"poor fat marvin can't wear levi's!"a radio advertisement boomed as a 240-pound seventh grader named Marvin Lee Aday shuddered in humiliation. Parents said he was "too fat" to play with their children, and his classmates picked on him, even ganging up to lock him in a storage box. Unflatteringly nicknamed "Meat Loaf" by his alcoholic father, prone to getting concussions (seventeen in all), and drawn to musical theater, no one pegged this misfit kid to become a rock star. That is, until he recorded the third best-selling album of all time.In To Hell and Back, Meat Loaf reveals his amazing story--a rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches life that would rival most fiction. As a boy, he had to face down lowlifes straight out of Deliverance in order to fetch his drunken father out of gutbucket saloons--the same father who would later try to kill him with a butcher knife. He was at Parkland Hospital when JFK was declared dead, picked up a hitchhiker who happened to be Charles Manson, got recruited for the musical Hair while trying to get a job as a parking attendant, and starred in a movie that became the biggest cult film of all time, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. From there, he collaborated with Jim Steinman to make a record called Bat Out of Hell, which went from being laughed at and rejected by every music executive in the industry to selling more than 28 million copies and launching Meat Loaf into international superstardom. Meat's story would be incredible if it stopped right there. But that's just the beginning. The heights to which Meat had soared were matched only by the depth of his plunge back into the abyss. In a swirl of devious managers, drugs, lawyers, guns, money, nervous breakdowns (including the psychosomatic loss of his voice), and more lawsuits than he could count, Meat Loaf lost it all. He was bankrupt, his relationship with best friend and collaborator, Jim Steinman, turned ugly, and his wife, having a nervous breakdown of her own, was considering a divorce. 
 But the hardest-working man in rock and roll would not stay down. Returning to his family he set out with them to conquer the world again, club by club and through word of mouth--a struggle that culminated in a reunion with Steinman, the Grammy Award-winning release of Bat out of Hell II, and a return to the limelight. Illustrated with dozens of previously unpublished photographs, Meat Loaf's story is--like Meat Loaf himself--larger than life.

To Hell and Back: An Autobiography

Biographies & Memoirs

Dalton, David

Meatloaf

Meat Loaf

Arts & Literature

HarperEntertainment

Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol is a groundbreaking reassessment of the most influential and controversial American artist of the second half of the 20th century. Writers Tony Scherman and David Dalton disentangle the myths of the great pop artist from the man he truly was, and offer a vivid, entertaining, and provocative look at Warhol’s personal and artistic evolution. Drawing on brand new sources—including extensive new interviews and insight from those who knew him best—Pop offers the most dynamic, comprehensive portrait ever written of the man who changed the way we see the world.

Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol

Arts & Photography

Scherman, Tony

History & Criticism

It Books

To his critics, he was the cynical magus of a movement that debased high art and reduced it to a commodity. To his admirers, he was the most important artist since Picasso. As the quintessential Pop artist, Andy Warhol razed the barrier between high and low culture. Pop disentangles the myths of Warhol from the man he truly was, offering a vivid, entertaining, and provocative look at the legendary artist's personal and artistic evolution during his most productive and innovative years. It is a dynamic, groundbreaking portrait of the man who changed the way we see the world.

Harper

Blood on the Tracks

Music

Arrow Books, Ltd.

Before the death, in 1982, of the renowned violist William Primrose, David Dalton engaged the musician in a lively series of conversations which touched on almost all aspects of viola technique, performance, repertoire, recording, and history. This book is a transcription of this dialogue, containing illuminating advice on holding the viola, bowing, tone, fingering, and practicing, all supported by copious illustrations and musical examples, as well as insights on repertoire for the viola--"an instrument without tradition"--and on performances of the great concertos by Bartok and Walton. Punctuated with frankness and humor, this book is a tribute to one of the greatest artists of this century.

Playing the Viola: Conversations with William Primrose

Oxford University Press

Before the death, in 1982, of the renowned violist William Primrose, David Dalton engaged the musician in a lively series of conversations which touched on almost all aspects of viola technique, performance, repertoire, recording, and history. This book is a transcription of this dialogue, containing illuminating advice on holding the viola, bowing, tone, fingering, and practicing, all supported by copious illustrations and musical examples, as well as insights on repertoire for the viola-"an instrument without tradition"-and on performances of the great concertos by Bartok and Walton. Punctuated with frankness and humor, this book is a tribute to one of the greatest artists of this century.

