Barney Hoskyns

Una retrospectiva única de Mick Rock, el fotógrafo oficial y socio creativo de David Bowie, recopilada en 2015 con el consentimiento del propio Bowie.En 1972, David Bowie publicó su revolucionario álbum The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Con el nacio tambien el alter ego Stardust de Bowie: un ser de vestimenta reluciente, rimel en los ojos y sexualmente ambiguo que rompio las fronteras entre lo masculino y lo femenino, lo heterosexual y lo homosexual, la realidad y la ficcion en un cambiante y brillante fenomeno de autoexpresion de los años setenta. Ziggy, el album, y Ziggy, el espectaculo, convirtieron al londinense de voz suave en una de las mayores estrellas del mundo.Uno de los pasajeros clave en ese viaje glam rumbo a la estratosfera fue Mick Rock, tambien de Londres. Rock establecio vinculos artisticos y personales muy estrechos con Bowie; paso a formar parte del circulo intimo del cantante y trabajo, en 1972 y 1973, como su fotografo oficial.Esta coleccion de fotografias reune instantaneas espectaculares sobre el escenario y retratos intimos en el backstage. El libro celebra la experimentacion y reinvencion audaz de Bowie. Una vision sin precedentes de las multiples facetas del artista. Jugando con lo distante y lo accesible, lo divertido y lo serio, este apasionado tributo se regocija en la experimentacion y la imprevisibilidad, y celebra la eterna inspiracion de un artista audaz y excepcional que siempre sera recordado.

A mediados de los sesenta, la música popular norteamericana dio un giro copernicano cuando la fábrica de hits de Nueva York se vio desplazada por los himnos aterciopelados y edénicos que empezaron a brotar de Los Angeles de la mano del genial productor Phil Spector y grupos como los Beach Boys, los Byrds o The Mamas and the Papas. A partir de ese momento, una serie de artistas, que empezaron a reivindicarse como cantautores de sus propios temas, encontraron en las colinas californianas de Laurel Canyon y en sus alrededores un paraiso virginal en plena naturaleza pero a un paso del fragor de la gran ciudad donde establecerse, echar raices y dar rienda suelta a sus canciones de corte intimista y reivindicativo. Locales como el Troubadour, en La Cienega Boulevard, empezaron a ser frecuentados por la nueva horda de musicos, que aspiraban a tocar sus canciones en directo frente a la exigente audiencia, formada en buena parte por los propios musicos y aspirantes a estrellas. Se iria asi fraguando una de las eras doradas del rock norteamericano, que empresarios de la musica como un joven y aguerrido David Geffen y su socio Elliot Roberts convertirian casi de la noche a la mañana en un emporio. De este modo, sellos como Warner/Reprise, dirigidos por los linces Mo Ostin y Joe Smith, o Asylum, del tandem Geffen/Roberts, apostaron por un repertorio de folk rock y nuevo country que vio nacer a cantautores y grupos de la talla de Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Gram Parsons, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Eagles o Fleetwood Mac, entre muchos otros, que se convertirian en el nuevo canon del rock y el folk de la musica norteamericana a base de musica introspectiva y de raices. Sin embargo, el idealismo, la solidaridad y el talento no tardarian en dar paso a un pandemonium de celos, consumo exacerbado de drogas y sobredosis, relaciones sentimentales tormentosas, exitos clamorosos y caidas en picado que convirtieron el paraiso en un infierno de egoismo y capitalismo desbocado que preconizo las maneras que la industria musical desarrollaria a partir de ese momento. Esta es la historia de los artistas de aquella generacion, que alumbraron algunas de las mejores canciones de todos los tiempos y cuyo legado sigue mas vigente que nunca.

"Esta soberbia aproximación a uno de los músicos más grandes (y peculiares) de Estados Unidos será probablemente considerada como la mejor obra de Hoskyns" Bill Walker, "Library Journal".

Spanning Tom Waits extraordinary 40-year career, from Closing Time to Orphans, Lowside of the Road is Barney Hoskyns unique take on one of rocks great enigmas. Like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, Waits is a chameleonic survivor whos achieved long-term success while retaining cult credibility and outsider mystique. From his perilous "jazzbo" years in 70s Los Angeles to the multiple-Grammy winner of recent years - by way of such shape-shifting 80s albums as Swordfishtrombones - this exhaustive biography charts Waits life step-by-step and album-by-album.Affectionate and penetrating, and based on a combination of assiduous research and deep critical insight, this is a outstanding investigation of a notoriously private artist and performer - the definitive account to date of Tom Waits life and work.

