Graham Betts

Michael Heatley

Nadia Cohen

Rihanna: an unofficial biography. Princess RiRi has soared to the heights of stardom, every year rocking a hot new look as she works the audience with sizzling style and awesome sounds. She breaks records left, right and centre, with 20 million album sales under her belt and the youngest artist in the Billboard chart's history to achieve 10 number-one singles. The ultimate celebration of this girl's talent, beauty and wow-factor, with brilliant pics and inspirational words - a must-have for all fans.

Rihanna

In the Top Ten on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, with millions of followers, Rihanna is adored by a huge online community. If you love Princess RiRi, you gotta get this unofficial biography - the ultimate celebration of this girl's talent, beauty and wow-factor, with brilliant pics and inspirational words.

Bad Girl

Written by football fan and statistician Graham Betts, "The Little Book of Football Legends" is part of the fantastic "Legends of Sport" series featuring Football, Golf, Rugby, Cricket and Grand Prix. It is packed with 4 page profiles of 30 of the world's most admired and revered footballers. "The Little Book of Football Legends" includes key statistics about each legend, illustrated with some of the best known photographs of them together with a fascinating profile of their career. Featuring such greats as Pele, Maradona, Dalglish, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, this is a great look at the legends of world football.

The Little Book of Football Legends

There can be no doubt that Aston Villa are one of English football's most respected clubs. Formed as far back as 1874, the Villans are among the oldest sides in the League, and have a distinguished record of success stretching from their early days right up to the current season. Having won the FA Cup no less than seven times, the League championship and the League Cup, the Birmingham club have also enjoyed a triumphant spell in Europe, eventually taking the greatest prize of all in 1982, the European Cup. Now, fans of the club can read all about Villa's heroic past, as this book contains details of stars players, inspiring managers, near misses, and victories against the odds.

Day to Day Life at Villa Park

The Villans

The most complete guide to every artist and album that has ever charted in the UK Album chart, with details on over 14,800 albums and biographies on every one of the 3,180 acts that have appeared since the chart first started in 1958. From a Top Ten in 1958, the album chart has grown in both size and stature over the years. Increased to a Top Twenty in 1960, the chart grew to a Top 30 by 1966, a Top 40 later that year, a Top 50 in 1971, a Top 75 in 1978 and a Top 100 in 1981. By 1989, when compilation albums and soundtracks were a major factor in the chart, a decision was taken to produce two charts; a Top 75 artist chart and a Top 20 compilation chart. Every single entry on all these charts is included in Collins Complete UK Hit Albums. 3,180 acts have registered just over 11,300 hit albums; also listed are the approximately 3,500 soundtracks and compilation albums that have also hit the charts. Hit Singles: a brief biography of each of the 3,180 or so artists who have had hit albums, details of BPI awards, Platinum Europe awards and RIAA Diamond awards and details of BRIT, Grammy awards and US Number Ones. Just as with the single chart, the album chart is not without its peculiarities and so you will learn of the album that took nearly four years to hit the number one spot, the album by Sigur Ros that had no title as opposed to that by Fiona Apple which registered the longest title (all 89 words), the artists whose chart career consists of a single week at position 100 as opposed to Fleetwood Mac's Rumours which has spent 477 weeks on the chart, including one week at number one.

Complete UK Hit Albums, 1956-2005

This is a detailed guide to every single and artist that has ever appeared in the UK chart. It includes details on when the song was released, top position, weeks in chart, awards, track title, label and catalogue number.

Complete UK Hit Singles 1952-2006

The most detailed guide to every single and artist that has ever appeared in the UK Chart100 Top 10s Hit Singles -- A-Z by Artist Hit Singles -- A-Z of song titles Sample entry: ELASTICA British rock group formed in London in 1993 by Justine Frischmann (born in Twickenham, Middlesex on 16/9/1969, guitar and vocals), Donna Matthews (born in Newport, Gwent on 2/12/1971, guitar), Justin Welch (born in Nuneaton, West Midlands on 4/12/1972, drums) and Annie Holland (born in Brighton, East Sussex on 26/8/1965, bass). They added Dave Bush (keyboards) in 1995, the same year Holland left and was replaced by Abby Travis. Travis later left and was replaced by Sheila Chipperfield (born on 17/6/1976). Frischmann had previously been rhythm guitarist with Suede. The group announced they were to disband in 2001.

Complete Uk Hit Singles

Motown means different things to different people. The mere mention of perhaps the most iconic record label in history is often enough to invoke memories and mental images of Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Jackson 5, The Supremes and numerous others. With each group recalled, there is an accompanying piece of music of the mind, from Baby Love, My Girl, Signed Sealed Delivered, I Heard It Through The Grapevine, ABC and Tears Of A Clown and countless more. Quite often, you can ask people what kind of music they like and they will simply answer ‘Motown’, and both they, and you, know exactly what is meant. Or rather, what is implied. The Motown they are invariably thinking of is the label that dominated the charts in the mid 1960s with a succession of radio friendly, dance orientated hits, most of which were written and produced by the trio of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland. This period is referred to, naturally enough, as the Golden Era, when Motown was not only the dominant force in its home city of Detroit but carried The Sound of Young America all around the world. The kind of music that had them Dancing In the Street from Los Angeles to London, Miami to Munich and San Francisco to Sydney. It was the kind of music that attracted scores of imitators; some good, some not so good. The kind of music that appealed to the public and presidents alike, and still does. It was that Motown that this book was intended to be about. However, when you start digging deeper into the Motown story, you realise that throughout its life (which, for the purposes of this book, is its formation in 1959 through to its sale in 1988) it was constantly trying other musical genres, looking to grab hits out of jazz, country, pop, rock, middle of the road and whatever else might be happening at the time. Of course it wasn’t particularly successful at some of the other genres, although those who claim Motown never did much in the rock market conveniently overlook the healthy sales figures achieved by Rare Earth, the group, and focus instead on the total sales achieved on Rare Earth, the label. This book, therefore, contains biographies of all 684 artists who had releases on Motown and their various imprints, as well as biographies of 16 musicians, 23 producers, 19 writers and 13 executives. There are also details of the 50 or so labels that Motown owned, licensed to or licensed from. All nine films and the 17 soundtracks are also featured. Every Motown single and album and EP that made the Top Ten of the pop charts in either the US or UK also have their own entries, with 222 singles, 84 albums and five EPs being featured. Finally, there are 36 other entries, covering such topics as the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Motortown Revues, Grammy Awards and the most played Motown songs on radio. The 1,178 entries cover every aspect of Motown and more – of the link between Granny in The Beverly Hillbillies and Wonder Woman, of the artists from Abbey Tavern Singers to Zulema, and the hits from ABC to You Really Got A Hold On Me. The Motown Encyclopedia is the story of Motown Records; Yesterday, Today, Forever.

Graham Betts

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