A pivotal figure in the transition from blues to rock’n’roll, Bo Diddley was born Elias Bates in McComb, Mississippi in 1928. When he was seven, the family relocated to Chicago, where he took violin lessons before switching to guitar, inspired by John Lee Hooker. He began by playing on street corners, then in the Hipsters. ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1928–2008) Born Ellas Bates in McComb, Mississippi, Bo Diddley developed his guitar skills and stage persona in Chicago. He had his first guitar by the age of 10. By 1951, at 23, he was a regular in clubs on Chicago’s South Side. By 1955 he was signed to Checker, a spinoff of ...
The medieval pipe was played by blowing directly into a mouthpiece, like a recorder or penny whistle. Although it usually had only three holes to finger, by varying the force of blowing, players could achieve a working range of about one-and-a-half octaves. It was played with the right hand; the left hand held a thick, stubby beater ...
The early medieval bow looked not unlike the weapon: a convex, dramatically curved wooden structure with horsehair where the archer’s bowstring would have been. There was no attempt at standardization, and construction seems to have varied as different styles were tried out. Even by the late Middle Ages, the bow had only settled down in design terms to ...
(Fer-ra-bos’-ko) Italian musical family This family produced four generations of musicians. Domenico (1513–74), of Bologna, was a composer of early madrigals in the style of Arcadelt. His son Alfonso (1543–88) moved to England as a young man and spent most of his life at the court of Elizabeth I. Morley praised him for his ‘deep skill’ and placed him alongside ...
1583–1625 English composer Although he made his living as a keyboard player, it is for his vocal music that Gibbons is best remembered. His anthems, for combinations of soloist, choir and instruments, are still heard in churches and concert halls. In the simple but deeply moving This is the Record of John, a five-part chorus echoes ...
An alternative to the archlute was the theorbo. It had a set of unstopped bass strings called ‘diapasons’, which lay just to one side of the fingerboard and ran directly from where they were attached to the bridge to a peg box at the end of a long neck. The stopped strings ran to a second peg box placed, as ...
Wes Montgomery (1925–68) emerged in the Fifties and gained a wide following in the cool jazz movement before turning to pop-jazz in the Sixties. With his unique use of lead lines played in octaves with his left hand and strummed by his right-hand thumb, Montgomery mixed jazz harmonies with R&B rhythms to gain a pop following and exert broad influence ...
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, ...
John Renbourn (b. 1944) is a father of contemporary British folk music and an acknowledged master of fingerstyle guitar. He is best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch and his work with the folk group Pentangle. Renbourn created music that fused British and Celtic folk with blues, jazz, British early music, classical guitar and Eastern forms. ...
John Abercrombie (b. 1944) is a stylist who has managed to incorporate flavours of folk and rock along with world-music influences into his jazz-based repertoire. He was a highly influential fusion guitarist in the late Sixties and Seventies and has had an abundant career, working solo and with a multitude of collaborators, including Billy Cobham, Ralph Towner, ...
Joe Bonamassa, born in 1977, began playing guitar at the age of four on a small instrument given to him by his father. By the age of seven, he was playing Stevie Ray Vaughan songs on a full-size guitar. Bonamassa began performing in upstate New York at the age of 10 and was discovered by the blues great ...
Billy F. Gibbons (b. 1949), also known as the Reverend Willie G, led his Texas boogie band, ZZ Top, to international superstardom in the early days of MTV, combining a unique image with driving Southern rock and a series of eye-catching videos. At the music’s core was Gibbons’ tasteful blend of rhythmic crunch and fiery soloing, ...
Blue-eyed soul and country guitarist and singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt was born in Burbank, California in 1949, the daughter of Broadway vocalist John Raitt and pianist-singer Marge Goddard. At the age of eight, she was given a Stella guitar as a Christmas present, which her parents insisted she play at family gatherings. Raitt became a devotee of blues ...
Though guitar playing in the 1980s was often thought of as a ‘guitar Olympics’ of sorts, Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora typically eschewed fretboard flights of fancy in favour of melodic, tastefully arranged solos designed to serve the band’s infectious hit songs. While this approach has kept him on the outside of the guitar-hero clubhouse, his impact on ...
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.