From the acclaimed author of Long Bright River and Heft, a novel that allows us to take a peek behind the curtain of the music industry Liz Moore shows us the inner workings of an industry we’ve been fascinated with for decades. In these fourteen linked episodes, we meet a cast of characters from all the corners of the industry that we’ve come to glamourize. There’s the arrogantly hip, twenty-six-year-old A&R man; the rising young singer-songwriter; the established, arena-filling rock star on the verge of a midlife crisis; the type-A female executive with the heavy social calendar; and other recognizable figures. Set in the sleek offices, high-tech recording studios, and grungy downtown clubs of New York, The Words of Every Song offers an authenticity drawn from Liz Moore’s own experience and brings an insider’s touch to its depiction of the music industry and its denizens.

From the acclaimed author of Long Bright River and Heft, a novel that allows us to take a peek behind the curtain of the music industry Liz Moore shows us the inner workings of an industry we’ve been fascinated with for decades. In these fourteen linked episodes, we meet a cast of characters from all the corners of the industry that we’ve come to glamourize. There’s the arrogantly hip, twenty-six-year-old A&R man; the rising young singer-songwriter; the established, arena-filling rock star on the verge of a midlife crisis; the type-A female executive with the heavy social calendar; and other recognizable figures. Set in the sleek offices, high-tech recording studios, and grungy downtown clubs of New York, The Words of Every Song offers an authenticity drawn from Liz Moore’s own experience and brings an insider’s touch to its depiction of the music industry and its denizens.

__________________________________ 'A remarkable novel, elegant, wise, and beautifully constructed.' Roddy Doyle Tommy Mays, Titan Records' biggest act, is verging on a mid-life crisis; learning the hard way that a life of fame and fortune comes at a price. But things are looking up for his support band, The Burn, which could be a career-changer for Theo, Titan's young A&R executive. Meanwhile, secretary Cynthia has her eyes on Titan's latest rising star, singer-songwriter Lenore Lamont. But with a billboard in Times Square, is Lenore starting to feel the pressure? Set in the sleek offices, high-tech recording studios and hip downtown clubs of New York, The Words of Every Song depicts the realities of making it in an industry where glamour and fame can often conceal the harsh realities for those hoping to hit the big-time.

Album by album and track by track, this first-of-its-kind catalog of David Bowie's entire 50-year and 27-album career tells the story of one of rock's all-time greatest artists. A lovingly thorough dissection of every album and every track ever released by David Bowie over the span of his nearly 50 year career, David Bowie All the Songs follows the musician from his self-titled debut album released in 1967 all the way through Blackstar, his final album. Delving deep into Bowie's past and featuring new commentary and archival interviews with a wide range of models, actors, musicians, producers, and recording executives who all worked with and knew the so-called "Thin White Duke", David Bowie All the Songs charts the musician's course from a young upstart in 1960s London to a musical behemoth who collaborated with everyone from Queen Latifah and Bing Crosby, to Mick Jagger and Arcade Fire. This one-of-a-kind book draws upon years of research in order to recount how each song was written, composed, and recorded, down to the instruments used and the people who played them. Featuring hundreds of vivid photographs that celebrate one of music's most visually arresting performers, David Bowie All the Songs is a must-have book for any true fan of classic rock.

Have you ever wondered who hummed the first tune? Was it the flowers? The waves or the moon? Dove Award-winning recording artist Ellie Holcomb answers with a lovely lyrical tale, one that reveals that God our Maker sang the first song, and He created us all with a song to sing. Go to bhkids.com to find this book's Parent Connection, an easy tool to help moms and dads (or anyone else who loves kids) discuss the book's message with their child. We're all about connecting parents and kids to each other and to God's Word.

The Beautiful Music All Around Us presents the extraordinarily rich backstories of thirteen performances captured on Library of Congress field recordings between 1934 and 1942 in locations reaching from Southern Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta and the Great Plains. Including the children's play song "Shortenin' Bread," the fiddle tune "Bonaparte's Retreat," the blues "Another Man Done Gone," and the spiritual "Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down," these performances were recorded in kitchens and churches, on porches and in prisons, in hotel rooms and school auditoriums. Documented during the golden age of the Library of Congress recordings, they capture not only the words and tunes of traditional songs but also the sounds of life in which the performances were embedded: children laugh, neighbors comment, trucks pass by. Musician and researcher Stephen Wade sought out the performers on these recordings, their families, fellow musicians, and others who remembered them. He reconstructs the sights and sounds of the recording sessions themselves and how the music worked in all their lives. Some of these performers developed musical reputations beyond these field recordings, but for many, these tracks represent their only appearances on record: prisoners at the Arkansas State Penitentiary jumping on "the Library's recording machine" in a rendering of "Rock Island Line"; Ora Dell Graham being called away from the schoolyard to sing the jump-rope rhyme "Pullin' the Skiff"; Luther Strong shaking off a hungover night in jail and borrowing a fiddle to rip into "Glory in the Meetinghouse." Alongside loving and expert profiles of these performers and their locales and communities, Wade also untangles the histories of these iconic songs and tunes, tracing them through slave songs and spirituals, British and homegrown ballads, fiddle contests, gospel quartets, and labor laments. By exploring how these singers and instrumentalists exerted their own creativity on inherited forms, "amplifying tradition's gifts," Wade shows how a single artist can make a difference within a democracy. Reflecting decades of research and detective work, the profiles and abundant photos in The Beautiful Music All Around Us bring to life largely unheralded individuals--domestics, farm laborers, state prisoners, schoolchildren, cowboys, housewives and mothers, loggers and miners--whose music has become part of the wider American musical soundscape. The hardcover edition also includes an accompanying CD that presents these thirteen performances, songs and sounds of America in the 1930s and '40s.

What is music in the age of the cloud? Today, we can listen to nearly anything, at any time. It is possible to flit instantly across genres and generations, from 1980s Detroit techno to 1890s Viennese neo-romanticism. This new age of listening brings with it astonishing new possibilities--as well as dangers. In Every Song Ever, the veteran New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff reimagines the very idea of music appreciation for our times. In the age of the cloud, the genre of the recording and the intention of the composer matter less and less. Instead, we can savor our own listening experience more directly, taking stock of qualities like repetition, speed, density, or loudness. The result is a new mode of listening that can lead to unexpected connections. When we listen for slowness, we may detect surprising affinities between the drone metal of Sunn O))), the mixtape manipulations of DJ Screw, and the final works of Shostakovich. And if we listen for more elusive qualities like closeness, we might notice how the tight harmonies of bluegrass vocals illuminate the virtuosic synchrony of John Coltrane's quartet. Encompassing the sounds of five continents and several centuries, Ratliff's book is a definitive field guide to our musical habitat, and a foundation for the new aesthetics our age demands.