Easy on the Eye Books – förlag

Back in the late fifties and into the sixties Manchester was a happening centre of popular music, rivalling Liverpool and London. Local lad Brian Smith saw it happen. In the mid-1950s Brian was introduced to skiffle, early rock and roll and the blues boom. A keen amateur photographer, Brian soon became known to door staff as 'the fan with the camera' and along with his friends went backstage to meet musicians, chat, and take photographs. Brian took a keen interest in the emerging blues scene after seeing Muddy Waters in 1958 and over the next decade Brian saw and photographed most of the big American blues musicians who played in Manchester. There is an acknowledged irony that black blues artists began to enjoy a cult following in Britain and Europe while they were still largely unknown or acknowledged back home. Brian began frequenting venues such as the famous Twisted Wheel Club and after the start of Roger Eagle's legendary r'n'b allnighters there in 1963 (which later led to the birth of Northern Soul), the ground-breaking music magazine R & B Scene was launched. Brian became their main photographic contributor until the magazine folded.Brian produced images with a real presence and quality, and managed to capture a unique and relatively short lived scene in fascinating detail. Not only on-stage, but back in the dressing rooms, he photographed these giants of the blues relaxing with a beer and a pack of cards, or posing for souvenir pictures with British fans, male and female. A remarkable cultural melting pot considering that many of the musicians themselves could not even travel next to whites in some States back home at that time. Most of Brian's photographs were forgotten until recently when they began to be sought out by CD compilers. Yet until now nobody has published a full collection of his work. Easy On The Eye have had unique access to Brian's extensive archives, working directly from surviving negatives and prints which have been newly scanned for the book. The photographs are annotated and fully captioned. ARTISTS INCLUDE: Johnny Guitar Watson, Big Joe Turner, Chuck Berry, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Reed, Hubert Sumlin, Howlin Wolf, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, The Rolling Stones, Carl Perkins and many more.

You're browsing through some albums or CDs and all of a sudden one crops up which causes a moment of recognition and a "haven't I seen this cover before somewhere?" The answer is that you might well have done. For just as popular music of the present day seems to rifle the albums and bands of earlier generations, so the sleeve designers also often lean on the past for inspiration. Sometimes this is done by way of a deliberate reference point. In other cases the band might be wanting to pay homage to their influences, or peers. It might simply be that they have just seen an old cover which they like so much they want to borrow it. On other occasions the similarities are less well intended, designed to mimic or (dare we say it) even poke fun at classic designs and bands. Sometimes the new covers are simply a deliberate spoof of a well-known piece of artwork, done for subversive or mischievous reasons. So you get Ian Gillan of Deep Purple, just kicked out of the group and understandably angry at them, referencing one of his former band's classic covers, but highlighting himself and blurring away the rest of the group on purpose.Then there is comedian Barry Humphries commissioning a very clever pastiche of the familiar Sound Of Music album cover, only with himself in a frock dancing up the hill instead of Julie Andrews. Paul Weller's former band The Jam did an album called Sound Affects, and wanted a cover which recalled the pioneering series of BBC Radio sound effects albums of the sixties, a knowing design which only older fans would have even been aware of. Perhaps one of the most famous examples is that of the Clash single London Calling, which brought together a photograph of the arch Punks trashing their guitars and lettering lifted from an early iconic Elvis Presley sleeve. The list goes on. For this fascinating book, Belgian based collector Jan Bellekens has scoured the second hand stores and record fairs of Europe and assembled an amazing collection, of which this book contains a selection of over 650 sleeves. The original covers are shown alongside their newer cousins, with explanatory notes for music fans and designers.

Graham Bonnet was born in Skegness in 1947 and had his first hit single with The Marbles in 1968, "Only One Woman" which reached Number 5 in the UK Singles Chart.....So runs Graham Bonnet's wikipedia entry. Of The Skyliners, The Peter Tomlinson Band, The Jimmy Aldred Band, The Jan Ramsden Band, The Missing Links, The Blueset, The Bluesect and The Graham Bonnet Set not a word. This new biography of the much travelled rock singer more than fills the missing gaps. After his work with The Marbles, Bonnet delivered a well-regarded solo album in 1977 which was the spring-board for his rock career, with Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow the first to call. After the chart album Down To Earth, Rainbow suddenly found themselves with well-crafted AOR hits in the shape of "Since You Been Gone" and "All Night Long".The band headlined the first Donnington Monsters Of Rock festival in 1980, but Bonnet quit to record a star-studded solo album and top ten single Night Games. Bonnet was then quickly snapped up by ex-UFO guitarist Michael Schenker in the Michael Schenker Group (MSG) for the powerful Assault Attack album. Bonnet's most consistent rock project came in 1983 when he decided to put his own band together; Alcatrazz became a huge draw on the rock circuit for the next four years, with a number of albums to their name. They became particularly successful in Japan (where Bonnet remains very successful.) Now based in LA, the ever adaptable Bonnet continues to record and tour on a regular basis, with a new album issued just a few months ago. Watching Rainbow live in 1980, no lesser person than Ozzy Osbourne described Graham's performance as the best by a rock vocalist he had ever witnessed.

What have rabbits, t-shirts and tax bills got to do with spinal cord injury? The Very Alternative Guide to Spinal Cord Injury aims to answer these and many other questions in a way which is unique and different to any other book you've ever seen. Out go complicated medical texts and dull as dishwater hospital booklets. Instead, we get something bright, eye-catching, funny and even sarcastic. You really won't find a book on spinal cord injury like it anywhere. Combining first-hand experience, health information and a ground breaking visual approach, this guide has been written from the point of view of those who have been through it. The book breaks conventions by using humour to tackle issues that are never easy to discuss. Aimed at those with a spinal injury it is also written to support family and friends. Medical professionals will also find it is an invaluable tool for communicating issues related to spinal injury.