(Songwriter, vocals, b. 1939) Spiro, Oklahoma-born Dallas Frazier was a quintessential honky-tonk songwriter of the 1960s and 1970s. ‘If My Heart Had Windows’ (a hit for George Jones, 1967), ‘I’m So Afraid Of Losing You Again’ (Charley Pride, 1969), ‘Johnny One Time’ (Brenda Lee, 1969) and ‘What’s Your Mama’s Name’ (Tanya Tucker, 1973) are ...
(Radio and television personality, b. 1933) McEwen, Tennessee-born Walter Ralph Emery was for decades country’s most popular radio and television host, and he became as famous as many of the stars whose careers he helped launch. A long-time fixture on WSM Radio in Nashville, Emery also hosted various country music television shows in the 1970s, 1980s ...
At the beginning of the 1970s, the influences in mainstream country music continued to originate from a wide spread of sources, the most dominant being the Nashville sound, which now had strong pop overtures alongside a greater distortion of country music itself. On the other hand, an innovative breed of songwriters were about to be heard, ...
If you look for country music’s Big Bang, there is nothing more momentous than Bristol, 1927. Within four summer days, two stars appeared that would change the cosmology of country – remap the sky. And it all happened in a disused office building in a quiet mountain town perched on the state line between Virginia and Tennessee. Why ...
Country music today retains little of the regional identity that characterized it in its early days. There are pockets of resistance to this homogeneity and to the hegemony of Nashville – a honky-tonk dance circuit and a fiercely independent singer-songwriter tradition in Texas, for example – but overall the scene is one of major stars playing huge venues. The middle ...
Although one tends to think of Nashville as the primary source for country music, many other regions contributed to this music’s growth, especially the West Coast, where migrant workers from Oklahoma, Texas and other regions of the Southwest played a vital role in putting California on the country-music map. With Los Angeles as its focal point, ...
(Vocals, guitar, bandleader, 1910–77) Bill Boyd led one of the most prolific and important western-swing groups, The Cowboy Ramblers. A guitarist, Boyd and brother Jim (1914–93), a bassist and guitarist who also became an important figure, were reared in Greenville, Texas and began their careers in nearby Dallas in the early 1930s. Boyd signed ...
Blind Lemon Jefferson (c. 1893–1929) opened up the market for blues records in 1926 when ‘Got The Blues’, backed with ‘Long Lonesome Blues’, became the biggest-selling record by a black male artist. It brought him the trappings of success, including a car and chauffeur, and he released nearly 100 songs over the next four years, before his death. ...
Although he is often cited as the first ‘folk’ bluesman to record, Blind Lemon Jefferson was actually much more than that: he was America’s first male blues pop star. On the strength of his recordings for the Paramount label – some of which are said to have sold upwards of 100,000 copies – Jefferson became a celebrity throughout the ...
Observers who saw him in his prime have likened the charisma of the ‘king of western swing’ Bob Wills to that of latter-day superstars such as Elvis and The Beatles. The Texas fiddler, with his trademark high-pitched folk hollers and jivey, medicine-show asides, was an irresistible force of nature. Although he was, in the earliest days of ...
(Trumpet, cornet, guitar, 1915–76) After Bobby Hackett was praised in Down Beat by Boston critic George Frazier in 1937, he headed to New York and settled into a group of neo-traditional players loosely associated with Eddie Condon. Although a lifelong fan of Louis Armstrong, Hackett’s gentle, fluid lyricism made him a more logical descendent of ...
(Vocals, b. 1938) With his richly textured baritone, Pride had a nearly unmatched string of 29 No. 1 country hits from the mid-1960s until the late 1980s. Perhaps more significantly, Pride is merely the symbolic tip of the iceberg – only the most visible of many gifted but far less celebrated black singers who, just like their ...
Charlie Christian was the last great figure to emerge from the jazz scene of the 1930s. He not only brought a perfectly formed approach to his music, but also an entirely new musical platform – the electric guitar. His career in the big time was brief, but Christian was a lighthouse whose beam still illuminates anyone with serious intentions ...
Despite a life cut tragically short by violence, Darrell Lance Abbott (1966–2004), known as ‘Dimebag Darrell,’ achieved stardom not only as a founding member of the bands Pantera and Damageplan, but also in death as an icon who succumbed onstage and carried his passions to the grave. Darrell Abbott took up guitar when he was 12. He was ...
One of honky-tonk’s most enduring and beloved figures, Ernest Tubb (1914–84) was born near Crisp, Texas, one of five children from a broken home. He began his career singing at local radio stations and working a string of day jobs – among them a ditch digger, drugstore clerk and brewery worker. As a young man, in ...
AUTHORITATIVE
An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...
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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.