British Rock Guitar


Book Description

The guitar has become the most emotive musical instrument of the last 50 years of rock and roll. From the early days when wannabee stars fashioned homemade guitars out of old tea chests, to today's sophisticated instruments the impact has been phenomenal. In this book, Mo Foster, one of the industry's most prestigious bass guitarists, and renowned producer, composer and session musician draws upon his own recollections and those of some of the greatest exponents of the rock guitar, from Hank Marvin to Eric Clapton and Brian May. Once managed by Ronnie Scott, Foster has recorded and toured with many of the world's biggest musical icons including Jeff Beck, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, Gerry Rafferty, Van Morrison and George Martin. In this insightful, passionate and humorous book Mo Foster has written the definitive history of the importance of the guitar in the development of British music over the last 50 years.




Where’s My Guitar?: An Inside Story of British Rock and Roll


Book Description

‘A page turner...and then some!’ Chris Evans ‘An absorbing memoir.’ Classic Rock Magazine ‘A very enjoyable rock-n-roll memoir that is not just for fans, but for anyone interested in this classic era of the British rock scene’ The Afterword




17 Watts?


Book Description

Mo Foster tells the many varied and humorous stories - often first hand, from the musicians themselves - of the emergence of the great British rock guitarists. Contributors include Jeff Beck, Phil Collins, Gerry Rafferty, Cher and Hank Marvin.'




Legends of Rock Guitar


Book Description

(Book). This book is a virtual encyclopedia of great electric guitar players, with 35 chapters examining the major players in each important era of rock. The book begins with rock's birth from the blues, covering masters like Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. It proceeds to cover rockabilly greats like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly; through the mop tops and matching suits of the British Invasion; to the psychedelia of the Dead and Hendrix; glam rock's dresses and distortion; fusion virtuosos like Metheny, Gambale, and Henderson; metal masters; shred stars; grunge gods; grindcore; and much more. Legends of Rock Guitar is not only a great resource for guitar fans, but an interesting and well-researched chronology of the rock idiom.




Roots, Radicals and Rockers


Book Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZERoots, Radicals & Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World is the first book to explore this phenomenon in depth - a meticulously researched and joyous account that explains how skiffle sparked a revolution that shaped pop music as we have come to know it. It's a story of jazz pilgrims and blues blowers, Teddy Boys and beatnik girls, coffee-bar bohemians and refugees from the McCarthyite witch-hunts. Billy traces how the guitar came to the forefront of music in the UK and led directly to the British Invasion of the US charts in the 1960s.Emerging from the trad-jazz clubs of the early '50s, skiffle was adopted by kids who growing up during the dreary, post-war rationing years. These were Britain's first teenagers, looking for a music of their own in a pop culture dominated by crooners and mediated by a stuffy BBC. Lonnie Donegan hit the charts in 1956 with a version of 'Rock Island Line' and soon sales of guitars rocketed from 5,000 to 250,000 a year. Like punk rock that would flourish two decades later, skiffle was a do-it-yourself music. All you needed were three guitar chords and you could form a group, with mates playing tea-chest bass and washboard as a rhythm section.




Guitar Licks of the Brit-Rock Heroes


Book Description

(Book). In this premier title in the Guitar Lick Factory player series, teacher/guitarist extraordinaire Jesse Gress takes you deep inside the styles of these three guitar heroes. Presenting more than 100 of the players' characteristic licks, Gress shows you the secrets of their styles and explains how you can develop your own playing by understanding the essence of each guitarist's approach. This book presents each example with its own mini-lesson, and Gress performs the licks on the accompanying CD.