A unique look at the history, adventures, myths and realities of this most legendary and powerful of bands, it is a labour of love based on hours of first-hand and original interviews. What emerges is a compelling portrait of the four musicians themselves, as well as a fresh insight into the close-knit entourage that protected them, from Peter Grant to Richard Cole to Ahmet Ertegun, giant figures from the long-vanished world of 1970s rock.Featuring many rare and never before seen photographs, it is also the first book on Led Zeppelin to cover such recent events as their triumphant 2007 O2 Arena gig and Robert Plants Grammy-winning resurgence of recent years.

Think Woodstock and the mind turns to the seminal 1969 festival that crowned a seismic decade of sex, drugs and rock n roll. But Woodstock itself was over 60 miles from the site to which the fabled half a million flocked. So why the misnomer? Quite simply, Woodstock was already a key location in the Sixties rock landscape, the tiny Catskills town where Bob Dylan had holed up after his 1966 motorcycle accident.In Small Town Talk, Barney Hoskyns recreates Woodstocks community of brilliant dysfunctional musicians, opportunistic hippie capitalists and scheming dealers drawn to the area by Dylan and his sidekicks The Band. Central to the books narrative is the broodingly powerful presence of Albert Grossman, manager of Dylan, The Band, Janis Joplin and Todd Rundgren - and Big Daddy of a personal fiefdom in Bearsville that encompassed studios, restaurants and his own record label. Intertwined in the story are the Woodstock experiences of artists as diverse as Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Paul Butterfield, Tim Hardin, Karen Dalton and Bobby Charles.Drawing on first-hand interviews with the remaining key players in the scene, and on the period when he lived there himself in the 1990s, Hoskyns has produced an East Coast companion to his bestselling L.A. Canyon classic Hotel California - a richly absorbing study of a vital music scene in a revolutionary time and place.

Joni Mitchell has only visited the U.S. Top 40 singles chart four times in her long recording career - and the Top 20 just once. So much for stoking the starmaker machinery behind the popular song, as she sang in her 1974 song Free Man in Paris.What Joni has done, on the other hand, is record a handful of masterful albums - Blue, Court And Spark, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns for starters - that prove she is right up there with the big boys: with Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson and Stevie Wonder. Few women can hold a candle to her oeuvre: maybe Aretha Franklin, maybe Kate Bush, Bjork, Joanna Newsom. Airs and graces she may have, but airs and graces backed up by Woodstock, The Arrangement, A Case Of You, Help Me, Dog Eat Dog and The Magdalene Laundries are forgivable. Some of Mitchells songs are great art. Almost all are emotionally complex and musically gripping.Reckless Daughter collects some of the most incisive commentary on Jonis music - and some of the most candid conversations she has had with journalists during her long career. From a review of her first performance at L.A.s legendary Troubadour in 1968 to a career-sweeping 1998 interview by MOJOs Dave DiMartino, this anthology of almost 60 articles charts every stage of Jonis extraordinary journey as a singer, songwriter and artist.

This book could save your life John CraceAn unblinking account of living with - and more importantly, beyond - addiction. Brave, clear-eyed and inspiring John NivenA rich, uplifting memoir: Hoskyns portrays how painful inadequacy, masked by drugs, can be replaced by the messiness of ordinary life Oliver JamesA few months after graduating with a 1st class honours degree from Oxford University, Barney Hoskyns sat in a damp Clapham basement and asked his best friend to inject him with heroin. From that moment on, for the next three years, Hoskyns is hopelessly hooked. This is the searingly honest story of what brought him to this place - and how he got himself out of it. Barney Hoskyns is one of the leading music writers of our time: his books have ranged the musical landscape from Led Zeppelin to Tom Waits, from Laurel Canyon to Woodstock. His articles have appeared in NME, Melody Maker, Rolling Stone and Vogue, and in 2000 he founded Rocks Backpages. Hoskyns beautifully describes the relationship between music and addiction, between love and infatuation. Never Enough is Hoskynss raw, uncompromising and utterly compelling account of the highs and lows of life under the needle. Interspersed with photos and diary entries, Hosykns examines why he so willingly gave himself up to the death-grip of heroin, and what it took to finally free himself from it.

