Help!, Thomas Brothers
Help!, Thomas Brothers
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Help!
The Beatles, Duke Ellington, and the Magic of Collaboration

Author: Thomas Brothers

Narrator: Keith Sellon-Wright

Unabridged: 11 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/12/2018


Synopsis

The Beatles and Duke Ellington's Orchestra stand as the two greatest examples of collaboration in music history. Duke University musicologist Thomas Brothers delivers a portrait of the creative process at work, demonstrating that the cooperative method at the foundation of these two artist-groups was the primary reason for their unmatched musical success.

While clarifying the historical record of who wrote what, with whom, and how, Brothers brings the past to life with photos, anecdotes, and more than thirty years of musical knowledge that reverberates through every page, and analysis of songs from Lennon and McCartney's "Strawberry Fields Forever" to Billy Strayhorn's "Chelsea Bridge." Help! describes in rich detail the music and mastery of two cultural leaders whose popularity has never dimmed, and the process of collaboration that allowed them to achieve an artistic vision greater than the sum of their parts.

About Thomas Brothers

Thomas Brothers is the author of Louis Armstrong's New Orleans and Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. A professor of music at Duke University, he lives with his family in Durham, North Carolina.


Reviews

Goodreads review by J Earl

Help!: The Beatles, Duke Ellington, and the Magic of Collaboration by Thomas Brothers illustrates the value, in two different styles of music, of collaboration. Brothers is contributing to the growing scholarship, resisted by some who bought the early "composer genius" story hook, line, and sinker,......more

Very good book about Duke Ellington and his compositional style and the Beatles' compositional style. Brothers quoted many members of the Ellington band, saying that their music was the basis of an Ellington tune. I had heard about Johnny Hodges making gestures on stage, inferring that Duke owed him......more

Goodreads review by Tom

HELP! The Beatles, Duke Ellington and the Magic of Collaboration (2018) by Thomas Brothers. This is a classical study of the art of working together. I am reminded of the father handing a single twig to each of his many children and, when they broke them easiiy, handed around a bundle of the same t......more