Y’all,

Much like the rest of the store, the music section has seen a recent influx of great books.  I think everyone already knows about the new James Brown biography The One and Gregg Allman’s new memoir My Cross to Bear, but here are a few you might not have heard about.  

With Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday just around the corner (July 14), daughter Nora Guthrie with the Woody Guthrie Archives have  published My Name is New York: Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town.  “Highlighting 19 significant locations with historic photos, lyrics, artwork, documents, and diaries – including a day-to-day chronological listing of song titles – this little guide provides an expansive yet intimate portrait of Woody Guthrie’s NYC life.”  My Name is New York is the perfect book for the Woody Guthrie fan about to jet set to the Big Apple, or someone who needs a little more geographical information on the famed folk singer. ($12.95 powerHouse Books)

For an indie rock fan looking for a historical guide, their day has arrived.  From journalist Jesse Jarnow comes Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock, a biography not just on the band but on the movement and world they came from.  “Their story winds through rock history, from guitarist Ira Kaplan’s days as a rock-obsessive teen through his start as a twenty-year-old columnist reporting on the mid-1970s New York punk scene; from Yo La Tengo’s patient early 1980s gestation in slightly off-the-map Hoboken to the birth of a new kind that was actually deserving of the name indie.  As the music industry changed, Yo La Tengo and their associates consistently questioned and reclaimed the notions of independence, even as the meaning of indie continued to mutate.” ($18.00 Gotham Books)

Another cool book recently released is the new Jimi Hendrix biography written by his brother Leon aptly titled Jimi Hendrix: A Brother’s Story.  “Leon Hendrix takes us back to the days before Jimi’s amazing rise to fame, beginning with their tough childhood in Seattle, when their fascination with science fiction and UFOs helped them escape a difficult family life.  The author reveals Jimi’s early fascination with sound, from his experiments with plucking wires attached to bedposts to the time he got in trouble for taking about the family radio (‘I was looking for the music,’ he explained).”  Jimi Hendrix: A Brother’s Story is the perfect book for the Hendrix fan attempting to understand the origins of his genius. ($25.99 Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press)

One last reminder.  If you didn’t pick up Preston Lauterbach’s The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock’n’Roll fear not!  We recently received a shipment of the book in the newly published paperback.  If you’re interested in reading the new James Brown biography The One by R.J. Smith this book is a perfect companion.  ($16.95 W.W. Norton)

 

 

 

 

by Simon

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