Music & Movies

This vivid oral snapshot of an America that planted the blues is full of rhythmic grace. From the son of a sharecropper to an itinerant bluesman, Honeyboy's stories of good friends Charlie Patton, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter Jacobs, and Robert...

This is the bittersweet life story of a beloved bandleader who rose to fame and fortune, then spent the last 20 years of his life working to pay $1.6 million in back taxes. Written with Troup, jazz critic for New York Newsday, the book is a...

The Wild Tchoupitoulas is a definitive expression of the modern New Orleans sound. From Hey Pocky A-Way to Big Chief Got a Golden Crown, the album draws on carnival traditions stretching back a century, adapting songs from the Mardi Gras Indians. Music...

(Fake Book). This must-own collection includes 635 songs spanning all jazz styles from more than 9 decades from traditional to swing to modern jazz, carefully chosen chords with common practice chord substitutions, lyrics to accomodate vocalists,...

(Guitar Recorded Versions). This terrific collection features 20 tunes from wildly influential (B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Jimi Hendrix, to name but a few) blues legend T-Bone Walker, to whom electric blues and rock music owe their...

Cone explores two classic aspects of African-American culture--the spirituals and the blues. He tells the captivating story of how slaves and the children of slaves used this music to affirm their essential humanity in the face of oppression. The blues...

Words have power and can either build us up, or tear us down. What about hidden agendas with words? Music has that same power, with the right words attached. This book will help you examine just how impressionable you are. Emotions ride high and...

"Music defines us. Joel Beckerman knows. Let him tell you all about it." --Anthony Bourdain "Equal parts sociological study and business advice, using unique everyday examples--for instance, how the fate of the Chili's fajita empire rested on the sound...

The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is a scandalous, engrossing tale of sexual politics and family strife in modern-day Nigeria. Lola Shoneyin's bestselling novel bursts on to the stage in a vivid adaptat---ion by Caine Award-winning playwright Rotimi...

"How did Mae West influence a Motown hit? What theme song earned millions and millions for the writer? Who was the drummer on the hit song, "Rescue Me"? Why learning Eartha Kitt's personal history means you will never hear her music in the same way...

I went to Africa to find the roots of the blues. So Samuel Charters begins the extraordinary story of his research. But what began as a study of how the blues was handed down from African slaves to musicians of today via the slave ships, became something...

In The Righteous Way: Infinity Edition, author Starmel Allah aims to empower readers by showing them how to tap into their infinite potential. Here, Starmel delves further into the Knowledge of Self by discussing the limitations and powers of the mind...