Arthur Lee (1945-2006) y el grupo que lideró, Love, están ampliamente reconocidos como una de las bandas más influyentes de los sesenta, y Forever Changes (1967), una obra maestra que aúna psicodelia, folk y rock, aparece regularmente en las listas de los mejores discos de todos los tiempos. Lee abandero este brillante y erratico grupo a traves de su convulsa historia de disoluciones y resurrecciones, y posteriormente publico tres discos en solitario. En esta extraordinaria biografia, Barney Hoskyns (de quien ya publicamos Hotel California: Cantautores y vaqueros cocainomanos en Laurel Canyon) compone un retrato coral de un musico que creo algunas canciones memorables pero que sin duda pudo haber alumbrado muchas mas.A partir de entrevistas en profundidad con Arthur Lee, el cantante, compositor y guitarrista Bryan MacLean, y otros personajes clave de la escena musical del Los Angeles de la epoca, este fascinante relato revela el reverso oscuro del Verano del Amor: drogas, crimenes y luchas de egos, asi como un recorrido por la trayectoria musical de Lee tras la disolucion de Love hasta su encarcelamiento despues de ser acusado de disparar un arma. Este volumen incluye un posfacio del autor escrito especialmente para esta edicion.¿Fue Arthur Lee uno de los grandes del rock de todos los tiempos o no fue mas que un oportunista que supo aprovechar un momento de plena incandescencia del pop? ¿Fue un genio o un granuja? ¿Y si fue ambas cosas?Barney Hoskyns

An indispensable compendium for Steely Dan fansThe WireAt its core a creative marriage between Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, Steely Dan are one of the defining and bestselling American rock acts of the last half-century, recording several of the cleverest and best-produced albums of the 70s - from the breathlessly catchy Cant Buy a Thrill to the sleekly sinister Gaucho.In the 90s they returned to remind us of how sorely we had missed their elegance and erudition, subsequently recording Two Against Nature and Everything Must Go during the following decade. They have sold close to forty-five million albums.A lot of people think of them as the epitome of boring 70s stuff, novelist William Gibson said in 1993, when Becker and Fagen toured for the first time in nineteen years. They dont realize this is probably the most subversive material pop has ever thrown up.Now fully embraced by the Yacht Rock generation - semi-ironic devotees of 70s Southern-California slickness - Steely Dan no longer polarize lo-fi punks and studio geeks in the way they used to. In 2001 they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.Major Dudes collects some of the smartest and wittiest interviews Becker and Fagen have ever given, along with insightful reviews of - and commentary on - their extraordinary songs. Compiled by Rocks Backpages editor Barney Hoskyns, the books contributors include Charles Shaar Murray, Robert Palmer, Ian MacDonald, Bud Scoppa, Penny Valentine, Fred Schruers, Sylvie Simmons and Michael Watts.

Gathers some of the best and most entertaining rock writing coming at rock and roll from several different angles and spanning four decades of Good Bad and Ugly This book includes such pieces as Al Aronowitz documenting The Beatles arrival in America Glenn O Brien dishing the dirt with Madonna and Nick Hornby reappraising pop deities Abba

In the American South blacks and whites have been influencing each other s music for generations from the hymns of the 18th century to the soul music of the 60s Full of personal interviews this book goes in search of the artists behind this blend of music

Present Tense is an anthology to savour . . . giving you as sharp a portrait of this unknowable band as you could hope for . . . Radiohead fans will love itClassic RockA Rocks Backpages anthology of Radiohead, the most radical and fascinating rock band in modern music history, edited and introduced by Barney Hoskyns.For over 25 years, Radiohead have been the most radical and fascinating rock band in the world. Fearless in their desire to change and shape-shift, the Oxfordshire quintet has - through the nine studio albums from 1993s Pablo Honey to 2016s A Moon-Shaped Pool - consistently stretched the boundaries of what rock means and does. Anchored in Thom Yorkes soaring voice and elliptical lyrics, and in the compositional genius of guitarist/keyboardist Jonny Greenwood, Radiohead continue to astonish as they approach their fourth decade.Present Tense collects the best writing on this most literate of pop groups, from the earliest local reports about On A Friday - Radioheads first moniker - through the inspired commentary of Mark Greif and Simon Reynolds to the trenchant profiles of Will Self, John Harris and others. Its an anthology that goes a long way towards explaining what Rocks Backpages editor Barney Hoskyns describes as the bands seriousness, emotional grandeur and willingness to stare humanitys dystopian hi-tech future in the face.

