(Vocals, b. 1958) Teenage prodigy Tanya Tucker amazed everyone when, at the age of only 13, she charted with ‘Delta Dawn’, and she reached No. 1 three times in less than a year throughout 1973–74. The last of these chart-toppers was David Allan Coe’s adult song, ‘Would You Lay With Me (In A Field Of Stone)’. Voted ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1972–83, 1988–present) Southern rock band from South Carolina fronted by Doug Gray and featuring brothers Toy (guitar) and Tommy (bass) Caldwell. Named after a piano tuner who used their rehearsal hall, they scored US hits in 1975 and 1977 with ‘Fire On the Mountain’ and ‘Heard It In A Love Song’, but lacked distinctiveness to inherit ...
(Songwriter, vocals, b. 1939) Spiro, Oklahoma-born Dallas Frazier was a quintessential honky-tonk songwriter of the 1960s and 1970s. ‘If My Heart Had Windows’ (a hit for George Jones, 1967), ‘I’m So Afraid Of Losing You Again’ (Charley Pride, 1969), ‘Johnny One Time’ (Brenda Lee, 1969) and ‘What’s Your Mama’s Name’ (Tanya Tucker, 1973) are ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1939) Coe broke through first as a songwriter, penning tunes for Tanya Tucker (1973’s No. 1 ‘Would You Lay Me Down (In A Field Of Stone)’, Willie Nelson and George Jones. Coe scored his own hit with 1975’s ‘You Never Even Called Me By My Name’, followed by five more Top 25 hits, including ...
(Harmonica, vocals, b. 1940) Delbert McClinton gigged around Fort Worth as a young man, playing with local acts like the Rondells. He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s, playing and writing songs with Glen Clark, but returned to Texas in 1975. As both a performer and songwriter, McClinton smoothly crosses the dividing lines ...
(Vocals, guitar, songwriter, b. 1932) CMA’s 1976 Entertainer Of The Year caught malaria as an infant, which left him with a speech defect (reflected in the title of his autobiography – Stutterin’ Boy). Nevertheless, the father of Pam Tillis accumulated 77 country hits between 1958 and 1989, including three duets with Nancy Sinatra. Equally famous ...
Major changes occurred in country music during the 1970s and 1980s, and country icons came and went as the music escaped from the stereotypical image of the 1960s, when it had been gingham dresses for the ladies and rhinestone suits for the men. Now country music had a new face: Dolly Parton’s extravagant dress sense and the shaggy-haired Outlaw ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1945–81) The man responsible for popularizing reggae worldwide, Bob Marley’s career began in 1963 in the original Wailers, a six-piece vocal group, later slimmed to a trio, operating out of Kingston, Jamaica and enjoying great success locally. In 1969, Marley worked with producer Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, who introduced him to ...
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 ...
(Vocals, composer, bandleader, 1889–1975) Sissle worked with bandleader James Reese Europe from 1916–19, before teaming up with Eubie Blake; together Sissle and Blake wrote hits for Sophie Tucker and the successful all-black musicals Shuffle Along (1921) and Chocolate Dandies (1924). Sissle led his own bands in Europe during the late 1920s before returning to America in 1931 ...
January ‘Please Please Me’ ‘Gentlemen, you have just recorded your first number one,’ producer George Martin told The Beatles after they’d completed ‘Please Please Me’. He was right … just. It was released on 11 January, the same day that The Beatles appeared on the influential Thank Your Lucky Stars networked ITV show. The single made the Top ...
Offbeat, daring, challenging, provocative, sometimes outrageous, always different, during the wildly experimental and progressive second half of the 1960s The Velvet Underground was the avant-rock outfit par excellence. Although not commercially successful, they produced groundbreaking music that would subsequently cultivate a strong cult following while heavily influencing the punk/new-wave generation. Acclaim And Disdain Eschewing ...
Hank Williams Jr. (b. 1949) was only three years old when his daddy died, and he barely knew the man who was, arguably, the greatest honky-tonker of them all. But his widowed mother groomed her baby boy to imitate his papa as closely as possible. He was on stage by eight, in the recording studio by 14 ...
Jazz and blues are rooted in the enormous technological and social transformations affecting the USA and Western Europe at the turn of the twentieth century. The most striking changes were the advent of easier and cheaper travel; better communications; electric lighting; improvements in audio recording and moving pictures; increased urbanization; and the rise of the US, concurrent with the fall ...
Electro is currently enjoying a huge renaissance, but, despite the current hype and mainstream acceptance of the music, it has always enjoyed a strong cult following. This is due to the music’s many different strands and its constant need for reinvention. At its most basic level, electro differentiates itself from house and techno by the fact that ...
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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.