(Vocals, songwriter, b. 1927) This Howell County, Missouri-born artist grew up on a farm and worked in a butcher’s shop before he began singing on local Missouri radio shows. In 1957, Wagoner moved to Nashville and landed a spot on the Grand Ole Opry. In more recent years, with the deaths of longtime Opry stalwarts Roy ...
One of modern country music’s most remarkable figures, Chester Burton Atkins born in Luttrell, Tennessee, rose from rural obscurity to become one of the world’s most celebrated guitarists and one of Nashville’s most influential record producers. Atkins’ musical vision did much to shape country music during the 1950s and 1960s. Early Years Atkins was born on 20 June ...
Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on 19 January 1946, in Locust Ridge, Tennessee. Immediately after graduation in the summer of 1964, she travelled from the Blue Ridge Mountains to Nashville, taking with her dreams of country stardom and little else. Ever since, she has thrilled audiences worldwide. An entertainer extraordinaire, Dolly has also become an ...
(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 ...
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 ...
(Vocal quartet, 1955–present) The Statler Brothers first performed as The Kingsmen, in and around Staunton, Virginia, where the founding members attended high school together. The original Statlers were brothers Harold (b. 1939) and Don Reid (b. 1945), Lew DeWitt (1938–90) and Phil Balsley (b. 1939). When DeWitt was sidelined with illness in 1981, he was replaced ...
Premiered at Vienna’s Kärntnertor Theater on 23 May 1814, the final version of Fidelio is a fundamentally different opera from the 1805 original. There is now much less emphasis on the gaoler’s daughter Marzelline and her world of Singspiel domesticity. Although the fate of Florestan and Leonore remains central, the individual characterization becomes more idealized and stereotyped. The human ...
Benny Goodman was the first of the great bandleader virtuosos of the 1930s to achieve global success. Through a combination of personal connections, nerve, enormous talent and sheer luck, he parlayed a sequence of opportunities in 1934–35 into a payoff that changed American music. After forming his first band in New York in 1934, he won a ...
(Banjo, vocals, 1900–76) A trained musician who thought he had left old-time music behind him in rural Kentucky, Kazee nevertheless became an important early country recording artist. His banjo-accompanied versions of traditional American ballads like ‘East Virginia’ and ‘The Wagoner’s Lad’ influenced generations of singers, incuding Joan Baez. His career didn’t outlast the Depression, but by ...
(Trumpet, vocals, 1908–42) Rowland Bernard Berigan’s warm sound and fluent style made him a major figure of the swing era. To some extent, his alcohol-related death at 33 has unduly enhanced his legacy, lifting a solid talent to the level of tortured artist-genius. Berigan arrived in New York in 1929 and became a sought-after session player. He ...
If swing in its most characteristic form was a hot and hard-driving music, William ‘Count’ Basie showed that there was a cooler and softer side to the music, an alter ego that even at swift tempos could move with a relaxed, almost serene restraint that subliminally mirrored the streamlined design forms of the Machine Age, in which ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1995–present) Chris Collingwood (guitar), Adam Schlesinger (bass), Jody Porter (guitar) and Brian Young (drums) formed their band in New Jersey. The early single ‘That Thing You Do’ (1996), used in the film of the same name, broke the band to mainstream audiences (and brought an Oscar nomination), but even that could not stop a four-year hiatus. 2001 ...
(Trumpet, 1908–67) The son of bandleader Henry Allen Sr., Henry ‘Red’ Allen was one of the greatest trumpeters to come out of New Orleans, although he remained eternally in the shadow of Louis Armstrong. He moved to New York in 1927 to join King Oliver’s Dixie Syncopators and in 1929 the Victor label signed him as an answer ...
Ridiculed as a braggart, pimp, card shark and pool hustler, the audacious, self-proclaimed inventor of jazz Jelly Roll Morton was also hailed as a pioneering composer, gifted arranger, dazzling pianist and the greatest entertainer that New Orleans ever produced. He was one of the first jazz musicians to strike a perfect balance between composition and ...
One of the most revered figures in modern country music, Johnny Cash’s vast, half-century-long body of work as both a songwriter and singer encompasses an extensive tapestry of musical Americana – everything from prison songs and railroad ballads, to folk-style broadsides and even clever novelty tunes like ‘A Boy Named Sue’. As a singer, he immortalized a ...
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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.