Backbeat Books

The Gibson 335 Guitar Book tells the story of Gibson's ES-335 and related models, as played by B. B. King, Alvin Lee, and Eric Clapton, among other virtuosos. It's full of great guitars, cool players,...

U2 planted the seeds for 'The Joshua Tree' during an existential journey through America. As Irishmen in the 1970s, the band grew up with the belief that America was a place of freedom and prosperity,...

For over forty years, John Cowan has been both a participant in and chronicler of country and bluegrass music history. Whether as the lead singer and bassist of the genre-bending group New Grass Reviv...

Titans of Bass: The Tactics, Habits, and Routines from over 130 of the World's Best reveals the experiences of over 130 of the world's top bassists to help the beginning bassist learn and play their f...

Here is the authorized biography of the one and only Maynard James Keenan. The book traces Keenan's journey from his Midwest childhood to his years in the Army to his time in art school, from his stin...

Thirty years ago this July, five L. A. punks unleashed their debut album upon the atrophied and decadent rock charts of Reagans America. Within weeks, Appetite for Destruction ascended to number one o...

Freddie Mercury was one of rock's most dazzling front men. When he died in 1991, the music world lost one of its most flamboyant characters, as well as a supremely talented writer and vocalist. Best k...

Revered and massively influential, the Smiths have been called the most important band of the fertile U. K. 1980s music scene. While the group was only active for five years (1982 to 1987), the cult o...

No one can argue that Morrissey is one of the best lyricists and charismatic front men in music history. But people love to argue about other things – his mysterious personal life, his pompous a...

In October 2016, the Swedish Academy finally conceded to a quarter-century's worth of clamorous petitions and sustained lobbying enacted by a chorus of poets, novelists, songwriters, and academics. At...

In a way that no prior rock act had done, the Band assimilated, remade, and contagiously celebrated the rich, deep tributaries of American vernacular music. Blues, country, jazz, folk, gospel, soul, r...

Michael Jackson may be the King of Pop, but his influence extends much further. From his childhood years with the Jackson 5 through his astonishing solo career, he consistently broke sales records, pi...

The first half of the 1970s was an especially fertile period for British progressive rock, laying claim to classics such as Tarkus, Selling England by the Pound, Larks' Tongues in Aspic, The Dark Side...

Ringo: With a Little Help is the first in-depth biography of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, who kept the beat for an entire generation and who remains a rock icon over fifty years since the Beatles took...

The seminal British amps of the late '50s onward were always distinct from their American counterparts, which were generally designed for jazz, country, and dance-hall music. The British amps were des...

Being Gerry Mulligan: My Life in Music is an intimate chronicle of Gerry Mulligan's life and career, told in his own words. This personal narrative reveals great insight into the musician's complex pe...

Few songs have captured the contradictions and ambiguities of the 1960s as memorably as California Dreamin', the iconic folk music single that catapulted the Mamas & the Papas into rock and roll histo...

What do you do after leaving one of the world's biggest bands? If you're David Lee Roth, you write a memoir, become a radio host, sell a screenplay to a major studio, get certified as an EMT, play Veg...

After February 9, 1964, everyone wanted to be Debbie Gendler. On that date, she was just one of a relative handful of lucky fans who were in the live audience for The Beatles' historic performance on...

The Everly Brothers - a.k.a. Don and Phil to fans with an intimate appreciation for them - seemed to exist almost as an apparition. Emerging within the formative era for young Baby Boomers during the...

The stories of rock musicians who die young are the thing of lore and legend. Accidents, drug overdoses, plane crashes -- all have taken the lives of male rock stars still in their primes. But what be...

Edgy, witty, and opinionated critical analysis of classic rock in the 21st century, discussing everything from modern remixes of classic albums (why?) to concert ticket prices, Record Store Day, the v...

An effective new songwriting vocabulary supported by ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC! The Elements of Song Craft does for songwriters what William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White's The Elements of Style did for Engl...