Return of the King : Elvis Presley’s great comeback by Gillian G. Gaar

Elvis Presley had more comebacks throughout his glorious career than Nellie Melba had farewells, some more successful than others. After a stint in the army in 1958 he struggled to reignite his performing career, not helped by a string of less than impressive movies ( remember Harum Scarum?).  By the end of the Sixties however he was reinvigorated and had entered one of the most important phases of his musical life, a period celebrated in this book by Gillian Gaar. You can see what all the fuss was about in this remarkable DVD of his 1968 comeback special; “The King” indeed!

Techno rebels : the renegades of electronic funk  by Dan Sicko 

What I know about “electronic funk”  isn’t worth knowing, so you’re probably best off heading for a book like this which charts its rise in Detroit in the waning years of the 20th century through to its global presence today.

Detroit certainly has a fascinating musical history, from its early jazz period through to the rise of Motown in the Sixties, and beyond. The tragedy of Detroit today following the collapse of the American car industry is on full display in this heartbreaking and beautiful book of photographs.

Document and eyewitness : an intimate history of Rough Trade by Neil Taylor

There has been something of a boom in record-label histories of late (no bad thing), and this recent book chronicles the ups-and-downs of Rough Trade, a record shop/label that first appeared in London at the very centre of the Punk maelstrom in the late 1970s.

One of the most important bands Rough Trade worked with were The Fall, and this new book presents a series of chapters written from both fan and academic perspectives; I like the sound of this one: ‘Memorex for the Krakens’ : The Fall’s pulp modernism” by Mark Fisher.

 

Last but not least, a bit of alternative rock from our own Picture Collection; the Black Rock State School Fife Band, to be exact!