"The first of two volumes, this companion to every song that Bob Dylan ever wrote is by far the most comprehensive book on the words of America's greatest songwriter. Here you'll find not just opinionated commentary or literary interpretation, but facts, first and foremost. Clinton Heylin is the world' s leading Dylan biographer and expert, and he has arranged the songs--including a number that have never been performed--in a continually surprising...

"Purple Rain is a song, an album, and a film--each one a commercial success and cultural milestone. How did this semi-autobiographical musical masterpiece that blurred R&B, pop, dance, and rock sounds come to alter the recording landscape and become an enduring touchstone for successive generations of fans? Purple Rain is widely considered to be among the most important albums in music history and often named the best soundtrack of all time. Coinciding...

"Spanning nearly 50 years of albums, EPs, B-sides, and more, read the full story behind all of the songs that Prince ever released. Moving chronologically through his epic back catalogue, expert author Benoît Clerc analyses everything there is to know about each song and session. With a career as mythologized as Prince, this book is an exhaustive compendium that shines a light on every corner of Prince's magnificent, otherworldly career. No stone...

After Baz Luhrmann's movie, Elvis, hit theaters, audiences and critics alike couldn't help but question the Black origins of Elvis Presley's music and style, reigniting a debate that has been circling for decades. Preston Lauterbach answers these questions definitively, based on new research and extensive, previously unpublished interviews with the artists who blazed the way and the people who knew them. Lauterbach examines the lives, music, legacies,...

"John Mellencamp is not your typical rock star. Not only has he absorbed into his own work the influence of Faulkner, Williams, Steinbeck and other such literary giants, but he himself could have stepped straight from the pages of any of their great American novels. A complex, colorful and larger than life character, Mellencamp, like Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash before him, walks to the beat of his own drum. Or, as he told author and veteran music journalist,...