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Richard Brody, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e When Billie Holiday first stepped into a recording studio in November 1933, it marked the beginning of what is arguably the most remarkable and influential career in twentieth-century popular music. Her voice weathered countless shifts in popular taste, and today new reincarnations of her continue to arrive, most recently in the form of singers like Amy Winehouse and Adele. \u003cbr\u003e Most of the writing on Holiday has focused on the tragic details of her life her prostitution at the age of fourteen, her heroin addiction and alcoholism, her series of abusive relationships or tried to correct the many fabrications of her autobiography. 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Drawing on revelatory new material, including unpublished memoirs and interviews, Billie Holiday is the first account to consider the singer as an artist, her influences, her uncanny voice and rhythmic genius, a number of her signature songs, and her legacy.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49605561712913,"sku":"GOR007504237","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51513417171217,"sku":"GOR011320772","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51594804363537,"sku":"GOR014340877","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52198023561489,"sku":"NGR9780099592624","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0099592622.jpg?v=1751004611"},{"product_id":"cosmic-scholar-book-john-szwed-9780374282240","title":"Cosmic Scholar","description":"He was an anthropologist, a filmmaker, a painter, a folklorist, a mystic, and a walking encyclopedia. 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Exhaustively researched, energetically told, and complete with a trove of images, Cosmic Scholar is a feat of biographical restoration and the long-overdue deification of an American icon.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49752166564113,"sku":"NGR9780374282240","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49942178660625,"sku":"CIN0374282242VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51001780371729,"sku":"NIN9780374282240","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51085883867409,"sku":"GOR013461626","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52109493469457,"sku":"GOR013373905","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0374282242.jpg?v=1751431560"},{"product_id":"space-is-the-place-book-john-szwed-9780306808555","title":"Space Is The Place","description":"Sun Ra, a.k.a. 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This definitive biography reveals the life, philosophy, and musical growth of one of the twentieth century's greatest avant-garde musicians.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50147563503889,"sku":"CIN0306808552VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50712398364945,"sku":"CIN0306808552A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50827405918481,"sku":"CIN0306808552G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51832626970897,"sku":"GOR004280169","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0306808552.jpg?v=1751006062"},{"product_id":"alan-lomax-book-john-szwed-9780143120735","title":"Alan Lomax","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe definitive biography of Alan Lomax-from John Szwed,\"the best music biographer in the business\" (\u003ci\u003eL.A. 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Szwed's readers—whether they are just discovering Sun Ra or are among the legion of poets, artists, intellectuals, and musicians who consider him a spiritual godfather—will find that, indeed, space is the place.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50271214600465,"sku":"CIN1478008415VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50317315178769,"sku":"CIN1478008415G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51028712096017,"sku":"NIN9781478008415","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1478008415.jpg?v=1750988788"},{"product_id":"cosmic-scholar-book-john-szwed-9781250338105","title":"Cosmic Scholar","description":"Named one of the Best Books of 2023 by the New Yorker and The New York Times' Dwight Garner  \"The first comprehensive biography of this hipster magus . . . [John Szwed] allows different sides of Smith's personality to catch blades of sun. He brings the right mixture of reverence and comic incredulity to his task.\" -Dwight Garner, The New York Times  Grammy Award-winning music scholar and celebrated biographer John Szwed presents the first biography of Harry Smith, the brilliant eccentric who transformed twentieth century art and culture.  He was an anthropologist, filmmaker, painter, folklorist, mystic, and walking encyclopedia. He taught Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe about the occult, swapped drugs with Timothy Leary, had a front-row seat to a young Thelonious Monk, lived with (and tortured) Allen Ginsberg, was admired by Susan Sontag, and was one of the first artists funded by Guggenheim Foundation. He was always broke, generally intoxicated, compulsively irascible, and unimpeachably authentic. Harry Smith was, in the words of Robert Frank, \"the only person I met in my life that transcended everything.\"  In Cosmic Scholar, the Grammy Award-winning music scholar and celebrated biographer John Szwed patches together, for the first time, the life of one of the twentieth century's most overlooked cultural figures. From his time recording the customs of Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest and Florida to his life in Greenwich Village in its heyday, Smith was consumed by an unceasing desire to create a unified theory of culture. He was an insatiable creator and collector, responsible for the influential Anthology of American Folk Music and several pioneering experimental films, but was also an insufferable and destructive eccentric who was unable to survive in regular society, or keep himself healthy or sober.  