America’s leading hard rock band in the 1980s, Bon Jovi have broadened their appeal still further by combining their musical aggression with catchy pop songs to achieve a universal appeal. The band was formed in 1983 in New Jersey by singer Jon Bon Jovi (b. John Francis Bongiovi, 2 March 1962), guitarist Richie Sambora (b. 11 July 1969), keyboard ...
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 ...
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 ...
Indie guitar legend Johnny Marr (b. 1963) was born John Maher in Manchester, England to Irish Catholic parents. He grew up in a household where music was a constant fixture, and he recalled, ‘I always had guitars, for as long as I could remember.’ Guitar technique came easily to young Johnny, and he quickly mastered ...
The first bluesman to record with an electric guitar, T-Bone Walker (1910–75) shaped the course of post-war blues, influencing everyone from B.B. King and Chuck Berry to Jimi Hendrix and beyond. B.B. King acknowledges that the first time he heard Walker, he knew he had to get an electric guitar, and Berry and Hendrix took ...
(Zhak Shamp-yôn’ Syör da Shan-bun-yâr) c. 1601–72 French composer Chambonnières is generally considered the founder of the French harpsichord school. He developed a style in harpsichord writing adapted from the lute idiom of style brisé, characterized by broken, arpeggiated chordal textures. In 1641, he began a twice-weekly series of concerts, later inheriting his father’s position as gentilhomme ordinaire of ...
(Jo-van’-e Bo-non-che’ne) 1670–1747 Italian composer Bononcini came from a musical family in Modena; his father Giovanni Maria was the maestro di cappella of Modena Cathedral and his younger brother, Antonio Maria, was a talented cellist and composer. The younger Giovanni was also a cellist and studied music in Bologna. He worked in Milan, then Rome – where he wrote ...
The trombone developed the idea of the Renaissance slide trumpet. While the trumpet abandoned the slide in favour first of crooks and later of valves, the trombone pursued the slide method and perfected it. The trombone is shaped like a giant paper-clip. While the left hand holds the instrument close to the mouth, the right hand grasps a crossbar; ...
Barrel-shaped drums are usually constructed either from a single log, which is carved into a barrel shape like Japanese byou-daiko drums, or made like a wine barrel from staves of wood glued together or bound with metal strips, as in conga and bongo drums. Barrel drums can have two heads or a single head, and are played ...
A trombone is a brass instrument sounded by buzzing the lips into a mouthpiece. It is peculiar amongst brass instruments in using a double ‘U’-shaped slide to alter its pitch. The early history of the trombone is confused, mostly due to a lack of clarity in naming instruments. It is generally accepted that the immediate precursor to the trombone was ...
(Vocals, guitar, 1899–1947) A resident of Brownsville, Tennessee, Willie Newbern had only one recording session, for OKeh in Atlanta in 1929. Although he was not widely known outside his area, he influenced quite a few musicians: he recorded the first known version of ‘Roll And Tumble Blues’ and is said to have taught it to ...
Aaron Thibeaux Walker was born in Linden, Texas on 28 May 1910, the only child of Rance and Movelia Walker. The family moved to Dallas in 1912 and as a pre-teen Walker would lead Blind Lemon Jefferson around the Dallas streets. He taught himself guitar and worked streets and functions until he toured with various travelling shows in the ...
(Guitar, vocals, b. 1949) During the 1960s, while attending college in Cambridge, Massachussetts, Raitt learned the ropes firsthand from slide masters Son House and Mississippi Fred McDowell. She began appearing on the folk and blues festival circuit in the late 1960s, sometimes encouraging elderly, rediscovered blues legends (such as Sippie Wallace) to join her ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
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