(Vocals, guitar, b. 1942) Walker grew up in upstate New York State and wrote his most famous song, ‘Mr Bojangles’, as a Greenwich Village folkie, but when he moved to Austin in 1972 he embraced the town’s cowboy-hippie ethos so wholeheartedly that he became its personification. Backing his singer-songwriter material with a Texas dancehall band transformed his ...
Alternative guitarist and singer Jeff Buckley (1966–97) was born in Anaheim, California. Jeff barely knew his father, singer-songwriter Tim Buckley, who died when he was eight. His mother, Mary Guibert, was a classically trained pianist and cellist, which meant that music was all around when Buckley was growing up. He started playing acoustic guitar at ...
The most mercurial guitarist of his generation, Jeff Beck (b. 1944) has never conformed to the conventional image of a guitar hero. He has repeatedly left or broken up bands before their commercial potential could be realized. He restlessly changes style from one album to the next, refusing to be tied down musically. And his live appearances are intermittent. ...
A leading figure on America’s West Coast music scene, Jerry Garcia was born in San Francisco in 1942. His father was a retired professional musician, his mother a pianist. The musically inclined Jerry began taking piano lessons as a child. The emergence of Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran inspired him to learn guitar at 15, ...
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. ...
The first bluesman to record with an electric guitar, T-Bone Walker (1910–75) shaped the course of post-war blues, influencing everyone from B.B. King and Chuck Berry to Jimi Hendrix and beyond. B.B. King acknowledges that the first time he heard Walker, he knew he had to get an electric guitar, and Berry and Hendrix took ...
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 ...
Aaron Thibeaux Walker was born in Linden, Texas on 28 May 1910, the only child of Rance and Movelia Walker. The family moved to Dallas in 1912 and as a pre-teen Walker would lead Blind Lemon Jefferson around the Dallas streets. He taught himself guitar and worked streets and functions until he toured with various travelling shows in the ...
(Guitar, vocals, b. 1949) A passionate, gospel-influenced singer, Walker came up in the 1960s on the San Francisco blues scene. In 1975 he began singing with the Spiritual Corinthians, remaining on the gospel circuit until 1985 when he formed his own band, the Boss Talkers. He recorded some strong albums during the 1980s for the ...
(Drums, b. 1960) Watts played timpani in the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra during his teens and vibraphone at Berklee School of Music, where he met the Marsalis brothers. He recorded with Wynton Marsalis from 1981 and then with Branford, following him into the house band of the televised Tonight Show. An explosive polyrhythmist who can also provide restrained ...
(Songwriter, vocals, 1918–2006) The sophisticated songs of Cindy Walker were particularly attractive to western-swing performers like Bob Wills, whose recordings helped establish her as one of the top songwriters in country music. From Mart, Texas, Walker also sang, recorded and appeared in films with Texas Jim Lewis. Over time, she concentrated solely on writing ...
(Steel guitar, 1920–2005) One of country music’s most influential steel guitar players, Gerald Lester Byrd was born in Lima, Ohio. He started out on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance, where he backed singers such as Red Foley and began experimenting with various innovative tunings and playing techniques. In Nashville in the late 1940s and 1950s, he ...
If Jerry Lee Lewis had never existed, it seems unlikely that anyone would have had a sufficiently vivid imagination to have invented him. Through a 50-year career, this massively talented, yet infuriatingly self-destructive genius has scaled the heights and plumbed the depths, never for one moment compromising his music or his life. Most people mellow with age. ...
(Vocals, guitar, songwriter, actor, b. 1937) A dazzling guitar player, Atlanta, Georgia-born Jerry Reed Hubbard started out in Nashville in the mid-1960s, playing on recording sessions with artists such as Bobby Bare and Porter Wagoner. Later, Reed backed Elvis Presley on guitar when Presley recorded a pair of Reed’s original songs in 1968 ...
(Vocals, songwriter, b. 1968) Gina Jeffreys has been recognized as Australia’s premier female country act since her first hit single, ‘Two Stars Fell’ (1993). She started playing guitar at the age of 12 and at 15 was playing with the band ONYX. CMA Female Vocalist Of The Year in 1994 – when she toured with Johnny Cash and ...
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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.