The Greatest Music Stories Never Told: 100 Tales from Music History to Astonish, Bewilder, and Stupefy – Entertaining Anecdotes of Genius, Scandal, Passion, and Intrigue

by Rick Beyer

RickBeyer, author of the highly successful History Channel series The Greatest Stories Never Told returns with new historic tales from the world of music—ennobling, entrancing and inevitably surprising stories of soaring genius, tantalizing scandal, nefarious intrigue, and, above all, unbridled passion for music.

Genres: Music, History, Nonfiction, Anthologies

214 pages, Hardcover

Published June 7, 2011

About the author

Rick Beyer is a best-selling author, an award-winning filmmaker and long-time history enthusiast. His newest book, Rivals Unto Death traces the thirty-year rivalry of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.

"In this fascinating dual biography, Beyer brings these two towering figures to vivid life on the page." --New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides.

Beyer is the co-author (with Elizabeth Sayles Sayles) of the New York Times bestseller The Ghost Army of World War II How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks Sound Effects and Other Audacious Fakery. Beyer has spent nearly a decade researching this story. His award-winning documentary film about the unit, The Ghost Army premiered on PBS in 2013. The San Francisco Chronicle called the film “mesmerizing,” while TV Guide referred to it as “entrancing.”

Beyer has also produced documentary films for The History Channel, A&E, National Geographic, the Smithsonian and others. He is the author of The Greatest Stories Never Told series of history books published by Harper Collins, and described by the Chicago Tribune as “an old fashioned sweetshop full of tasty morsels.”

Beyer has shared his unique take on history in interviews on CBS, MSNBC, CNN, The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, NPR, Fox News, and audiences around the country. He has also worked as a radio reporter, a TV news producer, an ad agency creative director, and a janitor (not in that order). And here's a few other things he's done.

•Camp for ten days in the mosquito-infested Siberian Wilderness
•Flee New Orleans the day before Katrina
•Interview Jimmy Carter in the White House
•Climb Mt. Washington 5 times
•Get called stupid by David Brinkley
•Be consoled by Mary Tyler Moore
•Marry a beautiful woman during a lightning storm

A graduate of Dartmouth College, Beyer lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, with his wife, Marilyn Rea Beyer (see above about the lightning storm!)

Reviews

[Edwina Book Anaconda]

I loved this book!

Highlights for me:

Dr. Brian May (Queen) is an astrophysicist.

Killing Me Softly with His Song was written after seeing Don McLean in concert.

Beethoven never heard his Ninth Symphony played, he had gone deaf before its premiere performance.

The Theremin, an electronic instrument heard on the Beach Boys Good Vibrations and Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love, was invented by the same Russian scientist that invented the KGB listening device (bug) found in the office of the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1960.

Van Halen's contract rider for their 1980s World Tour called for the band to be supplied with one tube of K-Y Jelly and forty-eight bath towels before each concert.

There are so many more.
You really should read this book!

[Thebruce1314]

Awesome. The stories are both enjoyable and informative and easy to read. The text and pictures are appealing to the eye and the subject matter covers musical interests from classical to rock. I am a sucker for useless tidbits of information, but I honestly think that anyone who has an interest in music or popular culture would enjoy this book. And I'm excited that I got a chance to read it even before publication date! Now, is there going to be an accompanying tv series? Because that is something I would love to see!

[Jeanette]

Cute little curt histories, pictures, drawings and trivia relating to popular songs of the past. Their origins, their first uses, their context changes and other quirky details. Enjoying all of them, I found some of them quite intriguing, especially upon context or purpose of the original composer. Especially Yankee Doodle Dandy and Bring Me Out to the Ball Game- because it is ironic that they are such icons of the locations of their use today when their origins held nearly opposite nuance.

[Mary]

You can read my review here

[David]

Lots of amusing anecdotes, some familiar, many not.

[Jen B]

This book is perfect for music and history nerds. Each story is short enough to be a quick read (2 page spreads), and the facts span a giant timeline all the way from Gregorian chants in 1020 to Rock and Roll in the early 2000s. I have an undergraduate degree in music and there were even some facts in the book that I didn’t know!

[Ross Mckinney]

Cute musical history stories. A little too clever at times.

[Deana]

Fun facts!

[Charity Renee]

Some very interesting stories. Very short stories. I wouldn't own it or reread it, but if you are a music lover of music, I recommend it.

[David]

No complaints about this book, really, it's pretty much what you probably expect from the title: a bunch of tiny bits of trivia held together by the fact that they're all related to music or the music business, one way or another.

