(Vocal/instrumental group, 1990s) Blood Oranges never sold many records, but they made two terrific albums (1990’s Corn River and 1994’s The Crying Tree) thanks to some smart songwriting, a savvy mix of bluegrass and British folk-rock and the contrast between fizzy male vocals and melancholy female vocals. The band was founded by Jimmy Ryan (vocals, mandolin, ...
Alternative-rock guitarist Kevin Shields (b. 1963) was born in Queens, New York. When he was 10, the family relocated to Dublin, where he learned guitar as a teenager with Johnny Ramone as his role model. My Bloody Valentine came together in 1984. The band moved to Holland and then Berlin, where they recorded the mini-album This Is ...
(Guitar, b. 1941) Drawing on systems that are both ancient (the blues) and modern (free jazz), this experimental guitarist forged an original vocabulary on his instrument that has rarely been imitated and remains one of the most strikingly individual approaches in jazz. Ulmer began his career working in organ bands around the Midwest in the 1960s, before moving to ...
Composed: 1919 Premiered: 1921, Chicago Libretto by the composer, after Carlo Gozzi’s L’amore delle tre melarance Background Factions in the audience demand Tragedy, Romance, Comedy and Farce. The Cranks take control. Act I The prince is ill. If he dies, the heir to the King of Clubs would be Clarice. This must be avoided. It has ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1967–present) They were the most famous rock equivalent of a ‘brass band’ – founder member Al Kooper’s own description. With a sensational horn section always high in the mix, 1968’s Child Is Father To The Man established them a musicianly act that was to serve as role model for Colosseum and The Average White Band and the ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1983–97, 2007–present) MBV began as a thrashy 1960s garage band and ended up redefining the sound of rock guitar on the swirling, distorting but lambently beautiful Loveless (1991). Isn’t Anything from 1988, features slightly more recognizable tunes and song forms. Vocalist/guitarist Bilinda Butcher contributed lyrics and (guitarist/vocalist) Kevin Shields the revolutionary sounds. Deb Googe (bass) ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1955) Dave Alvin did most of the Springsteen-like songwriting and his brother Phil Alvin (vocals, guitar, b. 1953) did all the lead singing for The Blasters, one of the best roots-rock bands of the ’80s. Dave left to join X and then left that band for a solo career that increasingly emphasized the ...
When Steve Earle (b. 1955) was released from prison on 16 November 1994, it had been four years since he had released a studio album and three years since he’d done a tour. During that time lost to heroin and crack, much had changed in the world of country music. The charismatic but mainstream-pop-oriented Garth Brooks (b. 1962) was ...
As part of the Renaissance (literally ‘rebirth’), which began in Italy in around 1450, the Baroque era was a revolution within a revolution. It saw a break from the Medieval view of humanity as innately sinful. Instead, Renaissance thinking cast individuals as a dynamic force in their own right and gave free rein to human imagination, ingenuity and ...
The word ‘Baroque’ is derived from the Portuguese barrocco, a term for a misshapen pearl, and it was still with this sense of something twisted that it was first applied – to the period between about 1600 and 1750 – in the nineteenth century. In 1768, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote: ‘a Baroque music is that in which the harmony ...
Broadly speaking, empiricism, from the Greek empeiria (‘experience’), is a philosophical tradition that accepts as fact only what can be verified by observation, or experience, through the use of the five senses. Galileo Galilei’s support of Copernican theory was a result of his observation of the planet Venus through a telescope. His insistence that what he saw ...
The Romantic period in opera, music, literature and art lasted more than a century overall, from around 1790 – the year after the French Revolution – to 1910, four years before the outbreak of the First World War. In this context, the meaning of ‘romantic’ went far beyond the usual amorous connotations: it stood for the ...
‘The Flying Dutchman’ Initially a one-act opera, Der Fliegende Holländer was later expanded to three. Wagner was anxious to make sure it was performed in the way he wished, and wrote detailed production notes for the directors and singers. He also conducted the first performance at the Hofoper or Court Opera in Dresden on 2 January 1843. Although Wagner ...
‘The Woman Without a Shadow’ Like Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten had a tempestuous genesis. The idea itself stemmed from the period immediately after the premiere of Der Rosenkavalier, but Hofmannsthal’s continual flood of ideas compounded by Strauss’s curmudgeonliness ensured the project stalled regularly. The start of the First World War did nothing to help, and ...
Composed: 1911 (re. 1912; 1918) Premiered: 1918, Budapest Libretto by Béla Balázs, after a fairy-tale by Charles Perrault Bluebeard and Judith appear in the doorway of his castle. She has left her family and declares she will never leave him. He closes the iron door. She offers to warm the stones and let in the light. There are no ...
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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.