Taking in superstars such as Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith and Frank Sinatra alongside the unheralded figures behind some of our most enduring songs, Stanley paints a stunning portrait of pop music's formative years, uncovering the silver threads and golden needles that bind the form together. Who were the earliest recording stars? Who were the likes of George Gershwin writing songs for? Why did swing, the hit sound for a decade or more, become almost obsolete after World War Two? 'An absolute landmark/joy/gossip-fest/door to Narnia: the history of pop music before rock'n'roll. Fascinating.' - Caitlin Moran. The prequel to Bob Stanley's Sunday Times bestselling 'Yeah Yeah Yeah', this is the only book that brings together all genres to tell the definitive story of the birth of pop, from 1900 and the invention of the 78 rpm record to the beginnings of rock and the modern pop age. There was the maximal rhythm of Count Basie and the minimal softness of Claude Thornhill; the furrowed Jerome Kern and the flighty P. G. Wodehouse; the bellow of Sophie Tucker and the squeak of Helen Kane; the Andes siren sound of Yma Sumac and the lounge-bound purr of Julie London; the rough Louis and the smooth Hutch, and throw in the silver threads of Billie Holiday and Rodgers & Hammerstein. It is an Anglo-American story, with early nods to sounds and styles from Vienna, together with outside influences from Hawaii, Cuba, Brazil and the tape recordings and technology brought home by victorious American soldiers. We will see how World War Two broke up swing bands, putting the post-war focus on solo singers like Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee, and how Tin Pan Alley's infantilism in the 1950s left the door open for the schism of rock'n'roll. 636 magnificent pages, illustrated. Please note contents same as code 94500.

'Chess Records and the Business of Rock & Roll', Macher is a Yiddish word for a big wheel or an operator. On the South Side of Chicago in the late 1940s, two immigrants, one a Jew born in Russia, the other a black Blues singer from Mississippi, met and changed the course of musical history. Muddy Waters electrified the Blues, and Leonard Chess recorded it. Soon Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry added a dose of pulsating rhythm, and Chess Records captured that too. Rock & Roll had arrived, and an industry was born. In a book as vibrantly and exuberantly written as the music and people it portrays, Rich Cohen tells the engrossing story of how Chess, with the other record men, made this new sound into a multi-billion-dollar business, aggressively acquiring artists, strong-arming distributors, riding the crest of a wave that would crash over a whole generation. The book is full of absorbing lore and animated by a deep love for popular music - it's a big, tough, funny, clever story. Not politically correct, the book begins at a Bar Mitzvar and immediately draws connections between blacks and Jews. 220pp, photos.

This roller-coaster of a book is impossible to put down as the author tells the story of the charismatic entrepreneur Sam Phillips, who became his friend in 1979. Credited with inventing Rock 'n' Roll by launching Elvis's career, in 1952 Sam Phillips pioneered Sun Records in Memphis, a recording company specifically designed to bring forward Black talent. His commitment to all kinds of equality was later consolidated when he founded an all-female radio station. In 1950 Black artists had no place to go to record in the South, and Sam wanted to open up an area of freedom within the artistic community regardless of colour, so in 1952 Sam and Jimmy Connolly established Sun Records in his Memphis Recording Studios, with the help of Sam's wife Becky and her business acumen. For the first time the couple were able to own a house with their young sons Knox and Jerry. Sam recorded the best of Black and white talent, but unusually most of the behind-the-scenes workers were also Black. Jimmy Bragg, the world's champion smoke ring blower, was lead singer of the Prisonaires, inmates of the Tennessee state Penitentiary, and his song "Just walkin' in the rain" was a massive hit for the studio, putting them on the map locally and nationally. Howard Seratt's country gospel music was a new direction for Sam, who at the same time had not forgotten a kid who did a personal recording for his mother in the studio some years previously. He invited the nineteen year old Elvis to a session, which did not go well until Sam unearthed the old blues number "That's All right, Mama" and Elvis's voice really took off. Sales were phenomenal and a legend was born. By the late 50s Johnny Cash was another Memphis sensation. Jerry Lee Lewis was the most naturally talented person Sam had ever worked with, although he was an unstable performer and was ricocheting from marriage to marriage. Jerry went on the road with Chuck Berry, and although Jerry Lee was the undisputed headliner, they came to blows, sometimes literally, over who was going to close the show. A fascinating action-packed narrative. 763pp, discography, photos.

