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The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic
Steve Turner · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorHamilton: The Revolution
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jeremy McCarter · 287 pages
Offers a behind-the-scenes view of Hamilton the musical, detailing the many dramatic episodes in Alexander Hamilton's life.
Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad
M.T. Anderson · 464 pages
National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson delivers a brilliant and riveting account of the Siege of Leningrad and the role played by Russian composer Shostakovich and his Leningrad Symphony. In September 1941, Adolf Hitler s Wehrmacht surrounded Leningrad in what was to become one of the longest and most destructive sieges in Western history almost three years of bombardment and starvation that cu
Evening in the Palace of Reason
James Gaines · 368 pages
"James R. Gaines's Evening in the Palace of Reason sets up what seems to be the ultimate mismatch: a young, glamorously triumphant warrior-king, heralded by Voltaire as the very It Boy of the Enlightenment, pitted against a devout, bad-tempered composer of "outdated" music, a scorned genius in his last years, symbol of a bygone world. The sparks from their brief conflict illuminate a pivotal momen
The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square
Ned Sublette · 368 pages
"Offering a new perspective on the unique cultural influences of New Orleans, this entertaining history captures the soul of the city and reveals its impact on the rest of the nation. Focused on New Orleans' first century of existence, a comprehensive, chronological narrative of the political, cultural, and musical development of Louisiana's early years is presented. This innovative history tracks
Ring Shout Wheel About The Racial Politics Of Music And Dance In North American Slavery
Katrina Dyonne · 242 pages
Beethoven's Hair: An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Solved
Russell Martin · 288 pages
Ludwig van Beethoven lay dying in 1827, a young musician named Ferdinand Hiller came to pay his respects to the great composer. In those days, it was customary to snip a lock of hair as a keepsake, and this Hiller did a day after Beethoven's death. By the time he was buried, Beethoven's head had been nearly shorn by the many people who similarly had wanted a lasting memento of the great man. Such
Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter
Randy L. Schmidt, Dionne Warwick · 368 pages
An intimate profile of Karen Carpenter, a girl from a modest Connecticut upbringing who became a Southern California superstar.
Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
Jeff Chang, D.J. Kool Herc · 546 pages
Forged in the fires of the Bronx and Kingston, Jamaica, hip-hop has been a generation-defining global movement. In a post-civil rights era rapidly transformed by deindustrialization and globalization, hip-hop gave voiceless youths a chance to address these seismic changes, and became a job-making engine and the Esperanto of youth rebellion. Hip-hop crystallized a multiracial generation's worldview
Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock's Darkest Day
Joel Selvin · 363 pages
This cultural history by celebrated rock journalist Joel Selvin tells the story of the Rolling Stones' infamous Altamont concert outside San Francisco -- the disastrous historic event that marked the end of the idealistic 1960s.
The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824
Harvey Sachs · 240 pages
An analysis of Beethoven's seminal Ninth Symphony identifies it as a key cultural event that reflected major social upheavals, including the emergence of a dynamic Western world and changes in philosophical perspectives on individuality.
Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin
Myra Friedman · 333 pages
The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
Alex Ross · 624 pages
The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century is a 2007 nonfiction book by the American music critic, Alex Ross, first published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It received widespread critical praise in the U.S. and Europe, garnering a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Guardian First Book Award, a Premio Napoli and the 2011 Grand Prix des Muses. The Rest is Noise also had a spot on the N
Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution
Sara Marcus · 367 pages
A history of Riot Grrrl, a radical feminist movement that was started in the 1990s by young women who were fed up with sexism and harrassment and decided to make some noise.
The History of Jazz
Ted Gioia · 480 pages
Tells the story of jazz as it has never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which jazz evolved.
Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday
Angela Y. Davis · 427 pages
From one of this country's most important intellectuals comes a brilliant analysis of the blues tradition that examines the careers of three crucial black women blues singers through a feminist lens. Angela Davis provides the historical, social, and political contexts with which to reinterpret the performances and lyrics of Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday as powerful articul
The Baroness: The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild
Hannah Mary Rothschild · 307 pages
A biography of the author's great-aunt, jazz patroness Nica de Koenigswarter, drawing on family records to examine the traditions that shaped her youth, her marriage to Baron Jules de Koenigswarter, and her role in supporting the New York jazz world.
Hip Hop Family Tree, Vol. 2: 1981-1983
Ed Piskor · 112 pages
"Book 2 covers the early years of 1981-1983, when Hip Hop has made a big transition from the parks and rec rooms to downtown clubs and vinyl records. The performers make moves to separate themselves from the paying customers by dressing more and more flamboyantly until a young group called RUN-DMC comes on the scene to take things back to the streets. This volume covers hits like Afrika Bambaataa'
Heavier Than Heaven: The Biography of Kurt Cobain
Charles R. Cross · 400 pages
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk
Legs McNeil, Gillian McCain · 525 pages
A contemporary classic, **Please Kill Me** is the definitive oral history of the most nihilistic of all pop movements. Iggy Pop, Richard Hell, the Ramones, and scores of other punk figures lend their voices to this decisive account of that explosive era.
A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano
Katie Hafner · 268 pages
*A grand tale of obsession about the brilliant Glenn Gould and the unique, temperamental instrument he came to love beyond all others, by a top New York Times writer.* Glenn Gould was one of the most complex, brilliant artists of the twentieth century, a musician famous for bizarre habits: he wore a hat and gloves even on the warmest summer day; refused to shake hands for fear of germs or damag