(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 ...
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 ...
(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, ...
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 ...
(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 ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1967–72) If John Fogerty (vocals, guitar), Tom Fogerty (guitar), Stuart Cook (bass) and Doug Clifford (drums) were Californian hippy in appearance, their music harked back to the energy and stylistic cliches of 1950s rock’n’roll, and their spiritual home seemed to be the swamplands of the Deep South, as instanced in titles like ‘Born On ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1978–present) The W.C. Handy Award-winning duo patterned itself after Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee. Guitarist John ‘Bowling Green’ Cephas (b. 1930) and ‘Harmonica’ Phil Wiggins (b. 1954) met at a jam session in Washington, DC and began performing together in 1978. They toured the globe on a US State Department tour and recorded throughout the 1980s ...
(Guitar, vocals, b. 1948) Robillard’s grasp of blues and jazz has kept him in demand since he founded Roomful of Blues in 1967. He was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island and was influenced by Bill Doggett, T-Bone Walker and many others, absorbing the fine details of playing and arranging. He left Roomful in 1979 for a ...
The singing cowboys did not have the monopoly on country music on the silver screen, although it was their breed that first caught Hollywood’s attention. By the time the 1940s rolled around, several of Nashville’s top stars found that they could expand their careers by bringing their talents to the vast new audiences. Singing Stars In the earlier decade ...
The 1950s and 1960s were milestone decades for country music. It was during these years that the stylistic tensions between traditional and contemporary, rural and urbane, became sharply delineated and the first ideological and aesthetic battle lines between the traditionalists and modernists were drawn in the sand. Out of this tension arose bold innovation and refreshing diversity. The 1950s ...
During the 1940s and 1950s country music coalesced from various and disparate sub-styles of regional music and emerged as a distinct genre. Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry was central to this newfound sense of identity, as it rose in popularity from an obscure local radio broadcast to a national entertainment institution. For decades, beginning in the 1930s, country music ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1939) Shaver arrived in Nashville in 1968, sold songs to Kris Kristofferson and Tom T. Hall, and wrote all but one song on Waylon Jennings’ 1973 album Honky Tonk Heroes. That led to Shaver’s own debut later the same year with Old Five And Dimers Like Me. Shaver had his songs recorded by Elvis ...
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. ...
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.