Rock &amp; roll, jazz, R&amp;B, hip-hop: Without question, today's most popular sounds owe an incalculable debt to that uniquely American musical creation -- The Blues. But the powerful influence of the blues, with its dramatic, artful storytelling about the elemental experience of being alive, is found in the works of some of our most important literary voices as well.
This volume -- a companion to the groundbreaking seven-part documentary series Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues -- represents a literary sampler every bit as vibrant and original and diverse as the films and music that inspired it. Included in this stunning collection are newly commissioned essays by David Halberstam, Hilton Als, Suzan-Lori Parks, Elmore Leonard, Luc Sante, John Edgar Wideman, and others; timeless archival pieces by the likes of Stanley Booth, Paul Oliver, and Mack McCormick; evocative color illustrations and rare vintage photography; illuminating and in-depth conversations and portraits of musicians, ranging from Robert Johnson and Bessie Smith to John Lee Hooker and Eric Clapton; lyrics of legendary blues compositions; personal essays by the series directors Martin Scorsese, Charles Burnett, Richard Pearce, Wim Wenders, Marc Levin, Mike Figgis, and Clint Eastwood; and excerpts from such literary masters as James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison, Eudora Welty and Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and William Faulkner.
The result is a unique and timeless celebration of the blues, from writers and artists as esteemed and revered as the music that moved them. In these pages one not only reads about the blues, one hears them, feels them, lives them. Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues is more than a timeless collection of great writing to be savored and shared: it is an unforgettable initiation into the very essence of American music and culture.

Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey

Arts & Photography

Holly George-Warren

Peter Guralnick

Robert Santelli

Christopher John Farley

History & Criticism

Amistad

Neil Young, the Rolling Stone Files: The Ultimate Compendium of Interviews, Articles, Facts, and Opinions from the Files of Rolling Stone

Music

Pan Books

Discover the surprising beginnings and humble origins of the charismatic pioneers who helped shape the country-and-western scene into the influential musical empire it is today. Included among this collection of legends are Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, and more unforgettable people who changed the face of music forever!

Honky-Tonk Heroes and Hillbilly Angels: The Pioneers of Country and Western Music

Children's Books

Biographies

HMH Books for Young Readers

Beat culture is presented in this volume in words and pictures from the people who made it happen. It includes insights and reminiscences from many of the leading figures to provide a celebration of this chapter of social and literary history. The collection includes: essays written especially for the book by, among others, Carolyn Cassady, Hettie Jones, Ann Charters, David Amram, Stephen Davis, Douglas Brinkley, Anthony DeCurtis, Richard Hell; classic "Rolling Stone" pieces by William Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, Lester Bangs, Robert Palmer, Michael McClure and others; reminiscences by Ken Kesey, Kurt Vonnegut, Lou Reed, Anne Waldman, Norman Mailer, Bono and Graham Parker; and photographs by Allen Ginsberg, Gerard Malanga, Annie Leibovitz, Mellon and more.

The " Rolling Stone" Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and the Counterculture

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

American Roots Music

and Jim Brown

foreword by Bonnie Raitt

H.N. Abrams

From fringed chaps to silver-spurred boots to ten-gallon Stetsons, Western wear is a uniquely American look that has romanced the entire world. In How the West Was Worn, now available in an affordable paperback format, Holly George-Warren and Michelle Freedman round up the different styles of this enduring trend. The book is an authoritative yet entertaining look at "glitterbillies," rodeo girls, and rhinestone cowboys, featuring archival photos of celebrities as well as collectibles like vintage album covers and sewing patterns. The lively, fact-filled text, including a foreword by country-music star Marty Stuart, makes this book a barrel of fun for fashion devotees and country music fans alike.

How the West was Worn: A Complete History of Western Wear

Michelle Freedman

Graphic Design

Harry N.Abrams, Inc.

Thirty-plus years ago a dark rumble of noise gurgled up from the Lower East Side of New York City, made its way across the Atlantic to Great Britain, zigzagged back over the pond to the West Coast, and exploded. Its name—Punk. InPunk 365, the most provocative photography documenting the performances, the looks, and the attitude has been gathered together, revealing reverberations that continue to shake up the status quo. Here we see it all: Pre-punk pioneers, the Stooges, the New York Dolls, the MC5. New York’s harbingers of change, the Ramones, Patti Smith, Richard Hell &amp; the Voidoids. London’s anarchists, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Slits. The West Coast’s anti-Beach Boys, X, the Germs . . .the list goes on. By the mid-1980s, from the Replacements to Bad Brains, the sound transmogrified into everything from garage punk to hardcore. Punk 365 has them all, including more than 300 different artists by the most talented photographers who captured the scene, including Bob Gruen, Roberta Bayley, Jill Furmanovsky, Stephanie Chernikowski, Godlis, Janette Beckman, and more.

Punk 365

Photography & Video

Abrams Books

Janis: Her Life and Music

Simon&Schuster

This blazingly intimate biography of Janis Joplin establishes the Queen of Rock & Roll as the rule-breaking musical trailblazer and complicated, gender-bending rebel she was.\nJanis Joplin’s first transgressive act was to be a white girl who gained an early sense of the power of the blues, music you could only find on obscure records and in roadhouses along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. But even before that, she stood out in her conservative oil town. She was a tomboy who was also intellectually curious and artistic. By the time she reached high school, she had drawn the scorn of her peers for her embrace of the Beats and her racially progressive views. Her parents doted on her in many ways, but were ultimately put off by her repeated acts of defiance.\nJanis Joplin has passed into legend as a brash, impassioned soul doomed by the pain that produced one of the most extraordinary voices in rock history. But in these pages, Holly George-Warren provides a revelatory and deeply satisfying portrait of a woman who wasn’t all about suffering. Janis was a perfectionist: a passionate, erudite musician who was born with talent but also worked exceptionally hard to develop it. She was a woman who pushed the boundaries of gender and sexuality long before it was socially acceptable. She was a sensitive seeker who wanted to marry and settle down--but couldn’t, or wouldn’t. She was a Texan who yearned to flee Texas but could never quite get away--even after becoming a countercultural icon in San Francisco.\nWritten by one of the most highly regarded chroniclers of American music history, and based on unprecedented access to Janis Joplin’s family, friends, band mates, archives, and long-lost interviews, Janis is a complex, rewarding portrait of a remarkable artist finally getting her due.

Humor & Entertainment

Simon & Schuster Audio and Blackstone Publishing

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Books by Holly George-Warren