Peter Doggett

No artist offered a more incisive and accurate portrait of the troubled landscape of the 1970s than David Bowie. Cultural historian Peter Doggett explores the rich heritage of Bowie's most productive and inspired decade, and traces the way in which his music reflected and influenced the world around him. From 'Space Oddity', his dark vision of mankind's voyage into the unknown terrain of space, to the Scary Monsters album, Doggett examines in detail Bowie's audacious creation of an 'alien' rock star, Ziggy Stardust, and his increasingly perilous explorations of the nature of identity and the meaning of fame. Mixing brilliant musical critique with biographical insight and acute cultural analysis, The Man Who Sold The World is a unique study of a major artist and his times.

David Bowie and the 1970s

The Man who Sold the World

Ambitious and groundbreaking, Electric Shock tells the story of popular music, from the birth of recording in the 1890s to the digital age, from the first pop superstars of the twentieth century to the omnipresence of music in our lives, in hit singles, ringtones and on Spotify. Over that time, popular music has transformed the world in which we live. Its rhythms have influenced how we walk down the street, how we face ourselves in the mirror, and how we handle the outside world in our daily conversations and encounters. It has influenced our morals and social mores; it has transformed our attitudes towards race and gender, religion and politics. From the beginning of recording, when a musical performance could be preserved for the first time, to the digital age, when all of recorded music is only a mouse-click away; from the straitlaced ballads of the Victorian era and the 'coon songs' that shocked America in the early twentieth century to gangsta rap, death metal and the multiple strands of modern dance music: Peter Doggett takes us on a rollercoaster ride through the history of music. Within a narrative full of anecdotes and characters, Electric Shock mixes musical critique with wider social and cultural history and shows how revolutionary changes in technology have turned popular music into the lifeblood of the modern world.

From the Gramophone to the IPhone : 125 Years of Pop Music

Electric Shock

Read the first biography of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, whose music and career illuminate the journey and legacy of 1960s counterculture. Between 1969 and 1974, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were the most successful, influential and politically potent rock band in America. More than any of their peers, they channelled and broadcast all the radical anger, romantic idealism and generational angst of their era. The vast emotional range of their music, from delicate acoustic confessionals to raucous counter-culture anthems, was mirrored in the turbulence of their personal lives. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young is the first major biography of a band whose first two albums are undisputed rock classics, and which continues to attract a large and loyal following to their sporadic reunions. At the same time, Peter Doggett illuminates the pivotal years of 1960s counterculture through the story of four of its key protagonists, whose music, beliefs and relationships with each other chronicle both its trajectory and its legacy.

The Biography

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

The world stopped in 1970 when Paul McCartney announced that he was through with the Beatles. Though the Beatles’ breakup was widely viewed as a cultural tragedy, one of the most fascinating phases of their story was just beginning. In You Never Give Me Your Money, journalist Peter Doggett tells the behind-the-scenes story of the personal rivalries and legal feuds that have dominated the Beatles’ lives since 1969. It is both a compelling human drama and an equally rich and absorbing story of the creative and financial empire the band members set up to safeguard their interests but that ultimately controlled their lives. You Never Give Me Your Money charts the Shakespearean battles between Lennon and McCartney, George Harrison’s raging inner conflict between spirituality and fame, and the struggle with alcoholism that nearly cost Richard Starkey his life. From tragedy to triumphant reconciliation, from individual chart success to bitter courtroom battles, this meticulously researched work tells the previously untold story of a group and a legacy that will never be forgotten.

