The Beatles in Los Angeles


Book Description

The Beatles in Los Angeles takes you past the velvet ropes and inside the mansion gates where The Beatles loved, explored, and experienced all the adventures and mystical chaos that swirls around LA like no other city. With brand new interviews from those who were there, along with recently discovered exclusive photographs, The Beatles in Los Angeles is a kaleidoscope of stories spanning over 50 years and covers the group’s adventures in the City of Angels as both a band and solo artists, including: • New Details on how The Beatles first appearance at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964 almost didn’t happen. • Exclusive pictures from the only meeting EVER between The Beatles and Elvis Presley at his Bel Air estate in 1965 and the story behind this photographic discovery. • George Harrison’s and John Lennon’s dangerous nights on the Sunset Strip and how they narrowly avoided the law. • Insight into Paul McCartney’s lavish LA mansion parties throughout the 1970’s and the Hollywood royalty that attended them all. • Unknown stories about John Lennon’s Santa Monica Beach bachelor pad and his wild ride down Pacific Coast Highway. • Ringo’s reckless Los Angeles talk show appearance, and why two Beatles crashed the Paramount Studios’ “Happy Days” set. • The story behind Paul’s 2019 concert at Dodger Stadium where he reunited with Ringo and performed an unexpected Beatles classic. The Beatles in Los Angeles brings you up to date and takes you behind the scenes for some of the most exciting and still unknown adventures in Beatles’ history. You’ll feel like you are with John, Paul, George, and Ringo every step of the way during their wild LA nights and triumphant LA days.




Dreaming the Beatles


Book Description

An NPR Best Book of the Year • Winner of the Virgil Thomson Award for Outstanding Music Criticism “This is the best book about the Beatles ever written” —Mashable Rob Sheffield, the Rolling Stone columnist and bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape offers an entertaining, unconventional look at the most popular band in history, the Beatles, exploring what they mean today and why they still matter so intensely to a generation that has never known a world without them. Dreaming the Beatles is not another biography of the Beatles, or a song-by-song analysis of the best of John and Paul. It isn’t another exposé about how they broke up. It isn’t a history of their gigs or their gear. It is a collection of essays telling the story of what this ubiquitous band means to a generation who grew up with the Beatles music on their parents’ stereos and their faces on T-shirts. What do the Beatles mean today? Why are they more famous and beloved now than ever? And why do they still matter so much to us, nearly fifty years after they broke up? As he did in his previous books, Love is a Mix Tape, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, and Turn Around Bright Eyes, Sheffield focuses on the emotional connections we make to music. This time, he focuses on the biggest pop culture phenomenon of all time—The Beatles. In his singular voice, he explores what the Beatles mean today, to fans who have learned to love them on their own terms and not just for the sake of nostalgia. Dreaming the Beatles tells the story of how four lads from Liverpool became the world’s biggest pop group, then broke up—but then somehow just kept getting bigger. At this point, their music doesn’t belong to the past—it belongs to right now. This book is a celebration of that music, showing why the Beatles remain the world’s favorite thing—and how they invented the future we’re all living in today.




The Beatles, The Bible and Bodega Bay


Book Description

#1 Best Selling Beatles Book – Amazon.com #2 “Books About the Beatles” – Senior Editor, Rock, Amazon.com (Beatles Anthology listed as #1) MAJOR PRESS REVIEWS Barnes&Noble.com (Kevin Giordano) “There is something quite Lennonesque about Mansfield’s soul-searching—his tales are astonishingly clear and vivid.” Amazon.com (Gail Hudson) “It is his writing talent and depth of personal story that makes this spiritual memoir rock.” Fox News Channel “A fabulous book about the Fab Four. It’s historical and a must-have.” Publishers Weekly, June 2000 “Eschewing the usual druggy histories of musicians, Mansfield delivers a book that is more philosophical than tell-all. There are enough tidbits to satiate any Beatle maniac, Library Journal, August 2000 “This is a ruminative and ultimately very personal journey through a man’s life and his personal relationships with each member of the Fab Four. Washington Post, October 2000 “This account is a warm-hearted look at an exciting period, related by an observer who was often at the right place at the right time.” ********************************** *Because of Ken’s personal relationship, respect and loyalty to Apple and the Beatles he sought all necessary official and personal approvals from Capitol, Apple, and each of the Beatles including Yoko on John’s behalf. At the time of the original release of The Beatles, The Bible and Bodega Bay he was informed that outside of their own Anthology that this was the only book approved by them. Once again, out of that same respect there have been no changes or updates—the content before you is exactly the same as the original book. These are the thoughts and events exactly as they were happening then…a unique insider’s look at a time that will never exist again.




