Unfettered - Words on Music by a Hi-Def Critic in an MP3 World, Volume II

“Remarkable…Staggering…Extraordinary and unique.”
—Aimsel Ponti, Portland Press Herald
“You can learn a lot from a guy like Lawrence Schulman. And in admirably massive detail.”
—Rob Lester, Broadway World
“An experienced producer, a passionate critic, a tireless historian…”
—Gilles Taillefer, Regard En Coulisse
“Enlightening”
—Beth Barhydt, Greenwich Sentinel
“Byronic”
—Priscilla Meyer, Professor Emerita of Russian at Wesleyan University, author

After the critical and commercial success of Lawrence Schulman’s first three books, BearManor Media is proud to announce the publication of his fourth work, UNFETTERED: Words on Music by a Hi-Def Critic in an MP3 World, Volume II, which is a continuation of the 2024 Volume I, entitled FREE. The new book includes all of his critical writings since 2024, including reviews on Carly Simon, Bobby Darin, Harold Arlen, Patsy Cline, Jacques Tati, Maurice Chevalier, The Mills Brothers, the Wurlitzer jukebox and others, all of which were first published in the ARSC Journal. The new book also includes a Foreword by Joe Marchese, founder of Second Disc Records, journalist at the website The Second Disc and author of the liner notes for numerous CDs, as well as Schulman’s unpublished talk on FREE and an unpublished coda called All About Yves, which is a deeply personal chapter that describes his departure from New York for Paris, where he got his musical education, and his first fifteen years there.

Schulman is the author of Garland: That’s Beyond Entertainment – Reflections on Judy Garland, Volumes I and II (2023), FREE: Words on Music by a Hi-Def Critic in an MP3 World (2024) and Peter Allen: Somebody’s Angel - The Boy from Oz in the Key or Camp (2025). He translated from French into English the book Judy Garland: Splendor and Downfall of a Legend by Bertrand Tessier, published by BearManor Media in 2023. His original article on Peter Allen for the ARSC Journal won the 2024 ARSC Article of the Year award. He has produced countless CDs and boxsets devoted to Judy Garland over the years and written the liner notes for most of them. His latest 3-CD/1-LP release is Judy Garland: A Celebration: Classic & Collectable Performances (Trapeze/Acrobat, 2024). He has guested on French Public Radio, Maine Public Radio and various TV shows around the country and been the subject of a write-up by author and critic Will Friedwald in The Wall Street Journal. Called “the poet of Judy Garland,” he has given a talk, called “Moments of Magic,” on her in New York, Boston, St. Paul, and elsewhere, and has more recently spoken about other popular music and jazz artists, including more contemporary ones, in Bar Harbor, Maine and Greenwich, Connecticut. Born in the Bronx, he has been a critic and features writer for the ARSC Journal since 1994 and has translated for the French website OpusHD.net, which is devoted to high-resolution recordings, since 2007. Having lived in Paris between 1971 and 1997, when he moved to Mount Desert Island in Maine, he is today bilingual and of dual Franco-American nationality.