(Guitar, b. 1938) With producer/co-writer Lee Hazlewood, Eddy scored 20 US hits between 1958 and 1961, showcasing his ‘twangy’ guitar on the Jamie label, part-owned by Hazlewood. Eddy’s US Top 10 hits were 1958’s ‘Rebel Rouser’, 1959’s ‘Forty Miles Of Bad Road’ and 1960’s ‘Because They’re Young’. After signing with RCA in 1962, his appeal largely ...
Rock’n’roll guitarist Duane Eddy was born in Corning, New York in 1938. His interest in the guitar began when he was five, inspired by singing film-cowboy Gene Autry. In 1951, the family moved to Arizona. While playing guitar in a country duo, Duane met songwriter, producer and disc jockey Lee Hazelwood. The pair embarked on a ...
Southern-rock guitarist Duane Allman was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1946. Allman was inspired to take up the guitar by his brother Gregg. At first, they played country music, their initiation into the blues coming when the brothers saw B.B. King performing in Nashville. The pair began playing professionally in 1961, first in The Allman Joys ...
(Piano, 1912–86) Although the physical brilliance of Art Tatum may have eluded most pianists in the 1930s, the more practical possibilities offered by Teddy Wilson made him the most influential pianist of the decade. Softening Earl Hines’ emphasis on the beat still further, Wilson’s style was centred almost wholly in his right hand, which spun smooth, ...
(Guitar, vocals, b. 1933) Mississippi-born Eddy Harrington left the South in 1950 and established himself on Chicago’s West Side as a Chuck Berry imitator named Guitar Eddy. He later took the stage name Clear Waters as a takeoff on Muddy Waters, but finally settled on Eddy ‘The Chief’ Clearwater, a nickname he got from his penchant for ...
Born in Henderson, Tennessee, in 1918, Eddy Arnold has not only shown remarkable longevity as an artist (his career spans seven decades and he has sold more than 80 million records); he was also a pivotal figure in country music’s dramatic stylistic shift during the 1950s from rough and rural to urbane and sophisticated. Speaking Through Song A ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1937) Fender was born Baldemar Huerta in the southernmost tip of Texas, but adapted his Anglo stage name in the late 1950s as he shifted from the Tex-Mex music he grew up on to rockabilly. After a marijuana conviction, however, he was reduced to working as an auto mechanic when producer Huey Meaux ...
(Vocals, b. 1940) Massachusetts-born Frederick Picariello got his nickname Freddy ‘Boom Boom’ Cannon from the bass drum sound on his hits, which began in 1959 with ‘Tallahassee Lassie’, a US Top 10 item written by his mother. His only million-seller, the same year’s ‘Way Down Yonder In New Orleans’, continued his place-name fixation, but thereafter his hits ...
A pivotal figure in the transition from blues to rock’n’roll, Bo Diddley was born Elias Bates in McComb, Mississippi in 1928. When he was seven, the family relocated to Chicago, where he took violin lessons before switching to guitar, inspired by John Lee Hooker. He began by playing on street corners, then in the Hipsters. ...
(Vocals, b. 1943) Colter became associated with the Outlaw movement even though her big, pure pop-country voice gave her more in common with Glen Campbell than with her husband Waylon Jennings. She was born Mirriam Johnson in Phoenix, Arizona, where she married rockabilly guitarist Duane Eddy in 1962. After a 1968 divorce, she adopted her new ...
(Vocal group, 1953–present) Formed in 1953, various versions of The Drifters have existed ever since. Among the significant members of the group among the dozens who have been involved are Clyde McPhatter (lead vocalist 1953–54), Johnny Moore (lead vocalist 1955–57, 1963–78, 1985–98), Ben E. King (lead vocalist 1958–60, 1981–85) and Rudy Lewis (lead vocalist 1960–64). Signed ...
There is no distinct boundary line between the early and old-time country era, when the music was still relatively unshaped by the American mainstream, and the modern age, when country music’s popularity and ubiquity have made it very much a part of the mass culture. But it was in the 1920s, due to the emerging radio and ...
The 1950s was the decade when the straitjacket imposed by the recent world war was loosened a little – and rock took full advantage. The Sun studios in Memphis and Chess Records in Chicago were the places to be as the likes of Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry turned the existing generation gap into a chasm. Though he ...
Spring Pop Disaster Tour Dookie spawned a number of Green Day imitators such as Blink-182, who scored hit singles including ‘What’s My Age Again ?’. Green Day shocked everyone by co-headlining with Blink-182 on the 42-date Pop Disaster Tour in America in April and May 2002. ‘I think we’ve had a broader experience,’ Billie Joe told Alternative Press, ...
Spring Returning To The Studio The break from touring allowed Green Day to recharge their batteries, although with Billie Joe always writing songs they had a wealth of material to record when they returned to the studio in early 1997. During discussions with producer Rob Cavallo, the band stressed that they wanted to do something different musically. As sessions ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.