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Through nigh-on forty years of laconic brilliance on Radio 1, a musical taste which defined a culture and his wildly popular Radio 4 show, Home Truths, John Peel reached out to an audience that was as diverse as his record collection. He was a genuinely great Briton, beloved by millions. John's unique voice and sensibility were evident in everything he did, and nowhere is that more true than in these pages. Margrave of the Marshes is the astonishing book John Peel began to write before his untimely death in October 2004, completed by the woman who knew him best, his wife Sheila. It is a unique and intimate portrait of a life, a marriage and a family which is every bit as extraordinary as the man himself - a fitting tribute to a bona fide legend.
John Peel, the most influential DJ in rock history, was beloved by millions as an unstinting champion of musical talent on BBC's Radio 1 and as the host of the wildly popular Radio 4 show "Home Truths."
Combining the personal memories and critical analysis of a self-confessed pop addict with a wealth of contemporary documentary evidence, Gathered From Coincidence reconstructs a truly momentous era to tell the story of the music of the Sixties year by year. By tracing in parallel the origins and development of the recording careers of major talents on both sides of the Atlantic - the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Dusty Springfield and many more besides - this account shows how they traded creativity with one another. All the great Sixties' hits - as well as a host of less well-known gems - are described in the context of the charts of the day, tracking the ups and d...
Family Britain continues David Kynaston's groundbreaking series Tales of a New Jerusalem, telling as never before the story of Britain from VE Day in 1945 to the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979.
Despite the number of claims in publishers blurbs, not many people actually achieve the status of legend in their own lifetime. Fewer still actually deserve that status. John Peel is the exception which proves that rule, a Great Briton whose contribution to British culture is undeniable, without whom popular culture would never have become popular. Beloved by millions whether for his unstinting championing of musical talent on Radio 1 or for his wildly popular Radio 4 show Home Truths this is the astonishing book he began to write before his untimely death in October 2004, completed by the woman who knew him best, his wife Sheila. The first half of the book, written by John, describes with c...
This new study from Ben Highmore looks at the seemingly banal world of objects, work, daily media, and food, and finds there a scintillating array of passionate experience. Through a series of case studies, and building on his previous work on the everyday, Highmore examines our relationship to familiar objects (a favourite chair), repetitive work (housework, typing), media (distracted television viewing and radio listening) and food (specifically the food of multicultural Britain). A chair allows him to consider the history of flat-pack furniture as well as the lively presence of inorganic ‘stuff’ in our daily lives. Distracted television watching and radio listening becomes one of the ...
One Step Beyond isn't the best album in the world - it's not even the best album by Madness. It is, however, a great record and an exceptional debut album -fully formed despite half the band still being in their teens - and it remains as exhilarating, inspiring and as much fun as when people first heard it nearly 30 years ago. Through extensive interviews with the band, as well as producers Clive Langer & Alan Winstanley, Terry Edwards tells the inside story of how Madness rose to be the most successful singles band of the 1980s in the UK charts.
Robert Wyatt started out as the drummer and singer for Soft Machine, who shared a residency at Middle Earth with Pink Floyd and toured America with Jimi Hendrix. He brought a Bohemian and jazz outlook to the 60s rock scene, having honed his drumming skills in a shed at the end of Robert Graves' garden in Mallorca. His life took an abrupt turn after he fell from a fourth-floor window at a party and was paralysed from the waist down. He reinvented himself as a singer and composer with the extraordinary album Rock Bottom, and in the early eighties his solo work was increasingly political. Today, Wyatt remains perennially hip, guesting with artists such as Bjork, Brian Eno, Scritti Politti, David Gilmour and Hot Chip. Marcus O'Dair has talked to all of them, indeed to just about everyone who has shaped, or been shaped by, Wyatt over five decades of music history.
“Eravamo anti-sistema in tutto e per tutto, nella musica e nell’arte. Volevamo distruggere qualsiasi cosa avesse regole prestabilite, tutto quel che c’era di asfissiante, tutte le certezze. Eravamo decisi a infrangere tutte le regole in tutti i modi possibili”. La Londra di Barry Miles è quella della cultura underground che nasce fra le macerie della Seconda guerra mondiale ed esplode nel corso degli anni Sessanta e Settanta, concentrandosi sul West End e su Soho, le zone in cui era confluita un’eterogenea popolazione di personaggi creativi e fuori dalle righe, intolleranti nei confronti delle costrizioni della cultura e del costume ufficiale: scrittori, poeti, registi, musicisti,...