Bibliography Books

Having done Genealogy for 23 years, I've found Ron Bremer's rather unusual research methods the answer to breaking down those stubborn "brick walls". His "Bester" and "Worser" list of resources helped me find my paternal family after having no luck for 15 years. Bremer shows you where to FIND those long lost records. If you only buy one book, this is the one. Well worth the price.

This review pertains to the third edition, covering the period 1952 to 2003.

For many years, the Guinness book of British hit singles was the definitive guide to the British charts. Now there are rivals and while none are ideal, I prefer this ahead of the alternatives. Of course, if Joel Whitburn (of Billboard fame) were to publish a British chart book, that would be better still - he sets the standard for presentation.

The basic problem for all chart books is the sheer volume of data. This explains the small, difficult to read, type although if this is a particular problem, you could go for the books published by Collins instead. They publish separate books for singles and albums although each individual book is about the same size as this one. Thus, there is more room for larger typeface but it obviously comes at a price.

While Guinness likes to include pictures, this book provides extra information about cover versions (who originally recorded it) and soundtrack songs (which film). This information is incomplete, so under Elvis Presley's relevant hits you are told who originally recorded Hound dog (Big Mama Thornton) but not who originally recorded Blue suede shoes (Carl Perkins) or Blue moon (Glen Gray). However, the other books do not provide this information at all. Against that, Guinness provides brief descriptions for some of the artists - however, I prefer to use a music encyclopedia for this type of information. The notes about cover versions and soundtrack songs is much more useful to me. While I knew a lot of this info already, this book expanded my knowledge. I hope that future editions will fill some of the gaps beginning with the examples I gave above.

The section on compilations is interesting (mainly listed by record label) and even includes a section on selected series so you can find (for example) all the Now compilations under one heading. What it doesn't do is segregate according to musical genre, but I can see that this would be an almost impossible task.

With all the data presented, perfect presentation at an affordable price is impossible but the information provided makes this a better choice than the alternatives - so far. As there are now several rival publications, we can only assume that they are looking to see what each other is doing and will all improve what they offer with successive editons.

This book is about the greatest rock icon of the '90s, Nirvana. They were selected as artist of the decade with their number 1 hit of all time ,"smells like teen spirit" and their second album "Nevermind" sold over 10 million copies making it a diamond album. This book incorpates what was going on while Nirvana was around in many photos and tells where the tow remaining members of Nirvana are today I strongly reccommend you buy this book, for it worth your money

This work is the most complete catalogue of books for violin makers and musical instrument experts ever published.
Now unfortunately discontinued.
Extensive name and subject indexes and a lot of information given for each listed title. Even table of contents fully reported in most cases.
I have never seen such a great deal of information on this subject!
A real must for scholars, makers and collectors.

This very extensive tome is the most up to date and detailed reference work on the British singles charts from their inception in the New Musical Express Top 12 of 1952 up to the end of 2003.

The introduction provides a key to the symbols used and explanatory notes to the format of the information. Then follows the alphabetical list of artists from the British group A to ZZ Top. Each entry contains biographical information on the artist, every single that charted with its chart entry date, highest position, weeks at number one, weeks on chart, gold, platinum, Grammy, MTV, BPI and other awards, the catalogue number and further information like the contribution of other artists in an uncredited role or which songs contain samples of other songs.

The next section provides a chronological list of number ones from 1952 to 2003, from Here In My Heart by Al Martino to Mad World by Michael Andrews. The following section is an alphabetical listing of all the songs from the period, starting with () by Sigur Ross and concluding with Zungo Zeng by K7 and the Swing Kids.

The author has consulted periodicals like Billboard, Blues & Soul, Melody Maker, NME, Music Week, Record Collector, Record Mirror, Rolling Stone and Sounds plus a list of books which is provided. This is an indispensable reference work for music journalists and ought to be very helpful for anyone wishing to investigate the careers of their favorite artists.

Professor Hageman's comprehensive index to Black Mask Magazine is the most thorough guide to the stories, authors, editors, and series characters of this great American fiction magazine. For scholars, editors, and historians the work is indispensable.

This book is extraordinary, the like of which I have not read in the extensive Gandhian literature. Mr. Pandiri, the author of this great book has exhausted the literature to put together this volume. It must have taken many years to complete this work. I have read almost the entire Gandhian literature, and nowhere can I recall anyone who had done such a commendable job. Not only is this book essential for the libraries but I also strongly recommend this book to any student of Gandhi dedicated to researching and unearthing the truths about this elusive figure better known as Mahatma gandhi.

For those of us who can't afford the complete Baker'sBiographical Dictionary of Musicians, the Concise version is still agreat buy We have owned the 8th ed. for some years and use it very frequently. This dictionary has good clear information on not just the well known composers and performers, but many minor composers and performers as well. Like the complete ed., this dictionary includes jazz musicians. One of the best features of this book is that it not only has the biographical article, but has the composer's works divided up into the various types of composition, such as piano music, giving both titles and dates of compositon. A great reference tool, particularly for anyone wanting to find more pieces by a favorite composer, or a date for a piece already known. .

The book was in perfect condition, and it was mailed out promptly as promised.

`The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music' by Percy A. Scholes comes from what is possibly the greatest single brand reputation in all of book publishing, The Oxford University Press. The Cambridge University Press is a close second, but no other publishing imprimatur comes even close (although an Alfred Knopf `Borzoi Book' still brings a bit of a mist to my eyes). And, while this reputation has been honestly earned by years of publishing scholarly reference works by distinguished authorities in their respective fields, I have found cases where titles were issued with a less than sterling quality about them. This is not the case with this particular volume. For it's size, it is a thoroughly reliable source for as far as it goes.

There are at least three things in the `...for as far as it goes...' qualification.

First, the book does assume you are not a complete dunce regarding music. It would not, for example, be a suitable source for a child, unless that child happened to be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or someone with a similar precocity. Many of the definitions use technical terms that may not be explained by entries in the dictionary.

Second, a related situation is based on the fact that there is a lot of cross referencing from one term to the next, and not all cross references are diligently marked with the (q.v.) note indicating that the definition for the term can be found in another reference in the dictionary.

Third, true to the work's title of `Dictionary', the entries under the names of the great composers, Mozart, for example, are very brief, taking no more than a column (half page) or a column and a half. And, for those who are familiar with Mozart, there is virtually no information in the article that I do not already know. But then, this is not a Biographical Dictionary and not an `Encyclopedia'. The only real fault I may find with the Mozart article is that it does not cite the name of the system by which Mozart's works are officially numbered (The concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in A minor is, for example, KV 622). Oddly enough, there are biographical miniatures for people one would never connect with the history of music. My favorite example is the squib on Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort, who happened to be a composer of some note for church music, which explains the connection with the Royal Albert Hall in London.

The other, and far more important side of the coin is that the work is simply excellent in giving definitions of musical terms. I worked my way through a series of definitions for terms relating to liturgical music, and found everything I needed. In fact, the book seems to give special attention to the definitions of musical terms connected with liturgical works. The book also has some surprisingly deep entries on the physics of music.

If you are interested in music and can acquire a copy of this work cheaply, it will repay you handsomely.