Led Zeppelin IV, often called heavy metals greatest album, kicks off an exciting new series that takes a fresh, in-depth look at some of the greatest works from the most influential artists of the rock era. Fans may know the songs, but wait until they hear the stories behind them!The music contained in Led Zeppelin IV is part of the soundtrack to a generation. Released in 1971, it rocks, stomps, glides, and shimmers as it covers all the bases the band had mastered: heavy blues, barroom rock and roll, mandolin-driven folk, epic Tolkien-infused mysticism, acoustic Americana, and more. Certified gold one week after its release, the album went to #2 on the U.S. charts and #1 in the U.K. It remained on U.S. charts for 259 weeks. There probably isnt an aspiring rock guitarist anywhere who hasnt plucked out the notes and chords to "Stairway to Heaven" or "Black Dog," and yet many music lovers are unaware of the intriguing backstory to this genre-defining work.To this day there is confusion about what is the actual title of the album. And what about those mysterious symbols? Barney Hoskyns pierces those veils and more as he tells the fascinating story of the evocative set that cemented Led Zeppelins standing as the biggest, baddest, loudest band in the worldand that remains today the apex of their art.

The story of a remarkable time and place: Los Angeles from the dawn of the singer-songwriter era in the mid-Sixties to the peak of The Eagles success in the late Seventies. Hotel California is an epic tale of songs and sunshine, drugs and denim, genius and greed, and is the first in-depth account of the LA Canyons scene between 1967 and 1976. Hoskyns history of this vital period in the development of todays great musical influences spans the rise of Joni Mitchell, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, The Eagles, James Taylor and Jackson Browne, and focuses on the brilliance and determination of David Geffen, the man who linked them all. Covering genius, drug-crazed disintegration, and the myriad relationships between these artists and the songs that issued from them, and drawing on extensive interviews with countless stars, singers, writers, managers, executives and scenesters, Hotel California is a pop-culture classic.

With his trademark growl, carnival-madman persona, haunting music, and unforgettable lyrics, Tom Waits is one of the most revered and critically acclaimed singer-songwriters alive today. After beginning his career on the margins of the 1970s Los Angeles rock scene, Waits has spent the last thirty years carving out a place for himself among such greats as Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Like them, he is a chameleonic survivor who has achieved long-term success while retaining cult credibility and outsider mystique. But although his songs can seem deeply personal and somewhat autobiographical, fans still know very little about the man himself. Notoriously private, Waits has consistently and deliberately blurred the line between fact and fiction, public and private personas, until it has become impossible to delineate between truth and self-fabricated legend. Lowside of the Road is the first serious biography to cut through the myths and make sense of the life and career of this beloved icon. Barney Hoskyns has gained unprecedented access to Waitss inner circle and also draws on interviews he has done with Waits over the years. Spanning his extraordinary forty-year career from Closing Time to Orphans, from his perilous jazzbo years in 1970s LA to such shape-shifting albums as Swordfishtrombones and Rain Dogs to the Grammy Award winners of recent years, this definitive biography charts Waitss life and art step by step, album by album.Barney Hoskyns has written a rock biographymuch like the subject himselfunlike any other. It is a unique take on one of rocks great enigmas.

De los Beatles a Beck, de Sinatra a Sam Smith, por este libro desfilan artistas que marcaron una época tras cruzar las puertas de la famosa torre de Capitol Records, uno de los edificios más singulares de Hollywood y el hogar de uno de los sellos discograficos mas destacados del mundo de los ultimos 75 años. Para rendir tributo a una extraordinaria historia de la musica grabada, TASCHEN presenta la retrospectiva oficial de Capitol Records, que abarca desde su fundacion en 1942 hasta la actualidad. Con un prologo de Beck, ensayos de historiadores culturales y criticos musicales, asi como cientos de imagenes procedentes de los extensos archivos de Capitol Records, seguimos la evolucion de la discografica y el devenir de buena parte de la musica mas relevante de los siglos XX y XXI. A traves del pop, el rock, el country, la clasica, el soul y el jazz, este relato fotografico y musical incluye a las figuras mas flamantes, exitosas y creativas del sello, asi como a aquellas otras que tuvieron un solo exito y vivieron un efimero paso por el estrellato. En el camino, nos encontramos en los primeros 20 años de Capitol con artistas de la talla de Miles Davis, Nat King Cole, The Kingston Trio y Frank Sinatra; Beach Boys, The Band y The Beatles en la decada de 1960; figuras mundiales del rock como Pink Floyd, Wings, Steve Miller Band, Bob Seger y Linda Ronstadt en la decada de 1970; y estrellas contemporaneas como Coldplay, Katy Perry y Sam Smith. Hito ineludible para los amantes de la musica, Capitol Records es un homenaje a un poderoso gigante de la industria musical que ha creado la banda sonora de generaciones pasadas, presentes y futuras.