuskegee... There's an abundance of love and gratitude in this wildly entertaining, utterly charming memoir." - Kirkus, STARRED...