Formed in 1977 by Howard Devoto, with John McGeoch, Barry Adamson, Dave Formula and John Doyle, Magazine combined elements of avant-garde pop, funk and rock. While never commercially successful, it was an influential and much respected band. This book is a complete, illustrated ‘biography’ of Magazine, plus lyrics, performance chronology and discography.

Robert Webb, the Independent’s music writer, tells the stories behind his selection of 100 cover versions, from The Kingsmen’s Louie Louie (originally by Richard Berry) to the Ramones’ Baby I Love You (originally by the Ronettes), with a bonus track: Smells Like Teen Spirit – one of the most covered songs of the last 25 years.

Sibylla Rubens, soprano; Stefanie Iranyo, mezzo-soprano; Thomas E Bauer, baritone; Uta Hielscher, piano.

Susan Alexander-Max, fortepiano.

Alessandro Marangoni, piano.

Philip Edward Fisher, piano.

Orchestre National de Lyon; Jun Märkle

Jane Henschel, mezzo-soprano; Gregory Kundle, tenor; Houston Symphony; Hans Graf.

English Northern Philharmonia; David Lloyd-Jones

Dietmar Berger; viola da Gamba

Philip Norman's history of The Beatles, Shout!, and his biography of John Lennon seemed to take a largely anti-McCartney stance so it was a surprise when Paul gave tacit approval to Norman to write this biography, enabling access to family members and close friends. The result redresses the balance, describing the importance of McCartney's creative leadership in The Beatles and exploring his later career and personal life from the early death of his mother to his highly publicized marriages. Felt-tip mark on upper trimmed edge.

In 1970 David Bowie and his bass player Tony Visconti had some ideas for a new sound that could make the impact that Bowie's first two albums hadn't. Guitarist Mick Ronson suggested the drummer from his old band and Woody Woodmansey joined the team. This biography tells the story of his time recording and touring with Bowie up until 1973, and his later career with his own band and as a session player.

Originally written in 1975, when Rolling Stone hailed it as ‘probably the best book ever written about rock’, Mystery Train remains an astute and engrossing analysis of popular music and American culture. The book is structured around six artists: the ‘ancestors’, blues men Harmonica Frank and Robert Johnson, and the ‘inheritors’, The Band, Sly Stone, Randy Newman and Elvis Presley. Now fully half the book, the ‘Notes and Discographies’ has been revised and expanded over the years. This is the sixth edition.

The first CD of this set features carols and choral music ranging from Handel’s Joy to the World to John Rutter’s What Sweeter Music; the second CD contains instrumental and orchestral interpretations of the Christmas season, including Corelli’s Christmas Concerto and Cinderella’s Waltz from the ballet by Prokofiev. Altogether, the set presents 36 pieces drawn from Naxos’ archive.

The music writer Rod Chapman takes ‘the scenic route’ in his exploration of the history and cultural impact of LSD in the mid 1960s. Starting with earlier experiments with drugs by poets, painters and musicians, Chapman describes what was really going on, from Haight-Ashbury hippies to Charles Manson in the USA, and from Love Me Do to the trajectory of the Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones ‘from blues purist to experimentalist to crushed spirit’.

The blues, and specifically the electric Chicago blues of the 1950s and 1960s, were hugely influential in the development of popular music, but not until the Ann Arbor Blues Festival of 1969 had the genre been presented to a mainstream American audience. This atmospheric photographic record of the legendary inaugural festivals in 1969 and 1970 includes images of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, BB King and Howlin' Wolf, among many others.

A household name since his prodigious childhood, the violinist and conductor Sir Yehudi Menuhin (1916–99) strove to use his fame to draw attention to many humanitarian issues. Humphrey Burton, who knew Menuhin for 40 years, compiled this biography with full access to his subject’s personal archive; it offers a rounded portrait of his family life and his wide-ranging activities as performer, teacher and ‘musical diplomat’. The preface to this centenary edition highlights Menuhin’s continuing legacy.

In a long and remarkable career Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) composed 28 operas, which mark the culmination of the Italian tradition. Focusing on the most significant of these works and the monumental Requiem, Lederer highlights Verdi’s growth as a musical dramatist, from the early Nabucco to Aida, Otello and Falstaff. The accompanying CD features 19 historic recordings of excerpts from the operas, performed by such singers as Caruso, Tetrazzini and Claudia Muzio.

Tianwa Yang, violin; Fred Child, narrator; Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players; JoAnn Falletta.

Tchaikovsky: Impromptus; Two Pieces, Op.1; Trois morceaux, Op.9; Six morceaux, Op.21

Andrea Lauren Brown, soprano; Thomas E Bauer, baritone; Uta Hielscher, piano.