The Garrick Theatre (telephone Southport 5000) poster entices listeners to come and hear the latest tunes by Joe Loss, see George Formby or watch Babes in the Wood at the Pier Pavilion. In a superb gallery of steam trains, we follow the rise of cinema and the decline of music halls, Morecambe and Wise getting their act together on a train while touring the provinces, the bread and butter circuit, the theatre architect extraordinaire Frank Matcham and right back to the good old days when Charles Dickens catches the train during Hard Times. This beautiful and nostalgic book by Lancashire-based social historian Hindle embraces more than 320 excellent colour photographs and black and white images of steam-hauled passenger trains that once conveyed passengers to the great Victorian and Edwardian music halls and variety theatres. Supported by copious variety bills, anecdotes and personal reminiscences, here are the seaside shows, the famous Blackpool Tower, the Moss Empire circuit and the infamous Glasgow Empire. Railways brought mass mobility for passengers long before the age of the car and special trains accommodated complex sets and all the paraphernalia to be transported for the performing companies around the country. They enabled famous London and northern-based performers such as Marie Lloyd to travel the country and reach their matinées and twice-nightly performances on time. The passing of Ken Dodd signalled the last of the genre of music hall performers and the end of an era, recorded beautifully in this 184 glossy page book. Colour. Satin pagemarker.

With the big swirly typeface 1970s lettering for their band name, utopian lyrics, dreamy artworks by Roger Dean on albums like Tales from Topographic Oceans, many music lovers have been moved by classic albums like Fragile, Close to the Edge, Relayer, Going for the One, or more recent offerings like Fly From Here and Heaven & Earth. This magical book perfectly captures the spirit of progressive rock's first, biggest and best band with original interviews from Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, the late and great bassist Chris Squire and many others. The tales unfold via an exhaustive chronology designed to satisfy the most knowledgeable of Yes fans. You just might learn what 'Close to the Edge' actually means or why Alan White and Jon Anderson might be seen prowling the junkyard for car parts! Using a timeline format, the superb biographer Popoff disentangles the convoluted tale of the band's hirings and firings, their inside creations, live shows and triumphs, and studio victories as well as the occasional controversial failure such as when Anderson wanted to record 'Tales from Topographic Oceans' in the countryside so a cut-out cow was brought in. Popoff also gets the views of contemporaries such as Steve Hackett (Genesis), Bill Ward (Black Sabbath) and John Wetton (King Crimson, Asia et al) to provide a rounded view of the prog movement. Colour photos, 205pp, large softback.

A name many music lovers will know, legendary impresario Simon Napier-Bell takes us inside the world of popular music from sheet music to streaming. Not just a cradle for talent and expression, the music business has made people rich beyond their wildest dreams. Simon balances seductive anecdotes, pulling back the curtain on the gritty and absurd side of the industry, with an insightful exploration of the relationship between creativity and money. He describes the evolution of the industry from its birth in 1710 when the British Parliament first established the right of ownership in creative works, to the huge global market it has become today with streaming and downloads. You will uncover a treasure trove of musical facts including how a formula for writing hits in the 1900s which helped create 50,000 of the best-known songs of all time; how Jewish immigrants and Black jazz musicians dancing cheek-to-cheek established a template for all popular music that followed; and how rock tours became the biggest, quickest, sleaziest and most profitable ventures the industry had ever seen. We shine on this crazy diamond through the days of the American musical, Irving Berlin, pirating and other problems, dodgy producers, booze, the wireless, world wars, payola, record companies regrouping, Michael Jackson and Madonna, drugs and DJs, rap, the end of Classical and EMI, and new directions. With a cast of characters, and songs in chapter titles, index of quotations and bibliography. 388pp, paperback.

Mentored to stardom by Walt Disney himself, Hayley reveals the truth of her own coming-of-age story in her own words, a story of incredible twists of fate and fortune, but also mismanagement, bankruptcy, family crisis and dislocation. What happens when a girl grows up in a world where everyone wants her to remain a child? Hayley's teenage decade in Hollywood produced some of the greatest family movies, classics like Pollyanna, The Parent Trap and In Search of the Castaways, and in Britain the acclaimed Whistle Down the Wind. Overnight, Hayley became a household name at the tender age of 12. Her memoir touches on growing up in a family of performers and she evokes a lost empire of mid-20th century Hollywood in her warm-hearted peek-behind-the-curtain at filmmaking in the 1960s. Mills won a BAFTA Award for her performance in the British crime drama Tiger Bay and her seven-picture deal with Walt Disney made her an international star and included her dual role as the twins Sharon and Susan in The Parent Trap. She was just 14 when she made Pollyanna and continued to make films and TV and drama among them as Caroline in Wild At Heart on ITV. Never a dull passage, 394pp in paperback, 16 pages of colour and black and white photos including hanging on to the mast of the Swiss Family Robinson shipwreck in Tobago, 1959.

