Barney Hoskyns

A unique tribute from David Bowie’s official photographer and creative partner, Mick Rock, compiled in 2015, with Bowie’s blessing. In 1972, David Bowie released his groundbreaking album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. With it landed Bowie’s Stardust alter ego: a glitter-clad, mascara-eyed, sexually ambiguous persona who kicked down the boundaries between male and female, straight and gay, fact and fiction into one shifting and sparkling phenomenon of ’70s self-expression. Together, Ziggy the album and Ziggy the stage spectacular propelled the softly spoken Londoner into one of the world’s biggest stars. A key passenger on this glam trip into the stratosphere was fellow Londoner and photographer Mick Rock. Rock bonded with Bowie artistically and personally, immersed himself in the singer’s inner circle, and, between 1972 and 1973, worked as the singer’s photographer and videographer. This collection brings together spectacular stage shots, iconic photo shoots, as well as intimate backstage portraits. It celebrates Bowie’s fearless experimentation and reinvention, while offering privileged access to the many facets of his personality and fame. Through the aloof and approachable, the playful and serious, the candid and the contrived, the result is a passionate tribute to a brilliant and inspirational artist whose creative vision will never be forgotten.

A unique tribute from David Bowie’s official photographer and creative partner, Mick Rock, compiled in 2015, with Bowie’s blessing. In 1972, David Bowie released his groundbreaking album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. With it landed Bowie’s Stardust alter ego: a glitter-clad, mascara-eyed, sexually ambiguous persona who kicked down the boundaries between male and female, straight and gay, fact and fiction into one shifting and sparkling phenomenon of ’70s self-expression. Together, Ziggy the album and Ziggy the stage spectacular propelled the softly spoken Londoner into one of the world’s biggest stars. A key passenger on this glam trip into the stratosphere was fellow Londoner and photographer Mick Rock. Rock bonded with Bowie artistically and personally, immersed himself in the singer’s inner circle, and, between 1972 and 1973, worked as the singer’s photographer and videographer. This collection brings together spectacular stage shots, iconic photo shoots, as well as intimate backstage portraits. With a lenticular cover of different headshots, it celebrates Bowie’s fearless experimentation and reinvention, while offering privileged access to the many facets of his personality and fame. Through the aloof and approachable, the playful and serious, the candid and the contrived, the result is a passionate tribute to a brilliant and inspirational artist whose creative vision will never be forgotten.

God Is in the Radio gathers 50 pieces from 40 years of writing passionately about music. A former mainstay of NME and MOJO and author of such acclaimed books as Hotel California and Small Town Talk - Barney Hoskyns hymns the artists that have thrilled and moved him most, from Frank Sinatra to Amy Winehouse, via the Cocteau Twins and Queens of the Stone Age. Together with acts as varied as Laura Nyro and Luther Vandross, Burial and Bobby Womack, these are the "unbridled enthusiasms" that - for Hoskyns - dissolve the rationalisation of feeling, producing a sense of rapture that borders on religious ecstasy. Spanning multiple decades and moments of music history, and containing personal reflections as well as recommendations, this is a poignant and evocative must-read book from one of the UK's foremost music writers.

From the Beatles to Beck, Sinatra to Sam Smith, a parade of era-defining artists have passed through the doors of the Capitol Records Tower, one of Hollywood’s most distinctive landmarks and home to one of the world’s most defining labels for the past 75+ years. To commemorate this extraordinary history of recorded music, TASCHEN presents this official account of Capitol Records, from its founding year of 1942 to today. With a foreword by Beck, essays by cultural historians and music and architecture critics, as well as hundreds of images from Capitol’s extensive archives, we follow the label’s evolution and the making of some of the greatest music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Through pop, rock, country, classical, soul, and jazz, the photographic and musical history includes the label’s most successful, cool, hip, and creative stars, as well as the one-hit wonders who had their all-too-brief moments in the spotlight. Along the way, we encounter the likes of Miles Davis, Nat King Cole, the Kingston Trio, and Frank Sinatra in Capitol’s first 20 years; the Beach Boys, the Band, and the Beatles in the 1960s; global rock magnets Pink Floyd, Wings, Steve Miller Band, Bob Seger, and Linda Ronstadt in the 1970s; Beastie Boys, Duran Duran, Radiohead, and Bonnie Raitt in the 1980s and 1990s; and such contemporary stars as Coldplay, Katy Perry, and Sam Smith. An unmissable milestone for music lovers, Capitol Records is a live and kicking celebration of the mighty giant of the industry that created the soundtrack to generations past, present, and future.

