MPLS Sound

MPLS Sound
Author: Joseph Phillip Illidge
Publisher: Humanoids, Inc.
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 1643377043

The ultimate love letter to the funky pop-rock sound that made the artist formerly known as Prince a legend.

Got to Be Something Here

Got to Be Something Here
Author: Andrea Swensson
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2017-10-10
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1452956367

Beginning in the year of Prince’s birth, 1958, with the recording of Minnesota’s first R&B record by a North Minneapolis band called the Big Ms, Got to Be Something Here traces the rise of that distinctive sound through two generations of political upheaval, rebellion, and artistic passion. Funk and soul become a lens for exploring three decades of Minneapolis and St. Paul history as longtime music journalist Andrea Swensson takes us through the neighborhoods and venues, and the lives and times, that produced the Minneapolis Sound. Visit the Near North neighborhood where soul artist Wee Willie Walker, recording engineer David Hersk, and the Big Ms first put the Minneapolis Sound on record. Across the Mississippi River in the historic Rondo district of St. Paul, the gospel-meets-R&B groups the Exciters and the Amazers take hold of a community that will soon be all but erased by the construction of I-94. From King Solomon’s Mines to the Flame, from The Way in Near North to the First Avenue stage (then known as Sam’s) where Prince would make a triumphant hometown return in 1981, Swensson traces the journeys of black artists who were hard-pressed to find venues and outlets for their music, struggling to cross the color line as they honed their sound. And through it all, there’s the music: blistering, sweltering, relentless funk, soul, and R&B from artists like Maurice McKinnies, Haze, Prophets of Peace, and The Family, who refused to be categorized and whose boundary-shattering approach set the stage for a young Prince Rogers Nelson and his peers Morris Day, André Cymone, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis to launch their careers, and the Minneapolis Sound, into the stratosphere. A visit to Prince’s Paisley Park and a conversation with the artist provide a rare glimpse into his world and an intimate sense of his relationship to his legacy and the music he and his friends crafted in their youth.

Prince

Prince
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2018-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781681341217

An inside look at the early years of Prince, presented through both iconic and never-before-seen images taken by the photographer who was at his side through it all.

Complicated Fun

Complicated Fun
Author: Cyn Collins
Publisher:
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2017
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9781681340326

The origins of Minneapolis's legendary indie rock scene, as told by the people who were there and made it happen.

Worldly Things

Worldly Things
Author: Michael Kleber-Diggs
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Total Pages: 76
Release: 2021-06-08
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1571317635

Finalist for the 2022 Minnesota Book Award in Poetry “Sometimes,” Michael Kleber-Diggs writes in this winner of the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, “everything reduces to circles and lines.” In these poems, Kleber-Diggs names delight in the same breath as loss. Moments suffused with love—teaching his daughter how to drive; watching his grandmother bake a cake; waking beside his beloved to ponder trumpet mechanics—couple with moments of wrenching grief—a father’s life ended by a gun; mourning children draped around their mother’s waist; Freddie Gray’s death in police custody. Even in the refuge-space of dreams, a man calls the police on his Black neighbor. But Worldly Things refuses to “offer allegiance” to this centuries-old status quo. With uncompromising candor, Kleber-Diggs documents the many ways America systemically fails those who call it home while also calling upon our collective potential for something better. “Let’s create folklore side-by-side,” he urges, asking us to aspire to a form of nurturing defined by tenderness, to a kind of community devoted to mutual prosperity. “All of us want,” after all, “our share of light, and just enough rainfall.” Sonorous and measured, the poems of Worldly Things offer needed guidance on ways forward—toward radical kindness and a socially responsible poetics. Additional Recognition: A New York Times Book Review "New & Noteworthy Poetry" Selection A Library Journal "Poetry Title to Watch 2021" A Chicago Review of Books "Poetry Collection to Read in 2021" A Reader's Digest "14 Amazing Black Poets to Know About Now" Selection A Books Are Magic "Recommended Reading" Selection An Indie Gift Guide 2021 Indie Next Selection

Ways of Voice

Ways of Voice
Author: Matthew Rahaim
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2022-05-15
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0819579408

