(Vocals, harmonica, guitar, 1867–1963) Daddy Stovepipe – a.k.a. Mobile, Alabama native Johnny Watson – is an obscure figure, with only a scattering of recording sessions to his credit, but he represents an important era of blues and pre-blues music. He was not only one of the first downhome blues performers to record (in ...
(Producer, vocals, b. 1970) Sean Combs, also known as Puff Daddy, was the most important hip hop and rap impresario of the 1990s who remains a major player today. Starting in the A&R department of Uptown Records for artists like Mary J. Blige he formed the Bad Boy label in 1983. Breakthrough artists Craig Mack and the ...
Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, the ‘Mother of the Blues’, had been singing the blues for some two decades before she commenced her influential series of recordings for the Paramount label in 1923. She even laid claim to naming the music ‘the blues’ after hearing the singing of a young girl in Missouri in 1902, where Rainey was performing with a ...
Country music and gospel have always been close partners, since many gospel acts come from the American South, and Nashville, the home of country music, lies in the heart of the Bible Belt. Numerous influences abound within the Church, stretching from traditional shape-note singing that goes back several hundred years, to today’s contemporary and Christian ...
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was born on 5 May 1988 in Tottenham, a deprived part of North London with a high rate of unemployment. Her mother, Penny Adkins, was just 18 and an art student when her daughter was born. Adele’s father, Mark Evans, exited Adele’s life when she was aged three, leaving mother and daughter ...
Adele was just three years old when she attended her first live gig with her mother: a Cure concert in London’s Finsbury Park. It was the same year her father, a Welsh plumber, left her mother, practically severing all ties with his daughter in the process. After that first gig, the tot took to the music straight ...
Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on 19 January 1946, in Locust Ridge, Tennessee. Immediately after graduation in the summer of 1964, she travelled from the Blue Ridge Mountains to Nashville, taking with her dreams of country stardom and little else. Ever since, she has thrilled audiences worldwide. An entertainer extraordinaire, Dolly has also become an ...
The undisputed queen of country rock, Emmylou Harris has long been both a student of traditional country music and a peerless innovator. Even now, some 30 years after she debuted with the tormented genius Gram Parsons, she is still the one others turn to for acceptance and support. Gram Parsons’ Influence Born in Birmingham, Alabama, on ...
Country music gained a new face when the Garth Brooks phenomenon swept the stage in the 1990s. Such a huge marketing venture took place that his name virtually became synonymous with country music and the pop crossover style. Yet Brooks’ career had started in unspectacular style in 1989, when his Garth Brooks album shipped only 20,000 copies. Such was ...
It’s hard to fathom now – 70 years on – the enormous impact that the laid-back, unassuming Gene Autry (1907–98) had when he rose to national stardom in 1935. Cowboys and western music had enjoyed a certain currency and mystique before he came along, but the first singing movie cowboy’s phenomenal rise inspired an entire generation and changed the ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1949) Williams was only three when his famous father died, but the youngster was raised to imitate his daddy’s records as closely as possible. He finally rebelled against that formula in 1975 by releasing Hank Williams Jr. And Friends with his southern-rock friends. After an injury-induced break, he returned to performing in 1976, ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1930s) In 1934 Joseph E. Mainer (1898–1971) and his brother Wade (b. 1907), playing fiddle and banjo respectively, secured a slot on WBT in Charlotte, North Carolina. The group they assembled – adding singer-guitarists Daddy John Love and Zeke Morris – was an immediate hit, not only on radio but also on Bluebird Records with ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1958) Ringenberg is perhaps the only alt.-country performer who actually grew up on a farm (his daddy raised pigs in Illinois) and that background lent a rural authenticity to his music, whether it was his Dylanesque solo projects or the revved-up rockabilly group, Jason And The Scorchers. That band came together in Nashville ...
Brothers Caleb (born 14 January 1982, vocals and rhythm guitar), Jared (born 20 November 1986, bass) and Nathan Followill (born 26 November 1979, drums) and their cousin Matthew Followill (born 10 September 1984, lead guitar) grew up in Tennessee’s deep south with the brothers’ Pentecostal preacher father, learning the way of the Lord. But their love ...
(Vocals, songwriter, actor, b. 1942) Also a television host, composer and one-time representative for Vee-Jay records, Texas-born Davis is responsible for several bestselling songs, including ‘In The Ghetto’ and ‘Don’t Cry Daddy’, both 1969 US Top 10 hits for Elvis Presley. Davis himself topped the US pop chart in 1972 with the million-selling ‘Baby Don’t ...
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Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.
David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.