The Beatles After the Breakup

You Never Give Me Your Money

From the Gramophone to the iPhone - 125 Years of Pop Music

Doggett critiques every song of David Bowie's most inventive and influential decade, from his first hit, OSpace Oddity, O in 1969, to the release of "Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)" in 1980. It is a brilliant exploration of the development of an artist who profoundly affected popular music.

revolutionaries, rock stars and the rise and fall of '60s counter-culture

There's a riot going on

'An excellent book' David Aaronovitch, The Times Was the 1960s really that great time of liberation, joyful experimentation and celebration of youth? Growing Up takes an unflinching look at the dark underbelly of the sexual revolution. No era in recent history has been both more celebrated and vilified than the 1960s. For some it was a time when music, fashion and drugs enabled young people to express their individuality and freedom, their hopes and dreams of a different, perhaps better, world. For others, the decade marked the advent of the permissive society, with its undermining of authority, family values and common decency. At the heart of this continuing controversy is sex. For this wide-ranging and eye-opening survey of the sexual landscape of the 1960s Peter Doggett has assembled a dozen little-known stories that reveal how the sexual revolution transformed people's lives. Growing Up provides an honest, often disturbing portrait of a constant battle between two forces: the urge to free the body from guilt and restraint; and the desire to control, cannibalise and exploit that liberation for profit or pleasure. It is a battle that divides opinion to this day.

Sex in the Sixties

Growing Up

Between 1965 and 1972, political activists around the globe prepared to mount a revolution. While the Vietnam War raged, calls for black power grew louder and liberation movements erupted everywhere from Berkeley, Detroit, and Newark, to Paris, Berlin, Ghana, and Peking. Rock and soul music fueled the revolutionary movement with anthems and iconic imagery. Soon the musicians themselves, from John Lennon and Bob Dylan to James Brown and Fela Kuti, were being dragged into the fray. From Mick Jagger’s legendary appearance in Grosvenor Square standing on the sidelines and snapping pictures, to the infamous incident during the Woodstock Festival when Pete Townshend kicked yippie Abbie Hoffman off the stage while he tried to make a speech about an imprisoned comrade, Doggett unravels the truth about how these were not the “Street Fighting Men” they liked to see themselves as and how the increasing corporatization of the music industry played an integral role in derailing the cultural dream. There’s a Riot Going On is a fresh, definitive, and exceedingly well-researched behind-the-scenes account of this uniquely turbulent period when pop culture and politics shared the world stage with mixed results.

Revolutionaries, Rock Stars, and the Rise and Fall of the 60s

There's a Riot Going On

The Defining Years

Lou Reed

The man who sold the world

When Paul McCartney told the world in 1970 that he had no plans to work with the Beatles again, it was widely viewed as a cultural tragedy by the media and public alike. But one of the most fascinating phases of the Beatles' story was just about to begin. Now, for the first time, You Never Give Me Your Money tells the dramatic story of the Fab Four post 1969. It charts the almost Shakespearean rivalry of the Lennon and McCartney families, the conflict in George Harrison's life between spirituality and fame, and Richard Starkey's efforts to conquer his personal demons. It also chronicles the transformation of their multi-media company, Apple Corps, from a bastion of 1960s counter-culture into a corporate behemoth. From court battles to chart success, the best of rock'n'roll writers, Peter Doggett traces the untold story of a group and a legacy that will never be forgotten.

The Battle For The Soul Of The Beatles

From his childhood paintings to the song he recorded on the day he died, here is a complete catalogue of Lennon's work across many fields: songwriting, performing, drawing, painting, film, poetry, prose and conceptual art. This magnificent book also contains detailed information about all of the Lennon recording sessions as part of the Beatles, as a solo artist and with Yoko Ono. Plus a complete UK and US discography, home demo recordings, composing tapes, studio out-takes, live recordings, collaborations, and interviews. Peter Doggett's fascinating book traces the story of a unique creative adventure that ended too soon but left behind an incalculable legacy of words, images and music from a giant of rock n roll who always searched for the truth beyond the limits of his frame. Beatles Historian Peter Doggett provides the definitive guide to the imaginative work of John Lennon. This comprehensive account details a man whose life and work were indivisible. Whether it was his amusing drawings to amuse classmates, recording million-selling hits with the Beatles or making avant-garde with Yoko Ono, John Lennon never stopped being a creator and Doggett explores his vivid imagination across many different Lennon projects spanning many years and creative forms.

