(Vocals, b. 1970) Damon Gough’s charming Badly Drawn Boy alter ego found initial (if cult) success on the roster of the UK’s DIY Twisted Nerve label. A folk singer with allusions of grandeur, Gough sidestepped the tag of troubadour by soundtracking the About A Boy film (2002) and steadily learning to incorporate string sections and orchestras into his sound. ...
Lenny Breau (1941–84) was a Canadian guitarist who blended many styles of music, including country, classical, flamenco and jazz guitar. Breau, inspired by country guitarists like Chet Atkins, used fingerstyle techniques not usually associated with jazz guitar. Breau was born in Auburn, Maine. His French-speaking parents, Hal ‘Lone Pine’ Breau and Betty Cody, ...
1711–79 English composer A Londoner, Boyce was a chorister at St Paul’s and a pupil of Maurice Greene (1696–1755) and J. C. Pepusch (1667–1752). He held posts as organist, notably at the Chapel Royal, and became Master of the King’s Musick in 1755. In that capacity he composed many court odes; he also wrote sacred music and stage ...
Groups of fresh-faced young men singing catchy tunes have been one of the mainstays of commercial pop since The Beatles. In the last two decades, manufactured boy bands such as New Kids On The Block and Take That have ruled the roost. Although their musical legacy bears no comparison to that of The Fab Four’s, the devotion they inspired ...
The myths, legends and lore of the Wild West, for better or worse, have done much to shape the American character. They have given rise to the nation’s lingering infatuation with guns, outlaws, the rugged ethos of self-reliance, individualism and a world with simplistic definitions. These themes, usually portrayed in an earnest and nostalgic ...
One of country music's rare departures from down-home values, the urban cowboy phenomenon of the early 1980s was much more a fleeting trend, driven by commercial greed, than a genuine grassroots movement. The term ‘urban cowboy’ gained currency with the 1980 release Urban Cowboy, a hit Hollywood feature film of middling quality, starring John Travolta and ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1908–41) Fuller was born Fulton Allen in Wadesboro, North Carolina and was one of 10 children. He learned to play guitar as a teenager and by the mid-1920s was working for tips around Rockingham, North Carolina. He had lost his sight by 1928. He teamed up with artists such as Gary Davis, Bull City ...
(Harmonica, vocals, 1914–48) John Lee Williamson was born in Jackson, Tennessee. He taught himself harmonica at an early age and left home in his mid-teens to hobo with Yank Rachell and Sleepy John Estes through Tennessee and Arkansas. He settled in Chicago in 1934 and made his recording debut for Bluebird in 1937. His first song, ‘Good ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1905–74) Arthur William Crudup was born in Forest, Mississippi and did not learn to play the guitar until his 30s. He worked functions in the Clarksdale area before moving to Chicago in 1940, signing with Bluebird in 1941 and finding considerable popularity on record. He returned to Mississippi after the Second World War and worked ...
(Harmonica, vocals, c. 1912–65) Alex Ford ‘Rice’ Miller was born in Glendora, Mississippi. He taught himself the harmonica at the age of five and by his early teens had left home to sing and play as ‘Little Boy Blue’. He worked streets, clubs and functions through Mississippi and Arkansas during the 1930s, often playing with Robert ...
(Vocal duo, 1936–76) This prettiest and most poignant of country harmony duos was first heard on southern radio in 1935. The North Carolina-born Bolick brothers – Bill (b. 1917) and Earl (1919–98) – also recorded prolifically, accompanying themselves on mandolin and guitar, from 1936 to 1951, making definitive discs of traditional Americana like ‘Down On The Banks ...
It is ironic that western music – be it cowboy vocal balladry or ranch-house dance fiddling – began seriously to engage the imagination of the American public as the real West slipped further and further into the past and the country became increasingly urbanized and sophisticated. This capturing of the public imagination was perhaps inevitable, too, not only because ...
The western music – be it jazzy, danceable western swing or spare cowboy songs – that thrived for more than two decades from the 1920s grew out of several strains of American folk tradition, chiefly balladry and fiddle-band music, each of which had over time developed its own regional flavours and stylistic quirks. The Development Of Cowboy Music ...
Country music today retains little of the regional identity that characterized it in its early days. There are pockets of resistance to this homogeneity and to the hegemony of Nashville – a honky-tonk dance circuit and a fiercely independent singer-songwriter tradition in Texas, for example – but overall the scene is one of major stars playing huge venues. The middle ...
It’s hard to fathom now – 70 years on – the enormous impact that the laid-back, unassuming Gene Autry (1907–98) had when he rose to national stardom in 1935. Cowboys and western music had enjoyed a certain currency and mystique before he came along, but the first singing movie cowboy’s phenomenal rise inspired an entire generation and changed the ...
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...
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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.