The Bobo Ashanti is Rasta for the twenty-first century: more militant and less tolerant. With their ideological attacks on Rome, social demotion of women and condemnation of homosexuality, deejays like Capleton and Anthony B may seem world’s apart from the hippy-ish notions of dreadlocks that was Bob Marley’s legacy. There’s actually not much difference. Unlike roots reggae, which ...
If there was one thing that summed up Jamaican music – its uniqueness, its ability to adapt from elsewhere, its inventiveness, its influence abroad, its sound system roots and its continuing closeness to its audience – it would be the deejay. Born on the sound systems in the 1950s, the deejay’s job was to vibe up ...
Reggae is unique. No other style has made so much out of its original musical resources to present itself in so many different guises with only a couple of structural changes in over 40 years. No other style has so accurately reflected the people that create and consume it. Jamaican music’s relationship with its people is such that it is not ...
Dancehall reggae is a vivid example of how the music perpetually reinvents itself to refresh its rebel spirit and to keep itself relevant to its primary audience: downtown Kingston (both spiritually as well as geographically). it began to appear on the sound systems at the beginning of the 1980s, when roots reggae had reached a world stage through the likes ...
Roots reggae is probably the best-known genre of Jamaican music. Thanks to artists such as Bob Marley and Burning Spear, it achieved genuine worldwide success. Through these artists and their carefully articulated political dissent, social commentaries and praises to Jah Rastafari, it has been accepted across the world as one of the most potent protest musics. Roots reggae ...
(Vocals, guitar, c. 1902–47) Texas-born Willie Johnson, a purveyor of sacred material who would probably have been appalled at being categorized as a ‘blues’ artist, was blinded at the age of seven when his stepmother threw lye in his face after being beaten by his father. He sang in a hoarse, declamatory voice and his fretwork ...
Bowie’s eponymous debut album appeared in June 1967. David Bowie was the work of a man who didn’t yet know quite what to do with his talent. However from 1971 to 1973 Bowie would, with the aid of a newly assembled band, produce a trio of albums that for many are both his finest moments and high watermarks in ...
With John Bonham gone the three remaining members of Led Zeppelin retreated into their own worlds. Ever the quiet one, John Paul Jones went back to working behind the scenes, mostly recording soundtracks or producing for other artists, before releasing his first solo album in 1999. Jimmy Page turned up intermittently, mostly as part of a collaborative ...
March Plant’s Manic Nirvana Picking up from where Now & Zen left off, Plant’s fifth solo album, Manic Nirvana, was an even more stripped-back rocker. Not only had Plant been getting further back to his roots, this time he was losing all of the Led Zeppelin-like frills and flourishes, making this album the most straightforward of ...
Vocalist/pianist Leroy Carr’s life and career belie the myth that pre-war acoustic blues artists were necessarily ‘rural’ or ‘primitive’. Carr was born not on a plantation but in Nashville, Tennessee on 27 March 1905. His father worked as a porter at Vanderbilt University. After his parents separated, his mother brought him and his sister to Indianapolis (known in the ...
(Harmonica, vocals, 1932–71) Herman Parker Jr. was born in Bobo, Mississippi and worked with Howlin’ Wolf as early as 1949 in West Memphis. Parker was associated with B.B. King, Bobby Bland and Johnny Ace in the Memphis scene of the early 1950s. He recorded for Sun with his own group, the Blue Flames, in ...
Peter Tosh (1944–87), born Winston Hubert McIntosh, was the guitarist in the original Wailing Wailers. His mercurial temperament, provocative advocacy of the Rastafari movement and untimely death drew attention from his role in the most important band in the history of reggae. Tosh grew up in Kingston, Jamaica. His height (6ft 5in/2m) and temperament earned him the nickname ...
(Trumpet, flugelhorn, composer, 1944–89) A lyrical soloist, composer and bandleader, Shaw’s career was cut tragically short by illnesses, including deteriorating vision, and a subway accident that cost him an arm. After early work with Willie Bobo and Eric Dolphy, Shaw played extensively in Europe with US expatriates Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke and ...
In Jamaica, nothing gets thrown away. Oil drums, floorboards … more or less everything has to be used again at least once, including music. Why throw a tune away just because it’s been a hit, when the same rhythm can be redressed with new lyrics or radically altered instrumentation to liven up the dancehalls again ? And ...
By the 1970s, the new sound of funk dominated Afro-American music. Jazzers such as Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock scored their biggest commercial successes by incorporating its hip-grinding rhythms into what became known as fusion or jazz funk, while soul acts enjoyed a second wave of popularity as funk provided the bridge between the soul and disco eras. Fuelled ...
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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.