Piece of My Heart: the Life, Times and Legend of Janis Joplin

St Martins Pr

In 1972, Stonehill Books published David Dalton's Janis, a multimedia extravaganza that incorporated interviews, quotes, photographs, lyrics, Rolling Stone clippings, sheet music, a record of rapping and singing, and prose as wild and moving as Janis's performances. Piece of My Heart is a reconstruction and revision of that early work--one of the first "rock 'n' roll" books--leaving the prose and interviews intact, adding dozens of new photos, and incorporating a wealth of new material. Here is the best possible portrait of the lonely teenager from Port Arthur, Texas, who took the blues farther than anyone before or since, offering revealing glimpses of her on the road--backstage with Jerry Lee Lewis, kidnapped in Kansas, partying with the Grateful Dead, the Band, Bonnie and Delaney, and with her own band, Big Brother and the Holding Company. But Piece of My Heart goes beyond Janis's own story to provide us with a portrait of the Kosmic Blues themselves--the self destruction that lies at the heart of the rock 'n' roll myth.

Piece Of My Heart: A Portrait of Janis Joplin (Da Capo Paperback)

Humor & Entertainment

Da Capo Press

From James Rosenquist, one of our most iconic pop artists—along with Andy Warhol, Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg, and Roy Lichtenstein—comes this candid and fascinating memoir. Unlike these artists, Rosenquist often works in three-dimensional forms, with highly dramatic shifts in scale and a far more complex palette, including grisaille and Day-Glo colors. A skilled traditional painter, he avoided the stencils and silk screens of Warhol and Lichtenstein. His vast canvases full of brilliant, surreally juxtaposed images would influence both many of his contemporaries and younger generations, as well as revolutionize twentieth-century painting. Ronsequist writes about growing up in a tight-knit community of Scandinavian farmers in North Dakota and Minnesota in the late 1930s and early 1940s; about his mother, who was not only an amateur painter but, along with his father, a passionate aviator; and about leaving that flat midwestern landscape in 1955 for New York, where he had won a scholarship to the Art Students League. George Grosz, Edwin Dickinson, and Robert Beverly Hale were among his teachers, but his early life was a struggle until he discovered sign painting. He describes days suspended on scaffolding high over Broadway, painting movie or theater billboards, and nights at the Cedar Tavern with Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and the poet LeRoi Jones. His first major studio, on Coenties Slip, was in the thick of the new art world. Among his neighbors were Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Indiana, Agnes Martin, and Jack Youngerman, and his mentors Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Rosenquist writes about his shows with the dealers Richard Bellamy, Ileana Sonnabend, and Leo Castelli, and about colorful collectors like Robert and Ethel Scull. We learn about the 1971 car crash that left his wife and son in a coma and his own life and work in shambles, his lobbying—along with Rauschenberg—for artists’ rights in Washington D.C., and how he got his work back on track. With his distinct voice, Roseqnuist writes about the ideas behind some of his major paintings, from the startling revelation that led to his first pop painting, Zone, to his masterpiece, F-III, a stunning critique of war and consumerism, to the cosmic reverie of Star Thief. This is James Rosenquist’s story in his own words—captivating and unexpected, a unique look inside the contemporary art world in the company of one of its most important painters.

Painting Below Zero: Notes on a Life in Art

Rosenquist, James

KNOPF

Mr. Mojo Risin': Jim Morrison, the Last Holy Fool

Argues that Jim Morrison, the leader of the Doors, who died at the age of twenty-seven, was the last in a long line of "pop utopians"--such as Joplin, Kerouac, Hendrix, and Dean

Suarès, Jean-Claude

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dalton, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Dalton, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dalton, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

To Hell and Back: An Autobiography

Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol

Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol

Blood on the Tracks

Playing the Viola: Conversations with William Primrose

Playing the Viola: Conversations with William Primrose

Piece of My Heart: the Life, Times and Legend of Janis Joplin

Piece Of My Heart: A Portrait of Janis Joplin (Da Capo Paperback)

Painting Below Zero: Notes on a Life in Art

Mr. Mojo Risin': Jim Morrison, the Last Holy Fool