Exhaustively researched, energetically told, and complete with a trove of images, Cosmic Scholar is a feat of biographical restoration and the long overdue canonization of an American icon.  Includes black-and-white and color images","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50514462933265,"sku":"NGR9781250338105","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51021893533969,"sku":"NIN9781250338105","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51606081995025,"sku":"CIN1250338107G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1250338107.jpg?v=1751428630"},{"product_id":"alan-lomax-book-john-szwed-9780670021994","title":"Alan Lomax","description":"\u003cb\u003e The definitive biography of Alan Lomax-from John Szwed,the best music biographer in the business (\u003ci\u003eL.A. Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e). \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of the most remarkable figures of the twentieth century, Alan Lomax was best known for bringing legendary musicians like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Muddy Waters, Lead Belly, and Burl Ives to the radio and introducing folk music to a mass audience. Now John Szwed, the acclaimed biographer of Miles Davis and Sun Ra, presents the first biography of Lomax, a man who was as influential as he was controversial-trailed for years by the FBI, criticized for his folk- song-collecting practices, denounced by some as a purist and by others as a popularizer. This authoritative work reveals how Lomax changed not only the way everyone in the country heard music but also the way they viewed America itself.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50516179091729,"sku":"GOR013982294","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50719601492241,"sku":"CIN0670021997A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51425965506833,"sku":"GOR007113564","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51804239954193,"sku":"CIN0670021997G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53515436491025,"sku":"CIN0670021997VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/B005ZO7GA8.jpg?v=1751008438"},{"product_id":"crossovers-book-john-szwed-9780812219722","title":"Crossovers","description":"Ranging across genres from the popular to the scholarly, this selection of John Szwed's published essays abides in the intersection of race and art, jazz and rap: crossovers inside and outside the academy. With reviews written for the Village Voice and articles from academic journals, this volume includes essays, commentary, and meditations on James Agee and Walker Evans, Cuban folklorist Lydia Cabrera, Lafcadio Hearn, Melville Herskovits, Josef Skorvecky, Patrick Chamoiseau, pop song writer Ellie Greenwich, and jazz musicians Sonny Rollins, Anthony Braxton, Sun Ra, and Ornette Coleman. Also included are pieces on the prehistory of hip hop, the blues, popular dance instruction songs, tap dance, and African American set dancing; creole writing and creolization; race and culture; and authenticity, representation, nostalgia, and obscenity in American popular culture, with excursions into jazz in Africa, Russia, and Argentina.   Written about a country with cultural crossroads everywhere, where the question of race is thoroughly woven into the fabric of society, these essays cross boundaries and shed light on the complexities of American life.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50827088560401,"sku":"CIN0812219724G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007941706001,"sku":"NIN9780812219722","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51510125756689,"sku":"CIN0812219724VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812219724.jpg?v=1752315121"},{"product_id":"billie-holiday-book-john-szwed-9780143107965","title":"Billie Holiday","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"Revelatory . . . one of the most briskly revealing pieces of jazz biography that I've read.\" --Richard Brody, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e When Billie Holiday first stepped into a recording studio in November 1933, it marked the beginning of what is arguably the most remarkable and influential career in twentieth-century popular music. Her voice weathered countless shifts in popular taste, and today new reincarnations of her continue to arrive, most recently in the form of singers like Amy Winehouse and Adele.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Most of the writing on Holiday has focused on the tragic details of her life--her prostitution at the age of fourteen, her heroin addiction and alcoholism, her series of abusive relationships--or tried to correct the many fabrications of her autobiography. But \u003ci\u003eBillie Holiday\u003c\/i\u003e strips away the myths and puts her music front and center, staying close to her artistry, her performance style, and the self she created and put on record and onstage.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Drawing on a vast amount of new material that has surfaced in the last decade, critically acclaimed jazz writer and musician John Szwed presents not just a biography, but a meditation on Billie Holiday's art and its relation to her life. Along the way, he illuminates her influences, her uncanny voice and rhythmic genius, her signature songs--including \u003ci\u003eStrange Fruit\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eGod Bless the Child\u003c\/i\u003e--and her enduring legacy as the greatest jazz singer of all time.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999497163025,"sku":"NIN9780143107965","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51454210900241,"sku":"CIN0143107968G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52324367204625,"sku":"GOR009203404","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52848659300625,"sku":"GOR009195699","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52979406668049,"sku":"CIN0143107968VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0143107968.jpg?v=1750811906"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-john-szwed.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}