From the Beatles to Beck, Sinatra to Sam Smith, a parade of era-defining artists have passed through the doors of the Capitol Records Tower, one of Hollywood’s most distinctive landmarks and home to one of the world’s most defining labels for the past 75+ years. To commemorate this extraordinary history of recorded music, TASCHEN presents this official account of Capitol Records, from its founding year of 1942 to today. With a foreword by Beck, essays by cultural historians and music and architecture critics, as well as hundreds of images from Capitol’s extensive archives, we follow the label’s evolution and the making of some of the greatest music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Through pop, rock, country, classical, soul, and jazz, the photographic and musical history includes the label’s most successful, cool, hip, and creative stars, as well as the one-hit wonders who had their all-too-brief moments in the spotlight. Along the way, we encounter the likes of Miles Davis, Nat King Cole, the Kingston Trio, and Frank Sinatra in Capitol’s first 20 years; the Beach Boys, the Band, and the Beatles in the 1960s; global rock magnets Pink Floyd, Wings, Steve Miller Band, Bob Seger, and Linda Ronstadt in the 1970s; Beastie Boys, Duran Duran, Radiohead, and Bonnie Raitt in the 1980s and 1990s; and such contemporary stars as Coldplay, Katy Perry, and Sam Smith. An unmissable milestone for music lovers, Capitol Records is a live and kicking celebration of the mighty giant of the industry that created the soundtrack to generations past, present, and future.

"Nearly 50 years' worth of critical efforts to solve Mitchell's mysteries have now been rounded up in Barney Hoskyns's Joni: The Anthology....what comes through most consistently is a possessive impulse, a desire to really know an artist whose fierce privacy has often seemed at odds with the impression of intimacy conveyed by her music." --The Atlantic Nine Grammys. More than ten million albums sold. Named one of the greatest singers and songwriters of all time by Rolling Stone. Joni: The Anthology is an essential collection of writings on Joni Mitchell that charts every major moment of the famed troubadour's extraordinary career, as it happened. From album reviews, incisive commentary, and candid conversations, Joni: The Anthology includes, among other things, a review of Mitchell's first-ever show at LA's Troubadour in June of 1968, a 1978 interview by musician Ben Sidran on jazz great Charles Mingus, a personal reminiscence by Ellen Sander, a confidant of the Los Angeles singer-songwriter community, and a long "director's cut" version of editor Barney Hoskyns' 1994 MOJO interview. A time capsule of an icon, the anthology spans the entirety of Joni's career between 1967-2007, as well as thoughtful commentary on her early years. In collecting materials long unavailable, rare, or otherwise difficult to find, Joni: The Anthology illuminates the evolution of modern rock journalism while providing an invaluable and accessible guide to appreciating the highs--and the lows--of a twentieth century legend. "Once I crossed the border, I began to write and my voice changed. I no longer was imitative of the folk style. My voice was then my real voice and with a slight folk influence, but from the first album it was no longer folk music. It was just a girl with a guitar that made it look that way."--Joni Mitchell, 1994

'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 it' Classic RockA Rock's 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 1993's Pablo Honey to 2016's A Moon-Shaped Pool - consistently stretched the boundaries of what 'rock' means and does. Anchored in Thom Yorke's 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 - Radiohead's first moniker - through the inspired commentary of Mark Greif and Simon Reynolds to the trenchant profiles of Will Self, John Harris and others. It's an anthology that goes a long way towards explaining what Rock's Backpages editor Barney Hoskyns describes as the band's 'seriousness, emotional grandeur and willingness to stare humanity's dystopian hi-tech future in the face'.

A Rock's Backpages anthology, edited and introduced by Barney Hoskyns, of Steely Dan, one of the defining and bestselling American rock acts of the last half-century.

Fascinated by the collision of country and soul music in the Southern states, Hoskyns and photographer Muir MacKean set out on a journey through the American South to explore the phenomenon of primarily black singers and primarily white musicians joining forces in the 1960s to create musical magic in an era of racial tension. From Memphis to Muscle Shoals to Nashville, they sat down with dozens of the architects of what’s come to be known as Country Soul to capture a story that is as inspiring as it is historically important.

