Today's Featured Book:

Top Eight: How Myspace Changed Music

by Michael Tedder

Chicago Review Press

Hardcover 

From the publisher's website:

In extensive interviews with scene pioneers and mainstays including Chris Carrabba (Dashboard Confessional), Geoff Rickly (Thursday), Frank Hero (My Chemical Romance), Gabe Saporta (Midtown/Cobra Starship), and Max Bernie (Say Anything), veteran music journalist Michael Tedder has crafted a once-in-a-generation exploration of emo and The Scene that is as forthright as it is tenderly nostalgic, taking to task the elements of toxic masculinity and crass consumerism that bled out of the early 2000s cultural milieu and ultimately led to the implosion of emo's first home and the best social media network, MySpace.

When MySpace thrived, the internet was still fun. Top Eight recalls the excitement and freedom of the era, an unprecedented time when a generation of fans were able to connect directly with the bands and musicians they idolized, from Colbie Caillat to Lil Jon. 

MySpace changed everything, and Top Eight gives major voices of the era the chance to tell us why it couldn't last.

Now Available in Paperback:

Murder in Canaryville:  The True Story Behind a Cold Case and a Chicago Cover-Up

by Jeff Coen

Chicago Review Press

Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

The cold-case murder of John Hughes, the son of a Chicago Outfit member suspected of pulling the trigger, and the efforts of a determined detective to unravel a cover-up The grandson and great-grandson of Chicago police officers, Chicago Police Detective James Sherlock was CPD through-and-through. His career had seen its share of twists and turns, from his time working undercover to thwart robberies on Chicago's L trains to his years as a homicide detective. He thought he had seen it all.  But on this day, he was at the records center to see the case file for the murder of John Hughes, who was seventeen years old when he was gunned down on Chicago's Southwest Side in 1976. The case's threads led everywhere: Police corruption. Hints of the Chicago Outfit. A crooked judge. Even the belief that the cover-up extended to "hizzoner" himself—legendary Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley.  A murder that had roiled the city and had been investigated for years had been reduced to a few reports and photographs. What should have been a massive file with notes and transcripts from dozens of interviews was nowhere to be found. Sherlock could have left the records center without the folder and cruised into retirement, and no one would have noticed.  Instead, he tucked the envelope under his arm and carried it outside.

On My Radar:

Tied Up in Knotts: My Dad and Me
by Karen Knotts
Chicago Review Press
Trade Paperback


From the publisher's website:

Karen Knotts tells the full story of her father, Don Knotts. Much has been written about Don Knott's career, especially about his iconic role as Barney Fife on the Andy Griffith Show, but personal views into the man himself are few and far between. In Tied Up in Knotts, a loving daughter provides a full-life narrative of her father: Don's difficult childhood in an abusive home, his escape into comedic performance, becoming a household name, his growth as a feature film actor, his failing health, and his family life throughout, leading to touching and hilarious moments that will make the reader laugh and cry.


Those looking for behind-the-scenes peek at the show, from the nuts and bolts of production to the hilarious pranks and heartfelt moments between cast and crew, will see it all through the eyes of the little girl who grew up on the set. Knotts will delight readers with the memories of celebrities touched by Don's life, including Ron Howard, Tim Conway, Andy Griffith, Elinor Donahue, John Waters, Barbara Eden, Katt Williams, and Jim Carrey. Tied Up in Knotts delves beyond Barney Fife nostalgia to tell the life story of a man and father.

On My Radar:

Have a Little Faith: The John Hiatt Story
by Michael Elliott
Chicago Review Press
Hardcover


From the publisher's website:

By the mid-1980s, singer-songwriter John Hiatt had been dropped from three record labels, burned through two marriages, and had fallen deep into substance abuse.

It took a stint in rehab and a new marriage to inspire him, then a producer and an A&R man to have a little faith. By February 1987, he was back in the studio on a shoestring budget with a hand-picked supergroup consisting of Ry Cooder on guitar, Nick Lowe on bass, and Jim Keltner on drums, recording what would become his masterpiece, Bring the Family.

Based on author Michael Elliott's multiple extensive and deeply personal interviews with Hiatt as well as his collaborators and contemporaries, including Rosanne Cash, Bonnie Raitt, Ry Cooder, and many others, Have a Little Faithis the journey through the musical landscape of the 1960s through today that places Hiatt’s long career in context with the glossy pop, college-alternative, mainstream country, and heartland rock of the last half-century.

On My Radar:

All Things Must Pass Away: Harrison, Clapton, and Other Assorted Love Songs
by Kenneth Womack and Jason Kruppa
Chicago Review Press
Hardcover


From the author's website:

George Harrison and Eric Clapton embarked upon a singular personal and creative friendship that impacted rock’s unfolding future in resounding and far-reaching ways.

