Even when he was sober, Jimmy Martin (vocals, guitar, 1927–2005) was willing to tell anyone who would listen why he was the ‘king of bluegrass’. After all, didn’t Bill Monroe’s sound change dramatically when Martin joined The Blue Grass Boys in 1949 ? Didn’t Martin create a brand new honky-tonk/bluegrass hybrid on his great Decca recordings of ...
Juan Cristóbal Martín (b. 1948) was born in Málaga, Spain, and started learning the guitar at the age of six. In his early twenties he moved to Madrid to study under Nino Ricardo and Paco de Lucía. Martín was influenced by classic flamenco and the Spanish classical guitar tradition. His major influences included de Lucía, Tomatito and Andrés ...
The last of the triumvirate of guitar legends who played with The Yardbirds, Jimmy Page became an icon of rock guitarists in the 1970s with Led Zeppelin. Elements of his playing style have been copied to the point of cliché in the years since Led Zeppelin dominated the rock world, but as the originator, Page developed the heavy-metal ...
Martin Pugh grew up in England during the 1960s and 1970s. As a young musician influenced by rock’n’roll, Pugh developed his progressive, blues-and-folk-influenced style with his first band, known as The Package Deal, who performed in Devon and Cornwall in the early 1960s. Martin soon moved to London and joined Carl Douglas (‘Kung Fu Fighting’) and The ...
(Jo-van’-ne Bat-tes’-ta Mär-te’-ne) 1706–84 Italian theorist and composer Padre Martini, as he was always known, was the most influential theorist and musical thinker of his time. He was born in Bologna, traditionally a centre of learning, where he studied with his father and leading musicians before entering a monastery. He returned to Bologna as organist and then as ...
(Fi’-then-ti Mar’-ti-ni So-le) 1754–1806 Spanish composer Martín y Soler had moved to Naples by 1777, when his Ifigenia in Aulide was staged there. By the early 1780s, his operas were being given in north Italy and he moved to Venice; from this time on he wrote only comic operas. Three years later he was in Vienna, where he had ...
(Vocals, 1884–1955) Martin, an early classic blues singer, was signed by Clarence Williams for OKeh Records in 1922, at the beginning of the blues craze. While she was a pop-style singer, she was also able to pitch the blues in a rough-and-ready way. She recorded with Williams-led jazz groups, with such illustrious accompanists as King ...
(Trumpet, 1907–91) Part of the Chicago-based Austin High School Gang, along with Bud Freeman, Frank Teschemacher, Jim Lannigan and Dave Tough, McPartland was inspired by recordings of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and Bix Beiderbecke, who he replaced in the Wolverines in 1925. He joined Ben Pollack’s band in 1927 and recorded with the McKenzie-Condon ...
(Bandleader, alto saxophone, clarinet, 1904–57) Thoroughly educated in music as a child, Jimmy Dorsey freelanced in New York in the early 1930s, recording frequently with brother Tommy as the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra. They formed a working band in 1934 but split up in 1935. Jimmy carried on, backing Bing Crosby on radio and recording prolifically ...
(Vocals, 1899–1972) James Andrew Rushing was born in Oklahoma City into a musical family. He worked in California in the mid-1920s as a pianist and vocalist, joined Walter Page’s Blue Devils in Oklahoma City in 1927 and made his recording debut with the band in 1929. He played with the Bennie Moten Band in Kansas City from 1929, ...
(Piano, 1898–1951) James Edward Yancey was born in Chicago and toured the vaudeville circuit as a dancer in his childhood. He learned piano from his brother Alonzo in 1915 and was soon working rent parties and small clubs around Chicago. He made his recording debut in 1939 for Solo Art and continued to record intermittently, often in the company ...
(Vocals, 1922–97) Jimmy John Witherspoon was born in Gurdon, Arkansas. He joined the Jay McShann group in California in 1945. He recorded his own records in late 1947 and among them was ‘Ain’t Nobody’s Business Parts 1 & 2’, a huge Race Records hit. Witherspoon toured with his own group until 1952 and had another big hit with ‘No ...
(Clarinet, baritone, tenor and soprano saxophones, b. 1921) Jimmy Giuffre composed ‘Four Brothers’ for Woody Herman’s saxophone section in 1947 and later joined the Second Herd. He formed his important trio with Jim Hall (guitar) and Ralph Peña (bass) in 1957, then replaced bass with Bob Brookmeyer’s trombone in 1958. A subsequent trio with Paul Bley (piano) ...
(Tenor and soprano saxophone, flute, b. 1926) Jimmy Heath’s early devotion to Charlie Parker saw him nicknamed ‘Little Bird’, but he switched from alto to tenor saxophone and developed his own voice. He honed his writing skills with the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra throughout 1949–50. He spent 1955–59 in prison, but rebuilt his career with a series of recordings ...
(Guitar, harmonica, vocals, 1925–76) Mathis James Reed was born in Dunleith, Mississippi. His friend Eddie Taylor taught him guitar and harmonica, but he rarely played professionally until he moved to Gary, Indiana in 1948 and gradually worked himself into the Chicago blues scene. He recorded on harmonica with John Brim and, after failing an ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
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