The Art And Music Of John Lennon

Ambitious and groundbreaking, Electric Shock tells the story of popular music, from the birth of recording in the 1890s to the digital age, from the first pop superstars of the twentieth century to the omnipresence of music in our lives, in hit singles, ringtones and on Spotify. Over that time, popular music has transformed the world in which we live. Its rhythms have influenced how we walk down the street, how we face ourselves in the mirror, and how we handle the outside world in our daily conversations and encounters. It has influenced our morals and social mores; it has transformed our attitudes towards race and gender, religion and politics. From the beginning of recording, when a musical performance could be preserved for the first time, to the digital age, when all of recorded music is only a mouse-click away; from the straitlaced ballads of the Victorian era and the ‘coon songs’ that shocked America in the early twentieth century to gangsta rap, death metal and the multiple strands of modern dance music: Peter Doggett takes us on a rollercoaster ride through the history of music. Within a narrative full of anecdotes and characters, Electric Shock mixes musical critique with wider social and cultural history and shows how revolutionary changes in technology have turned popular music into the lifeblood of the modern world.

From the Gramophone to the iPhone – 125 Years of Pop Music

Tony Nourmand

A photographic ride through the history of movie bondage. Hollywood was a city of extremes: not for Tinseltown the carefully judged subtleties of shot and tone that were the hallmark of the art-house auteurs. It demanded passion, thrills, suspense, violent outbursts of emotion and movement - and so for every protagonist sweeping his way across the screen with a silvery rapier or a sensuous leer, there had to be a victim, waiting to be tossed aside with contemptuous ease or devoured whole in a paroxysm of lust. ... And so it was that innocent maidens were pinned down by rapacious seducers; monstrous villains chained to receive their just desserts; valiant heroes manacled or trussed or viciously tied, awaiting the cruellest of tortures, physical or psychological - only to free themselves in the final reel, and carry off the equally endangered heroines to safety and starry-eyed romance. Researched and collated with typical stylish flair by editor Tony Nourmand and featuring insightful text by author Peter Doggett, Hollywood Bound is a photographic guide to the history of movie bondage. Includes over 100 photographs reproduced to the highest quality.

Hollywood Bound

The indispensable consumers' guide to the music of Jimi Hendrix, now widely acclaimed as the most gifted instrumentalist in the history of rock.An album by album, track by track, run-down of all music recorded and released by Hendrix, from his earliest American Recordings through the Jimi Hendrix Experience to the many posthumous releases. Features include...An album by album, track by track analysis of Hendrix's best workInformation on when and where the music was recordedA rundown on expoitative recordings that are best avoidedA track index for easy referenceSixteen page colour section

Jimi Hendrix: The Complete Guide to His Music

Mario Casilli's photographs defined the fabulous and outrageous entertainment industry in the 1980s. This wonderful coffee table volume brings Casilli's 1980s portraits alive for the first time.

Mario Casilli

John Lennon's five-year retirement from the world of music, his brief comeback in 1980, and his brutal murder outside his New York home have become the stuff of legend. But the reality of his daily life during that period has been obscured by the mythology Lennon sold to the press in his final interviews, and which his widow Yoko Ono has maintained to this day. Acknowledged Beatles expert Peter Doggett is a lifelong fan of Lennon, and the author of The Art And Music Of John Lennon, a detailed commentary on his entire artistic output. Several years ago, a mysterious set of circumstances led him to a room where he was able to read several of the ex-Beatle's private diaries - never revealed to the public or represented accurately in other books about Lennon. What he learned forced him to confront everything he believed he knew about his hero, and also the profound influence that the musician had wielded over his own life - especially in the wake of Lennon's death on December 8, 1980. Prisoner Of Love is both a revelatory account of Lennon's final years, based on the author's access to the musician's personal writings; and also a poignant memoir of a diehard fan who depended on Lennon for his sense of sanity during the darkest years of his life. The book brings together the tortured artist and the bereaved fan, in an account that will touch the heart of everyone who has ever fallen under the spell of this most charismatic of rock icons.

Inside the Dakota With John Lennon

Prisoner of Love

Ever since forming the Velvet Underground in 1965, Lou Reed has been acclaimed as the poet of the New York streets, creating a body of work that comes closer to great literature than conventional rock and roll.

Peter Doggett

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