Corn Flakes with John Lennon


Book Description

Robert Hilburn's storied career as a rock critic has allowed him a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of some of the most iconic figures of our time. He was the only music critic to visit Folsom Prison with Johnny Cash. He met John Lennon during his lost weekend period in Los Angeles and they became friends. Bob Dylan granted him his only interviews during his "born-again" period and the occasion of his 50th birthday. Michael Jackson invited Hilburn to watch cartoons with him in his bedroom. When Springsteen took to playing only old hits, Hilburn scolded him for turning his legendary concerts into oldies revues, and Springsteen changed his set list. In this totally unique account of the symbiotic relationship between critic and musical artist, Hilburn reflects on the ways in which he has changed and been changed by the subjects he’s covered; Bono weighs in with an introduction about how Hilburn’s criticism influenced and altered his own development as a musician. Corn Flakes with John Lennon is more than about one man’s adventures in rock and roll: It’s the gripping and untold story of how popular music reshapes the way we think about the world and helps to define the modern American character.




The Beatles from A to Zed


Book Description

“At last, I finally understand the alphabet! I also love this book: secret Beatles knowledge from one of the closest insiders.” —Steve Martin Peter Asher met the Beatles in the spring of 1963, the start of a lifelong association with the band and its members. He had a front-row seat as they elevated pop music into an art form, and he was present at the creation of some of the most iconic music of our times. Asher is also a talented musician in his own right, with a great ear for what was new and fresh. He was asked by Paul McCartney to help start Apple Records; the first artist Asher discovered and signed up was a young American singer-songwriter named James Taylor. Before long he would be not only managing and producing Taylor but also working with Linda Ronstadt, Neil Diamond, Robin Williams, Joni Mitchell, and Cher, among others. The Beatles from A to Zed grows out of his popular radio program “From Me to You” on SiriusXM’s The Beatles Channel, where he shares memories and insights about the Fab Four and their music. Here he weaves his reflections into a whimsical alphabetical journey that focuses not only on songs whose titles start with each letter, but also on recurrent themes in the Beatles’ music, the instruments they played, the innovations they pioneered, the artists who influenced them, the key people in their lives, and the cultural events of the time. Few can match Peter Asher for his fresh and personal perspective on the Beatles. And no one is a more congenial and entertaining guide to their music.




Somewhere You Feel Free


Book Description

When Tom Petty arrived in Los Angeles in 1974 in search of a record deal for his band Mudcrutch, the Gainesville, Florida native found one almost immediately. While he thought he had found exactly what he was looking for in L.A., it would take years for Petty and his subsequent band, the Heartbreakers, to break onto the pop charts. Within the following two decades, Petty would stay planted in Los Angeles through chart-topping albums, battles with record labels, personal struggles, collaborations with rock and roll royalty, and even an arsonist burning down his home in the San Fernando Valley. From the earliest Heartbreakers concerts in Los Angeles at the legendary Whisky a Go Go and the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, to the band’s final concerts at the iconic Hollywood Bowl, Petty aimed to continue the tradition of the Southern California rock and roll of his musical heroes like the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield in his own fashion. At the same time, Petty’s career often coincided with seismic shifts in the music business, indicated by Petty’s famous refusal to back down in the face of label management, industry conventions, and the changing courses of platforms that helped make him a superstar, like rock radio and MTV. Somewhere You Feel Free: Tom Petty and Los Angeles explores the artistic life of Tom Petty through his career-long relationship with Los Angeles and the many colorful characters and venues that inspired him and his music—including his work with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks, Johnny Cash, Roger McGuinn, Leon Russell, Rick Rubin, and Del Shannon.




You Never Give Me Your Money


Book Description

Music.




The Cutting Edge


Book Description

The Beatles' hair changed the world. As their increasingly wild, untamed manes grew, to the horror of parents everywhere, they set off a cultural revolution as the most tangible symbol of the Sixties' psychedelic dream of peace, love and playful rebellion. In the midst of this epochal change was Leslie Cavendish, hairdresser to the Beatles and some of the greatest stars of the music and entertainment industry. But just how did a fifteen-year-old Jewish school dropout from an undistinguished North London suburb, with no particular artistic talent or showbusiness connections, end up literally at the cutting edge of Sixties' fashion in just four years? His story – honest, always entertaining and inspiring – parallels the meteoric rise of the Beatles themselves, and is no less astounding.




Out of the Vinyl Deeps


Book Description

Collects Ellen Willis' writings on popular music from her career at the New Yorker and other publications.




The Lost Art of Reading


Book Description

Reading is a revolutionary act, an act of engagement in a culture that wants us to disengage. In The Lost Art of Reading, David L. Ulin asks a number of timely questions - why is literature important? What does it offer, especially now? Blending commentary with memoir, Ulin addresses the importance of the simple act of reading in an increasingly digital culture. Reading a book, flipping through hard pages, or shuffling them on screen - it doesn't matter. The key is the act of reading, and it's seriousness and depth. Ulin emphasizes the importance of reflection and pause allowed by stopping to read a book, and the accompanying focus required to let the mind run free in a world that is not one's own. Are we willing to risk our collective interest in contemplation, nuanced thinking, and empathy? Far from preaching to the choir, The Lost Art of Reading is a call to arms, or rather, to pages.