Ways of Voice explores techniques of voice production in North India, from Bollywood to raga music to ghazal to devotional hymns and Sufi song. The voices in play here are not merely given, but achieved. Singers consciously train themselves to cultivate characteristic vocal gaits, sonorities, and poetic attunements; they adopt postures of the vocal apparatus; they build habits of listening, temporality, and social relations. The action in Ways of Voice revolves around several dozen North Indian popular, devotional, classical, and folk singers engaged in projects of vocal striving. Like most singers, they are strategically working on changing, refining, and making their own voices. The book thus highlights the ways in which singers not only "have" voice, but actively acquire, cultivate and contest particular vocal dispositions for particular kinds of listeners. In framing a "Hindustani vocal ecumene" that encompasses a diverse range of classical, popular, and spiritual-devotional musical styles and practices, it offers an expansive look at ways of voice that extend far beyond commonsense boundaries of genre and place. A rich archive of audio and video examples are provided on the online companion site, which can be found at https://www.weslpress.org/readers-companions/.

Prince and the Parade and Sign O' The Times Era Studio Sessions

Prince and the Parade and Sign O' The Times Era Studio Sessions
Author: Duane Tudahl
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 724
Release: 2021-06-10
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1538144522

"[W]ill command the rapt attention of casual fans and scholars alike." Booklist, Starred Review From Prince's superstardom to studio seclusion, this second book in the award-winning Prince Studio Sessions series spotlights how Prince, the biggest rock star on the planet at the time, risked everything to create some of the most introspective music of his four-decade career. Duane Tudahl takes us on an emotional and intimate journey of love, loss, rivalry, and renewal revealed through unprecedented access to dozens of musicians, singers, studio engineers, and others who worked with him and knew him best—with never-before-published memories from the Revolution, the Time, the Family, and Apollonia 6. Also included is a heartfelt foreword by musical legend Elton John about his time and friendship with Prince.

First Avenue

First Avenue
Author: Chris Riemenschneider
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-11
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9781681342399

Where Prince and Minnesota made rock 'n' roll history--a glorious look back at one of rock's most storied clubs and the thousands of musicians who took the stage there. One of the longest running rock clubs in America, First Avenue in Minneapolis gets the rock-star treatment it deserves with this glorious celebration of a true rock 'n' roll landmark. Revised and updated through the club's 50th anniversary celebrations, the book chronicles the club's storied past--from its impressive inaugural show in April 1970 (Joe Cocker's "Mad Dogs & Englishmen" tour) up through the latest acts to take the stage at this beloved venue. In its initial incarnation as the Depot, the club hosted music legends as varied as the Kinks, Ike and Tina Turner, Alice Cooper, and B. B. King before transforming into a disco club known as Uncle Sam's. In the '80s, First Avenue catapulted to the global stage as the hub of Prince's Purple Rain and the incubator for widely revered, wild-eyed indie-rock bands such as the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Soul Asylum, and Babes in Toyland. During the past half-century, First Avenue and 7th Street Entry have hosted everyone from the Ramones to R.E.M., Wilco to the Wu-Tang Clan, Billy Idol to Billie Eilish, Lizz Winstead to Lizzo, and hundreds more--all immortalized in this volume. Over the decades, First Avenue survived corporate competitors, bankruptcy, a bitter ownership battle, and most recently, a global pandemic to become one of the most successful independent clubs in the country and ground zero to Minneapolis's thriving community of hip-hop and indie-rock acts. Amidst all that history, the book is interlaced with anecdotes, quotes, and occasionally cloudy memories from musicians, employees, and regulars--many of whom are as unique as the club itself. Chock full of concert photos and memorabilia collected from professional photographers and average fans alike, the book is a lavish tribute to a rock 'n' roll landmark.

Josie Dances

Josie Dances
Author: Denise Lajimodiere
Publisher:
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2021-05-04
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9781681342078

An Ojibwe girl practices her dance steps, gets help from her family, and is inspired by the soaring flight of Migizi, the eagle, as she prepares for her first powwow.

Butterflies and Tall Bikes

Butterflies and Tall Bikes
Author: Jamie Schumacher
Publisher:
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2021-05-18
Genre:
ISBN: 9781732635029

In the beautifully illustrated Butterflies and Tall Bikes, Jamie Schumacher combines personal narrative, compelling interviews, and neighborhood history in vignette-style chapters that paint a picture of the West Bank/Cedar-Riverside neighborhood and her time with the West Bank Business Association.