Looking for the Perfect Beat
Remixing and Reshaping Hip-Hop, Rock and Rhythms
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- 21,99 €
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- 21,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
'These insider stories are written with genuine love and passion' Irvine Welsh
'Every chapter of Looking For The Perfect Beat is absolutely mesmerising.' Buzz Magazine
For fifty years as DJ, producer and remixer, Arthur Baker has been at the pioneering forefront of hip-hop, rock, and electronic music. His unique and genre-defying sound can be heard on tracks by legendary artists like New Order, Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, the Rolling Stones, Al Green, Pet Shop Boys, Quincy Jones, New Edition, Hall & Oates, Neneh Cherry, Mogwai and Fleetwood Mac.
Starting as a club DJ and disco producer at the start of the seventies in his native Boston, Baker moved to New York City in 1981. Through his early disco and hip-hop productions, he came to the attention of the most influential names in a music industry at the height of its powers. This would begin a career that would take him from the sweaty dancefloors of NYC to late-night studio sessions with Bob Dylan and to his celebrated anti-apartheid album Sun City, created with Little Steven Van Zandt.
From the underground to the mainstream, Looking for the Perfect Beat is the unique story of an artist with a need to discover new sounds and new ways to move an audience -- and who has influenced the sound of popular music for half a century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Baker skates through his impressive career as a music producer in this extensive but somewhat superficial memoir. The author grew up listening to pop tunes and alternative music on his transistor radio, developing a love for "danceable music" after hearing Sly and the Family Stone in his teens. After covering Baker's childhood, the narrative veers into a play-by-play of his producing career, from his early years working on disco and dance records at Intermedia Studios, to his central role in shaping the sound of hip-hop with such artists as Soulsonic Force (from whose 1986 song "Looking for the Perfect Beat" the book takes its name). The author's later clients included Cyndi Lauper, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, and Quincy Jones. Baker's work on film soundtracks (like 1991's Fried Green Tomatoes) is also covered, as are such business ventures as his London restaurant, Elbow Room. In capturing the breadth of his career, the account sometimes devolves into a catalog of anecdotes starring the lengthy roster of celebrities with whom Baker's worked, though descriptions of the heady atmosphere of a dynamic period in popular music add energy. It's a mixed bag.