The format is a 2-page spread for each tidbit, with a picture or three with captions, often with text boxes including related info, and the text of the "story" rarely flowing to the second of the two pages. I can't recall being very much astonished, bewildered, or stupefied by these stories, but there were certainly enough interesting anecdotes to keep me flipping through the book. If you're a music fan, some or possibly many of the stories will be familiar (such as the story about the inspiration for Smoke on the Water), but if you're at all like me a lot of them will be registered with a nod and almost immediately forgotten (such as the one about the guy nobody knows who might be one of the most important people in rock history -- according to this book -- because he introduced his friends Paul and John to each other which led to the forming of The Beatles). Perhaps one of its strengths is also a weakness: it offers very small bites of info, so it's easy to pick up and read for as short a time as you want and always have closure, which means you never really get much depth or background.

[Nancy Price]

Another in Rick Beyer's Greatest Stories Never Told series, this book is comprised of 100 two page stories on music history trivia, ranging from the question of whether Nero really fiddled while Rome burned to vignettes on the Beatles and Broadway. Some of the stories have only a casual connection to music while others are much more in a music history tradition. The stories are entertaining and easily readable with photos included. I was disappointed, however, that more than half of the book takes place in the 20th century or later; I was hoping for a more even division between classical and popular music as well. When Beyer compiled his previous volumes on stories from history, he included both a generic greatest stories of history as well as more specialized volumes on war stories and Presidential history stories. I wish he would do the same as far as music history.

[Jessica at Book Sake]

I was expecting this to be much different then what I actually received. The book looks at stories about music in a chronological order starting with 1400 B.C. Call me crazy but I don't really care much about stories that were never told back then. I was hoping for stories more in this century or at least from the beginning of pop music in the 50's-60's. Once the book gets to the 50's it really doesn't have much to it, and I think from 1997-2011 there are two stories, and they don't have anything to do with music that anyone really would be desperate to read about. This can go on the bottom shelf of a coffee table, and maybe a few people will browse through it, but other then that I wouldn't give it a second glance.

Reviewed by Gabi for Book Sake. http://booksake.blogspot.com

[Jessica]

Another addition to the "Greatest ________ Stories Never Told" series. Though there were more than a few stories that I was already familiar with and a few that were a bit of a stretch in the importance in music history, it was an enjoyable book. The short stories in some cases did make me want to read more about the particular topic. It was also easy to pick-up and put-down with no loss of continuity. Also, for those who are unsure if they are interested in the subject matter, it is easy to pick and chose which entries to read and for non-history experts, this book is a great introduction.

[Nick Popadich]

Heard about this on NPR . . . who knew that DeNiro's attitude was responsible for bringing about the Sinatra standard "New York, New York"? Rick Beyer knew, and he shares great tidbits of musical trivia in a year-by-year format. This book had me constantly interrupting my wife's TV viewing to share facts about how instruments were created, how popular lyrics came about, and how some of the greatest musical teams formed. I thought I knew a fair amount about music and pop culture, but Beyer had plenty to teach me.

[Michelle]

Best stories:
The one about Giuseppe Tartini selling his soul to the devil.
Ben Franklin's armonica. (I really have to look that up on youtube!!)
The sad one about Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
Aldolphe Sax (I have to include him, as a sax player myself)
Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Nadezhda von Meck.
"Rhapsody in Blue" George Gershwin
Stephen Sondheim and Oscar Hammerstein

[Mayda]

This delightful and informative book is one you will pick up again and again. Chock full of fascinating tidbits concerning songs and composers – as well as other people and things connected to music – you will discover dozens of entertaining facts as you read these seldom told stories. There is something for everyone in this liberally illustrated book.

[Tricia]

Fascinating collection of 2-page entries providing little known information about events in music history. Arranged chronologically from 1400 BC through 2007, the author has compiled stories ranging all types of musical styles and topics.

[Paola Piliado]

I liked this one. Some of the stories were amazing. Some were not that interesting. I would say its a nice thing to lend or show but not the greatest music stories never told. A very deceiving title

[Lynnette]

So fun! This being a book about musicians, there are a few stories that I wouldn't share with kids and some of the quotes contain profanities, but nothing so horrible that I wouldn't give it 5 stars. Is definitely worth reading :)

[Linda Edmonds Cerullo]

A fun, quick read about well known songs, musicians and a few instruments as well. Each chapter is just a minute or two read and contains a good deal of information and background on special moments in music history.

[Tanya]

Just couldn't get into the book at the moment, may try to read it later.

[Tricia]

Full of fun information!

[Sarah]

from Unshelved Book Club 9 Sept 2011

[Keith]

So-so

[Jennifer]

Interesting enough.

[Sarah]

I enjoyed the book. However, it's a book with lots of details -- which I do not remember very well. But it was still fun to read.

[Candy]

If you're looking for music industry gems, look elsewhere. This reads like a series of Paul Harvey "...and now you know the rest of the story" tidbits, but with no sense of a true reveal.

[Joshua]

it was fun. a lot of stuff I was already aware of, but also some fun stories I had never heard.

[Rajesh]

A fun, breezy, quick read. Amusing stories from music's history.

[Tessa]

Eh. The stories either weren't that great or very familiar (the writing of Amazing Grace familiar). One to skip.