'This book could save your life' John Crace'An unblinking account of living with - and more importantly, beyond - addiction. Brave, clear-eyed and inspiring' John Niven'A 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 Rock's Backpages. Hoskyns beautifully describes the relationship between music and addiction, between love and infatuation. Never Enough is Hoskyns's 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.

Think 'Woodstock' and the mind turns to the seminal 1969 festival. But Woodstock itself was over sixty miles away, and already a key location in the rock landscape as a community of brilliant, dysfunctional musicians, opportunistic hippie capitalists, scheming dealers, and freaks dazed and confused by the search for spiritual truth. Central to this was the power and presence of Albert Grossman - manager for Dylan, Janis Joplin, Richie Havens, The Band and Todd Rundgren - who turned Woodstock into his own personal fiefdom. Drawing on first-hand interviews with all the remaining key players, Small Town Talk is a classic study of a vital music scene in a revolutionary time and place.

Think "Woodstock" and the mind turns to the seminal 1969 festival that crowned a seismic decade of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. But the town of Woodstock, New York, the original planned venue of the concert, is located over 60 miles from the site to which the fabled half a million flocked. Long before the landmark music festival usurped the name, Woodstock--the tiny Catskills town where Bob Dylan holed up after his infamous 1966 motorcycle accident--was already a key location in the '60s rock landscape. Drawing on numerous 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. This is 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 Mitchell's songs are great art. Almost all are emotionally complex and musically gripping. Reckless Daughter collects some of the most incisive commentary on Joni's music - and some of the most candid conversations she has had with journalists through 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 MOJO's Dave DiMartino, this anthology of almost 60 articles charts every stage of Joni's extraordinary journey as a singer, songwriter and artist.

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 Plant's Grammy-winning resurgence of recent years.

The definitive oral history of the iconic, bestselling rock band Led ZeppelinWith Robert Plant on lead vocal and Jimmy Page on guitar, Led Zeppelin is one of the most iconic, legendary, and influential rock bands in musical history. Tales of their indulgence in sex, drugs, and excess have swirled for decades. In this definitive oral history of the band, Barney Hoskyns finally reveals the truth about Led Zeppelin, paring away the myths and describing what life was really like for four young men on top of the world, enjoying fame on a scale that not even the Beatles experienced as a touring live act. Through fresh new interviews with the surviving band members, close friends, their tour manager, and scores of other fascinating characters, Hoskyns provides deep insights into the personalities of the band members and chronicles the group's dramatic rise, fall, and legacy. Based on more than 200 interviews with everyone from Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones to road manager Richard Cole, their late manager Peter Grant, and many others central to the Zeppelin storyFeatures striking photos of the band both on and offstage, many published here for the first timeTakes a fresh look at Led Zeppelin's music, cultural significance, and legend, as well as the highs and lows of the sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle on the roadAnalyzes the way the band wrote, arranged, and recorded, from how they created the stupendous sound and dynamics on ""Dazed and Confused"" and ""Whole Lotta Love"" to the group's folk-suffused acoustic side embodied in songs like ""Friends"" and ""That's the Way""Written by Barney Hoskyns, contributing editor at British Vogue who is the author of the bestselling book Hotel California and the co-founder of online music-journalism library Rock's Backpages

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 Waits's 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 Waits's life and art step by step, album by album. Barney Hoskyns has written a rock biography--much like the subject himself--unlike any other. It is a unique take on one of rock's great enigmas.

Spanning Tom Waits' extraordinary 40-year career, from Closing Time to Orphans, Lowside of the Road is Barney Hoskyns' unique take on one of rock's great enigmas. Like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, Waits is a chameleonic survivor who's 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.

(Book). This is a vivid and rollicking account of The Band's journey across three decades. Spanning the history of American rock and boasting a supporting cast that includes Dylan, Janis Joplin, and U2, the book brilliantly captures the raw magic and complex personalities of a group George Harrison called "the best band in the history of the universe." This revised U. S. edition includes a postscript, together with an obituary of Rick Danko and a brand-new interview with Robbie Robertson.

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 Eaglesâ?? success in the late Seventies.

An up-close and personal portrait of the L. A. music scene between 1967 and 1976 draws on interviews with key players of the period to explore the energy and impact of the era, profiling such figures as Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, the Eagles, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.