All Things Must Pass Away: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Other Assorted Love Songs traces the emergence of their relationship from 1968 though the early 1970s. In particular, authors Womack and Kruppa devote close attention to the climax of Harrison and Clapton’s shared musicianship—the November 1970 releases of All Things Must Pass, Harrison’s powerful emancipatory statement in the wake of the Beatles, and Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, Clapton’s impassioned reimagining of his art via Derek and the Dominos, the band that he created from the wreckage of Cream and Blind Faith.

All Things Must Pass Away will provide readers with a powerful overview of Harrison and Clapton’s relationship, especially in terms of the ways their revolutionary musicianship and songwriting would eclipse rock music as an evolving genre. With All Things Must Pass and Layla, Harrison and Clapton bequeathed twin recorded statements that advanced rock ‘n’ roll from a windswept 1960s idealism into the edgy new reality of the 1970s.

On My Radar:

Lightnin' Hopkins: His Life and Blues
by Alan Govenar
Chicago Review Press

Trade Paperback


From the publisher's website:

By the time of his death in 1982, Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins was likely the most recorded blues artist in history. This brilliant new biography--the first book ever written about him--illuminates the many contradictions of the man and his myth. Born in 1912 to a poor sharecropping family in the cotton country between Dallas and Houston, Hopkins left home when he was only eight years old with a guitar his brother had given him. He made his living however he could, sticking to the open road, playing the blues, and taking odd jobs when money was short. This biography delves into Hopkins's early years, exploring the myths surrounding his meetings with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Texas Alexander, his time on a chain gang, his relationships with women, and his lifelong appetite for gambling and drinking.Hopkins didn't begin recording until 1946, when he was dubbed "Lightnin'" during his first session, and he soon joined Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker on the national R & B charts. But by the time he was "rediscovered" by Mack McCormick and Sam Charters in 1959, his popularity had begun to wane. A second career emerged--now Lightnin' was pitched to white audiences, not black ones, and he became immensely successful, singing about his country roots and injustices that informed the civil rights era with a searing emotive power.More than a decade in the making, this biography is based on scores of interviews with Lightnin's lover, friends, producers, accompanists, managers, and fans.

On My Radar:

Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson
by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow
Chicago Review Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Robert Johnson's recordings, made in 1936 and 1937, have profoundly influenced generations of singers, guitarists, and songwriters. Yet until now, his short life — he was murdered at the age of 27 — has been poorly documented. Gayle Dean Wardlow has been interviewing people who knew Johnson since the early 1960s, and he was the person who discovered Johnson's death certificate in 1967. Bruce Conforth began his study of Johnson's life and music in 1970 and made it his mission to fill in what was still unknown about him. In this definitive biography, the two authors relied on every interview, resource, and document, much of it material no one has seen before. This is the first book about Johnson that documents his lifelong relationship with family and friends in Memphis, details his trip to New York, uncovers where and when his wife Virginia died and the impact this had on him, fully portrays the other women Johnson was involved with, and tells exactly how and why he died and who gave him the poison that killed him. Up Jumped the Devil will astonish blues fans worldwide by painting a living, breathing portrait of a man who was heretofore little more than a legend.

On My Radar:

Apocalypse Any Day Now: Deep Underground with America's Doomsday Preppers 
by Tea Krulos
Chicago Review Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Everyone always seems to be talking about the end of the world -- Y2K, the Mayan apocalypse, blood moon prophecies, nuclear war, killer robots, you name it.  In Apocalypse Any Day Now, journalist Tea Krulos travels the country to try to puzzle out America's obsession with the end of days.  Along the way he meets doomsday preppers -- people who stockpile supplies and learn survival skills -- as well as religious prognosticators and climate scientists.  He camps out with the Zombie Squad (who use a zombie apocalypse as a survival metaphor); tours the Survival Condos, a luxurious bunker built in an old Atlas missile silo; and attends Wasteland Weekend, where people party like the world has already ended.  Frightening and funny, the ideas Kurlos explores range from ridiculously outlandish to alarmingly near and present dangers.

Cobain on Cobain

Interviews and Encounters
Edited by Nick Soulsby
Chicago Review Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Cobain on Cobain places the reader at the key moments of Kurt Cobain's roller-coaster career, telling the tale of Nirvana entirely through his words and those of his bandmates. Each interview is another knot in a thread running from just after the recording of their first album, Bleach, to the band's collapse on the European tour of 1994 and Cobain's subsequent suicide. Interviews have been chosen to provide definitive coverage of the events of those five years from as close as possible, so that the reader can see Cobain reacting to the circumstances of each tour, each new release, each public incident, all the way down to the end. Including many interviews that have never before seen print, Cobain on Cobain will long remain the definitive source for anyone searching for Kurt Cobain's version of his own story.

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