Of all the guitar players of the last 40 years, none produce music as confounding yet beautiful as Allan Holdsworth (b. 1946). His blinding speed, fluid legato, impossible intervallic leaps, perplexing chord voicings and unpredictable melodies have made his style one of the most mystifying to guitarists everywhere. Allan Holdsworth was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire ...
Highly respected blues guitarist Rory Gallagher was born in Ballyshannon, Ireland in 1948, and grew up in Cork. After learning his trade as a teenager playing in Irish show bands, Gallagher formed the power trio Taste in 1966. The band released two studio and two live albums. Shortly after their appearance at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival ...
Britpop guitarist Noel Gallagher (b. 1967) was born in Manchester, England. He began teaching himself guitar at the age of 13, later adopting Johnny Marr as his role model. His other inspirations were primarily British guitar bands: the Kinks, the Who, Slade, the Jam and the Stone Roses. After unsuccessfully auditioning for the role of lead ...
1812–65 Irish composer Between 1835, when he emigrated to Tasmania, and 1845, when he appeared in concert in London, Wallace travelled across the globe establishing a considerable reputation as a virtuoso performer on the piano and violin, and initiating a number of fanciful tales of his expeditions that seemed to precede him wherever he went. Once ...
(Vocals, 1898–1986) Beaulah Thomas was raised in Houston, Texas. From an early age she sang in church and worked with her pianist brother Hersal Thomas. She moved to Chicago in 1923 and recorded for OKeh, creating blues standards such as ‘Up The Country Blues’ and ‘I’m A Mighty Tight Woman’. She moved to Detroit in 1929 and joined ...
(Guitar, vocals, harmonica, 1949–95) Irish blues musician Rory Gallagher fell in love with Delta and Chicago blues as a child, collecting as many records as he could get his hands on. In 1969 he formed the band Taste, receiving moderate acclaim, and a year later he released his own eponymous album to very good reviews. ...
(Vocal duo, 1930s–40s) Contemporaries of the Delmores, Dixons and other brother acts, Homer (1912–2002) and Walter (1910–71) Callahan (professionally, Bill and Joe respectively) stood out with their duet yodelling and their fondness for bluesy themes. Starting out on radio in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1933, they recorded copiously through the 1930s, enjoying moderate ...
(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 ...
When the Teatro San Cassiano, the first public opera house, opened in 1637, the Venetian nobility rapidly decamped from the private homes in which performances had previously been given and rented the best box seats for each opera season. The public had to make do with the lower parterre, or ‘pit’. The San Cassiano was built and ...
The Teatro alla Scala – known outside Italy as La Scala, Milan – is one of the world’s most famous opera houses and originally opened in the sixteenth century as the Salone Margherita in the Palazzo Ducale. Both this theatre and another built on its site, the Teatro Regio Ducale, burned down, in 1708 and 1776 respectively. ...
1923–77, American-Greek Known as ‘La Divina’ (The Divine One), soprano Callas was regarded as the greatest singing actress of the twentieth century. She revitalized forgotten operas and her delivery combined technical precision with dramatic intensity. Born in New York City, Callas’s family returned to Greece when she was 13. She made her debut in Athens at the age of ...
1904–75, Italian At the forefront of Italian serialism, Dallapiccola was inspired to compose after attending a 1924 performance of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (‘Moonstruck Pierrot’, 1912); he made a complete analysis of Schoenberg’s 12-tone system and used this when writing his first one-act opera, Volo di notte (‘Night flight’, 1940), based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s book Vol de nuit. ...
(Loo-e’-je Dal’-la-pek’-ko-la) 1904–75 Italian composer Of the Italian composers of his generation, Dallapiccola was the first to adopt the radical new ideas based in Schoenbergian serialism; he was also the only one who actively opposed the regime of the dictator Benito Mussolini in Italy. His use of serialism is lyrical and Italianate. Many of his works are vocal, often subtle ...
(Man’-wel da Fa’-ya) 1876–1946 Spanish composer Falla first trained as a pianist and had written five zarzuelas (Spanish light operas) before studying composition with Felipe Pedrell (1841–1922), who influenced him profoundly with his insistence that Spanish composers should write ‘Spanish music with a view of Europe’. Falla then moved to Paris, where Ravel and Debussy influenced the exquisite orchestral colour ...
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...
CURATED
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.