A recollection of memories and stories written by the Russian guitar maker Yuriy Shishkov. After his risky departure from the Soviet Union to the USA in 1990, he began working for major guitar companies. This led to many of his instruments finding their place in the hands of famous artists, celebrities, and guitar collectors. This book describes interesting aspects of his life, in detail, covering everything from Soviet daycares to the search for music that was banned by the state. It explains the beginning of his guitar making career in Russia as well as the harsh life of the Soviet people at the time of the Cold War spanning from 1964 until the end of the USSR. Aside from the up-close and personal life story, this autobiography includes unique photos depicting a wide spectrum of his craftsmanship work from Russia and America. A detailed anthology about the reality of the Soviet Union, the challenges faced during this time, and Yuriy's passion to pursue guitar making artistry.

Demonstrating the intimate connections among our public, political, and personal lives, these essays by Robert Cantwell explore the vernacular culture of everyday life. A keen and innovative observer of American culture, Cantwell casts a broad and penetrating intelligence over the cultural functioning of popular texts, artifacts, and performers, examining how cultural practices become performances and how performances become artifacts endowed with new meaning through the transformative acts of imagination. Cantwell's points of departure range from the visual and the literary--a photograph of Woody Guthrie, or a poem by John Keats--to major cultural exhibitions such as the World's Columbian Exposition. In all these domains, he unravels the implications for community and cultural life of a continual migration, transformation, and reformulation of cultural content.

In this lively collection of interviews, storied music writer Jas Obrecht presents a celebration of the world's most popular instrument as seen through the words, lives, and artistry of some of its most beloved players. Readers will read--and hear--accounts of the first guitarists on record, pioneering bluesmen, gospel greats, jazz innovators, country pickers, rocking rebels, psychedelic shape-shifters, singer-songwriters, and other movers and shakers. In their own words, these guitar players reveal how they found their inspirations, mastered their instruments, crafted classic songs, and created enduring solos. Highlights include Nick Lucas's recollections of waxing the first noteworthy guitar records; Ry Cooder's exploration of prewar blues musicians; Carole Kaye and Ricky Nelson on the early years of rock and roll; Stevie Ray Vaughan on Jimi Hendrix; Gregg Allman on his brother, Duane Allman; Carlos Santana, Eric Johnson, and Pops Staples on spirituality in music; Jerry Garcia, Neil Young, and Tom Petty on songwriting and creativity; and early interviews with Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, and Ben Harper.

The Baltimore Orioles are one of baseball's most historic franchises. Through the words of the players, via multiple interviews conducted with current and past Orioles, readers will meet the players, coaches, and management and share in their moments of greatness and defeat. Dempsey recounts moments from the 1983 World Series championship, the rise of Cal Ripken Jr., and the current team under Buck Showalter. Orioles fans will not want to be without this book.

(Book). The sound of rock, blues, country and jazz is not just the sound of electric guitars. It's the sound of electric guitars through amplifiers. For the first time, Guitar Rigs examines the great guitar/amp combinations that have created more than 50 years of fantastic music. Each section includes a full history of guitar and amps and details the construction, components, performance, qualities and drawbacks of each combination. Guitar Rigs is not just a celebration of the collectable treasures of the guitar and amp world. Along the way it evaluates many more instruments, amps and effects, offering alternatives for those trying to conjure great sounds from less-exalted equipment. And it comes with a CD that demonstrates these and many more combinations so you hear them for yourself.

This book offers a lifetime of interviews with the pop music phenom known to the world as Scowl. They were conducted by longtime confidante and journalist, Ralph Bonaparte. The interviews begin in 1957, right after one of Scowl’s early rock ‘n’ roll concerts in Los Angeles, and they end in 2001, just prior to one of his sold-out retrospective shows in Las Vegas. These vibrant and compelling interviews cover Scowl’s entire remarkable life from his exuberant years as a young man to his more thoughtful years as an adult. They reveal the heart and soul of a talented, beloved, and flawed American entertainer—who, like the rest of us, learned as he lived.