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  • Published: 26 March 2024
  • ISBN: 9781913689506
  • Imprint: MIT Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 704
  • RRP: $69.99
Categories:

Be Glad for the Song Has No Ending, revised and expanded edition

An Incredible String Band Compendium



"Encyclopaedic in scope, passionate in tone, this book is a minotaur's labyrinth of information about one of the most remarkable groups in 20th century music. Be glad, for everything you need to know is here." (Rob Young, The Wire)

First published in 2003 and long out of print, Be Glad For The Song Has No Ending: An Incredible String Band Compendium is the definitive book about the ISB. Containing a wealth of interviews, essays, and ephemera from the band's brief but tangled history, this new revised and expanded edition includes two new pieces by ISB member Rose Simpson on Witchseason Productions’ idiosyncratic offices and on recording with the ISB in the Sound Techniques studio, as well as interviews with Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys, folk musician Alasdair Roberts, and Ossian Brown of Coil and Cyclobe.

Contributors include Rowan Williamson (former Archbishop of Canterbury), ISB manager and producer Joe Boyd, Andy Roberts, Billy Connolly, and Raymond Greenoaken.

A wide-ranging collection of interviews, anecdotes, essays, and ephemera concerning one of the most enigmatic bands to emerge from the 1960s hippy scene.

"Encyclopaedic in scope, passionate in tone, this book is a minotaur's labyrinth of information about one of the most remarkable groups in 20th century music. Be glad, for everything you need to know is here." (Rob Young, The Wire)

First published in 2003 and long out of print, Be Glad For The Song Has No Ending: An Incredible String Band Compendium is the definitive book about the ISB. Containing a wealth of interviews, essays, and ephemera from the band's brief but tangled history, this new revised and expanded edition includes two new pieces by ISB member Rose Simpson on Witchseason Productions’ idiosyncratic offices and on recording with the ISB in the Sound Techniques studio, as well as interviews with Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys, folk musician Alasdair Roberts, and Ossian Brown of Coil and Cyclobe.

Contributors include Rowan Williamson (former Archbishop of Canterbury), ISB manager and producer Joe Boyd, Andy Roberts, Billy Connolly, and Raymond Greenoaken.

  • Published: 26 March 2024
  • ISBN: 9781913689506
  • Imprint: MIT Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 704
  • RRP: $69.99
Categories:

Praise for Be Glad for the Song Has No Ending, revised and expanded edition

  • "The Incredible String Band were an inspiration and a sign."—Robert Plant
  • "The Incredible String Band were one of the most influential bands of the Sixties […] Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were all said to have been influenced by the psychedelic folk rock of the band, who played 'world music' a decade before the term was coined."—Steven Brocklehurst, BBC
  • "They were one of the most important bands of that era"—Chris Cutler