London, Reign Over Me


Book Description

It all started in London. More than fifty years ago, a generation of teens created something that would change the face of music forever. London, Reign Over Me immerses us in the backroom clubs, basement record shops, and late-night faint radio signals of 1960s Britain, where young hopefuls like Peter Frampton, Dave Davies, and Mick Jagger built off American blues and jazz to form a whole new sound. Author Stephen Tow weaves together original interviews with over ninety musicians and movers-and-shakers of the time to uncover the uniquely British story of classic rock’s birth. Capturing the stark contrast of bursting artistic energy with the blitzkrieg landscape leftover from World War II, London, Reign Over Me reveals why classic rock ‘n’ roll could only have been born in London. A new sound from a new generation, this music helped spark the most important cultural transformation of the twentieth century. Key interviews include: •Jon Anderson (Yes) •Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) •Rod Argent (The Zombies) •Chris Barber (Chris Barber Jazz Band) •Joe Boyd (Producer/manager) •Arthur Brown (Crazy World of Arthur Brown) •David Cousins (The Strawbs) •Dave Davies (The Kinks) •Spencer Davis (Spencer Davis Group) •Judy Dyble (Fairport Convention) •Ramblin’ Jack Elliott (Solo folk/blues artist) •Peter Frampton (Humble Pie, solo artist) •Roger Glover (Deep Purple) •Steve Howe (Yes) •Neil Innes (Bonzo Dog Band; Monty Python) •Kenney Jones (The Small Faces; The Who) •Greg Lake (King Crimson; Emerson, Lake & Palmer) •Manfred Mann (Manfred Mann) •Terry Marshall (Marshall Amplification) •Dave Mason (Traffic) •Phil May (The Pretty Things) •John Mayall (The Bluesbreakers) •Jim McCarty (The Yardbirds) •Ian McLagan (The Small Faces) •Jacqui McShee (The Pentangle) •Peter Noone (Herman’s Hermits) •Carl Palmer (Atomic Rooster; Emerson, Lake & Palmer) •Jan Roberts (Eel Pie Island Documentary Project) •Paul Rodgers (Free) •Peggy Seeger (Solo folk artist) •Hylda Sims (Club owner) •Keith Skues (DJ: Radio Caroline, Radio London, Radio One) •Jeremy Spencer (Fleetwood Mac) •John Steel (The Animals) •Al Stewart (Solo folk artist) •Dick Taylor (The Pretty Things) •Ray Thomas (The Moody Blues) •Richard Thompson (Fairport Convention) •Rick Wakeman (The Strawbs, Yes) •Barrie Wentzell (Photographer: Melody Maker)




Halfway to Paradise


Book Description

From the emergence of Bill Haley and his Comets to the meteoric rise of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Halfway to Paradise is an extraordinary photographic tribute to the forces that invented rock. From the 1950s until the early 1960s, photographer Harry Hammond's camera captured rock 'n' roll's most famous names--The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Animals, Dusty Springfield, and many other icons. Now, from the legendary Harry Hammond Archive comes this exciting collection of 250 previously unpublished photographs of British and American musicians. Alwyn W. Turner captures the energy of this explosive period in music history as he tells the story of Britain's embrace--and sometime domination--of rock 'n' roll.




Beeswing


Book Description

A Rolling Stone Best Music Book of 2021 “Thompson is a master showman . . . [Beeswing is] everything you’d hope a Richard Thompson autobiography would be . . . It’s both major and minor, dirge and ditty, light on its feet but packing a punch.” —The Wall Street Journal Now Featuring an Interview with Elvis Costello In this moving, immersive, and long-awaited memoir, beloved international music legend Richard Thompson recreates the spirit of his early years, where he found, and then lost, and then found his way again. Considered one of the top twenty guitarists of all time, Thompson also belongs in the songwriting pantheon alongside Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and Randy Newman. Here the British folk musician takes us back to the late 1960s, a period of great change and creativity for both him and the world at large. During the pivotal years of 1967 to 1975, just as he was discovering his passion for music, he formed the band Fairport Convention with some schoolmates and helped establish the genre of British folk rock. It was a thrilling period of massive tours, where Thompson was on the road in both the UK and the US, crossing paths with the likes of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Jimi Hendrix, as well as a time of heady and explosive creativity for Thompson, who wrote some of his most famous songs during this time. But as Thompson reveals, those eight years were also marked by upheaval and tragedy. Honest, moving, and compelling, Beeswing vividly captures the life of a remarkable man and musician during a period of artistic intensity, in a world on the cusp of change. “An absorbing, witty, often deliciously biting read, as all rock memoirs should be.” —Los Angeles Review of Books




British Rock Guitar


Book Description




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