Ivan Pochekin, violin: Russian Philharmonic Orchestra; Dmitry Yablonsky.

Cologne Chamber Orchestra, Helmut Müller-Brühl

Chorus and Orchestra of the Opéra-Comique, Paris; Elie Cohen.

Otello: Robert Dean Smith, tenor; Desdemona: Raffaella Angeletti, soprano; Oviedo Filarmonía, Friedrich Haide

Ashley Wass, piano.

Tichman, Piano; Bieler, Violin; Kliegle, Cello.Recorded in the Clara Wieck Auditorium, Sandhausen, Germany 2006.

Christine Sohn and John Marcus, violins.

Luc Beauséjour, harpsichord.

Kungsbacka Piano Trio; Philip Dukes, Viola; Richard Hosford, Clarinet. Recorded at Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth, UK 2013

‘Music has, quite literally, saved my life.’ After experiencing sexual abuse, addiction and a devastating mental breakdown, James Rhodes found solace in listening to music and has since become a renowned concert pianist. In this memoir, by turns shocking, witty and outspoken, he describes his emotional turmoil, discusses the great composers and performers who mean the most to him, reflects on the state of classical music today and conveys his passionate belief in music’s power to transform all our lives.

Highlighting connections between 19th-century German music and nationalism, this study focuses on works based on popular, mythologized versions of historical subject-matter, in particular the life of Barbarossa and the Roman legions’ annihilation at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. It explores how compositions in many musical genres participated in a project of shaping the nation’s future and how composers such as Max Bruch and Carl Reinecke responded to contemporary notions of gender, landscape and religion.

Blamed by some for breaking up the Beatles, criticized for putting his wife in his band and challenged to live up to his reputation, Paul McCartney was under pressure during the 1970s. This biography reviews his life from the end of the Fab Four to the death of John Lennon, a period that saw the establishment of his hideaway in Kintyre, experimental music and hit records, small gigs and world tours, and numerous drugs busts.

The unique sound of the Hammond organ has had a profound influence on genres such as blues, jazz, soul, funk and rock. This book begins with information on the technology behind the instrument, followed by the story of its greatest players. The final section consists of musical examples illustrating the range of techniques available to the Hammond organist and a selection of short pieces in different performers’ styles; these are all recorded on the accompanying 39-track audio CD.

Orchestra of St. Luke's; Robert Craft

Oxford Camerata; Jeremy Summerly

Northern Sinfonia; Steuart Bedford

Orchestre National de Lyon; Leonard Slatkin

Cologne Chamber Orchestra; Helmut Müller-Brühl. PB 142pp + 2 CDs

Having stolen the show ahead of a cast of stars in Las Vegas, the 'Godfather of Soul', James Brown, shunned the after-show glad-handing and left; 'Kill 'em and leave,' he remarked to his friend, civil-rights activist Al Sharpton. This biography uses the recollections of people close to Brown, such as Sharpton, to piece together the story of a man who was notoriously secretive and evasive about his private life.

For more than half a century, Mary O’Hara’s voice has delighted audiences across the globe. In this warm and inspiring autobiography, she recalls her childhood in the west of Ireland, the tragic death of her first husband, and her retreat to a nunnery before re-emerging to restart her career to even greater acclaim. Enriched with humorous anecdotes of life on the road, it also recounts her later years as a charity worker with her second husband in Africa.

Anthony Burton’s 20,000-word essay surveys a millennium of British music, illustrating its distinctive features through the pieces assembled on the accompanying pair of CDs. These 47 tracks range from an anonymous motet honouring St Thomas of Canterbury (c.1300), via such composers as Boyce, Bax and Britten, to Colin Matthews’ Pluto, the Renewer, written in 2000 to complement Holst’s The Planets.

Christopher Purves, baritone; Simon Lindley, organ; Huddersfield Choral Society; Leeds Philharmonic Chorus; English Northern Philharmonia; Paul Daniel.

Madeleine Mitchell, violin; Howard Blake, piano; Jack Rothstein, violin; Kenneth Essex, viola; Peter Wilson, cello.

Raphael Wallfisch, cello; Raphael Terroni, piano.

Karina Gauvin, soprano: Matthew Larkin, organ; Choir of St. John's, Elora, Canada; Noel Edison.

Focusing on string players whose performances have been captured on disc, this guide sets acclaimed soloists of today, such as violinist Joshua Bell and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, alongside great performers of the past; each entry includes an appraisal of the player’s style and their recorded legacy. The book comes with four CDs, featuring tracks by 69 artists, which illustrate how string playing and recorded sound developed across the past century.