Few bands are as shrouded in the murky haze of rock mythology as The Doors, but now the band's notoriously quiet guitarist is finally breaking his silence to set the record straight. His often amusing memories will be loved by all Doors fans. It is a series of vignettes which takes us back to where it all happened - the pawn shop where he bought his first guitar, the jail cell he was tossed into after a teenage drug bust, his parents' living room where his first writing songs with Jim Morrison took place, and the many concert venues that erupted into historic riots. There are stories of the albums, flashpoints, the group's rise to fame, singles, drug and alcohol use all painting a picture of the 1960's counterculture. At the same time it is a moving reflection on what it means to find oneself as a musician, from the iconic and definitive first album on Elektra, we are reminded of the swirling technical wizardry on keyboards of Ray Manzarek and the solid drumming of John Densmore. Sadly of course Jim Morrison entered the 27 club but here his bandmate sets the record straight after wild acclaims and misunderstandings. Along the way he also managed to write 'Light My Fire', an anthem for the band. A great read from this underrated guitar player who writes with the same easy going style. 422 page paperback, many photos.

Adoring fans surrounding the limousine as a young David Bowie with his iconic haircut smoking a cigarette emerging into his newfound fame graces the cover of this gorgeous, celebratory read. The age of the rock star, like the age of the cowboy, has passed. What did we see in them? Swagger, recklessness, sexual charisma, self-belief, a certain way of carrying themselves, good hair, interesting shoes, talent? What did we want of them? To be larger than life but also like us. To live out their songs. To stay young forever. No wonder many didn't stay the course. Never a dull moment with 40 enjoyable romps across the years 1955 to 1994 with the rise of the drum machine. Here are bad boys, guitar heroes, rock bands, female rock stars and career suicide from the early days of Elvis Presley and Fats Domino to David Bowie, Morrisey to Madonna, Ozzy Osbourne to Björk, Little Richard, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen, Sid Vicious, The Edge, Bob Marley, Kurt Cobain, Keith Moon and on into infinity. It's about the fantasy figures that rock fame transformed them into and the personal price they paid for playing a starring role in our dreams. We wanted rock stars to be glamorous but also authentic, willing to beat off willing sexual partners but also live a fulfilled family life, staying up too late and never giving their full attention, but still operating at their full potential and talent. Rock stars were uncommon people who came from the masses and got to the top without the help of education, training, family ties or money and surprisingly many had careers that lasted far longer than they ever had any right to expect. Here their legends endure. 421pp, paperback with many photos.

Mrs Overall: 'I sometimes think being widowed is God's way of telling you to come off the Pill.' And from page 86 in the middle of a frantically funny dialogue 'Got into drugs, marijuana, then cocaine, then Shake 'n' Vac. Then I became a monk, but we had words over my safari jacket.' Slip into your northern accent to read aloud the comic words of our much loved lost talent, Victoria Wood. First published as a stand-alone collection in 1996, Chunky collects sketches from Victoria Wood's award-winning TV shows together with previously unaired monologues and scenes. As well as the complete Acorn Antiques scripts, this omnibus edition includes her Up to You, Porky (the title of which was based on her former agent's dismissive quip), Balmy and Mens Sana in Thingummy Doodah. This revised edition collects the very best of her sketches, shows and more, and is newly introduced by Celia Imrie, star of so many of Victoria Wood's shows, with additions and annotations from Wood's official biographer Jasper Rees. Babs (on telephone): 'Acorn Antiques, can I help you? Gainsborough's Blue Boy? Yes, I think we have it in mauve, I'll just check...' Acute skewering of the absurdities of real life from corner shops to candlewick bedspreads, supermarket checkouts to suburban lust. From a Kitty monologue: 'My name's Kitty. I've had a boob off and I can't stomach whelks so that's me for you'. Plus the waspish continuity announcer Susie, Marjory and Joan and other unforgettable characters. 447pp with cast lists.