This includes the chronologies of all the major artists, bands, singers, players, movers and shakers in contemporary popular music.

A collection of stories and advice from the first female master brewers, innovative self-starter winemakers, most badass bartenders and more, sharing how they got started in the alcohol industry and the challenges they've faced

Once you're dead, you're made for life. --Jimi Hendrix Hendrix. Janis. Morrison. Elvis. Lennon. Cobain. Garcia. Their reckless brilliance held the key to their self-destruction. Their deaths had much in common--and, surprisingly, so did their lives. From lonely childhoods marred by loss to groundbreaking music and turbulent careers that ended tragically and suspiciously, David Comfort explodes the myths as he probes: • The sinister roles of Hendrix's manager and girlfriend in his death and subsequent cover-up • The bizarre odyssey of Jim Morrison's corpse • Why Kurt Cobain was worth more dead than alive to Courtney Love • The twisted motives that caused John Lennon to sail through the Devil's Triangle to Bermuda--nearly going down in a storm--shortly before he was fatally shot • The crippling disease and "miracle" drug that drove Elvis to suicide Charismatic and gifted, but also isolated and conflicted, these are not the rock icons you thought you knew. Here are their larger-than-life stories of turmoil and excess that led to their early deaths and ultimate immortality. It's a wild ride to the other side of fame. "Fame is the soul eater." --Jerry Garcia "Everybody loves you when you're six foot in the ground." --John Lennon Includes Rare Photos David Comfort is the author of three bestselling nonfiction books. His short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines, including Eclectic Literary Forum, Pacific Review, Coe Review, and Belletrist Review. He has been the recipient of several literary prizes and a finalist for such prestigious awards as the Nelson Algren Award and America's Best. A former rock musician, he has spent over 30 years studying rock music, particularly the revolutionary and fatalistic pioneers of the 1960s. He lives in Santa Rosa, California.

This newly revised edition includes the origins of the names of the such contemporary bands as Chumbwamba, Savage Garden, Smash Mouth, and others. Illustrations.

An alphabetically arranged rock reference book, it lists 1,000 key artists, producers, entrepreneurs, and venues in the history of rock. For each entry there is a chronological listing of facts, as opposed to trivia and gossip offered in other reference works. Black-and-white photographs.

The richly diverse ethnic heritage of the Lone Star State has brought to the Southwest a remarkable array of rhythms, instruments, and musical styles that have blended here in unique ways and, in turn, have helped shape the music of the nation and the world. Historian Gary Hartman writes knowingly and lovingly of the Lone Star State’s musical traditions. In the first thorough survey of the vast and complex cultural mosaic that has produced what we know today as “Texas music,” he paints a broad, panoramic view, offers analysis of the origins of and influences on specific genres, profiles key musicians, and provides guidance to additional sources for further information. A musician himself, Hartman draws on both academic and non-academic sources to give a more complete understanding of the state’s remarkable musical history and ethnic community studies with his first-hand knowledge of how important music is as a cultural medium through which human beings communicate information, ideas, emotions, values, and beliefs, and bond together as friends, families, and communities. The History of Texas Music incorporates a selection of well-chosen photographs of both prominent and less-well-known artists and describes not only the ethnic origins of much of Texas music but also the cross-pollination among various genres. Today, the music of Texas—which includes Native American music, gospel, blues, ragtime, swing, jazz, rhythm and blues, conjunto, Tejano, Cajun, zydeco, western swing, honky tonk, polkas, schottsches, rock & roll, rap, hip hop and more—reflects the unique cultural dynamics of the Southwest.

She was the unchallenged queen of the New York rock scene...Dorothy Parker of Max's Kansas City' - Rolling Stone From the pubs of the Sydney Push to New York's legendary nightclubs, Lillian Roxon set the pace for an era that changed the world. Born in Mussolini's Italy, she arrived as a child in Brisbane at the height of the Second World War. Audacious, independent and fiercely intelligent, by eighteen she was cutting her writing teeth in the colourful world of Sydney tabloid journalism and was a key member of the Sydney Push. She moved to New York in 1960, just in time for a cultural revolution that celebrated youth, sexual freedom, women's liberation - and rock and roll. Embracing the new scene with gusto, she became the centre of a circle that included Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, Jim Morrison and David Bowie. Linda Eastman confided in her about her first date with Paul, and Germaine Greer dedicated The Female Eunuch to her. Her Rock Encycylopedia, published in 1969, was the first book of its kind and established Roxon as a leading critic and chronicler of rock culture. When she died suddenly in 1973, she left behind a body of work full of the energy, irreverence and idealism of her times. Drawing on Roxon's personal papers and extensive interviews with those who knew her, Mother of Rock is a riveting portrait of an Australian trailblazer. It also contains a generous selection of Roxon's own writing, including material from her Rock Encyclopedia, which revolutionised the way rock music was perceived.