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 ...
(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 ...
(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 ...
(Vocals, 1932–2006) One of the Bakersfield Sound’s few females, Owens began her career singing with Buck Owens in Mesa, Arizona, and married him in 1948. Three years later they moved to Bakersfield, where she worked as a singer and waitress at the Clover Club, and made her recording debut with ‘A Dear John Letter’ (1953), ...
(Tenor and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet, b. 1964) Starting out in reggae and funk bands in school, the British saxophonist became interested in jazz in the early 1980s and eventually gravitated towards the music of his biggest influences, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. He began playing with John Stevens’s Freebop band and by the mid-1980s had formed ...
(Harmonica, vocals, b. 1940) Delbert McClinton gigged around Fort Worth as a young man, playing with local acts like the Rondells. He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s, playing and writing songs with Glen Clark, but returned to Texas in 1975. As both a performer and songwriter, McClinton smoothly crosses the dividing lines ...
John Lee Hooker’s sparse blues sound was a major influence on the younger generations of blues musicians dominating the music scene in the 1960s and 1970s. His individual style retained a primitive purity at a time when many of his contemporaries were experimenting with groups and incorporating the influences of other types of music into their blues. Hooker’s guitar technique was ...
The original boogie man, John Lee Hooker (1917–2001) sustained a career of more than 50 years with his incessant one-chord stomp and half-spoken vocal style. But behind the captivating, hypnotic rhythm, Hooker found his own deep blues – one with dark tones and mysterious flurries of notes – as he groped to express, often with a wicked ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1946) Prine was a Chicago mailman when Kris Kristofferson stumbled across him at a local folk club and recognized him as one of the best lyricists of his generation. A very different lyricist than Bob Dylan, Prine used the unspoken implications of plain, blue-collar speech rather than the dazzle of literary language to make ...
Martin Pugh grew up in England during the 1960s and 1970s. As a young musician influenced by rock’n’roll, Pugh developed his progressive, blues-and-folk-influenced style with his first band, known as The Package Deal, who performed in Devon and Cornwall in the early 1960s. Martin soon moved to London and joined Carl Douglas (‘Kung Fu Fighting’) and The ...
In his 40-year career as an award-winning songwriter, guitarist and musician’s musician, Richard Thompson (b. 1949) has won fans for his work as an original member of Fairport Convention, as part of a duo with former wife Linda Thompson and as a solo artist. His songs have been recorded by Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris ...
A blues guitarist best known for his slide-guitar work, Sonny Landreth (b. 1951) was born in Canton, Mississippi. The family relocated to Lafayette, Louisiana, where Sonny was immersed in the area’s swamp-pop and Zydeco music. Beginning as a trumpeter, he was already a virtuoso guitarist in his teens. His earliest role model was Scotty Moore, ...
The Eagles defined the sound of California in the 1970s and were its most successful exponents. The band formed out of the Los Angeles country rock scene in 1971 when guitarist Glenn Frey (born 6 November 1948), drummer Don Henley (born 22 July 1947), guitarist Bernie Leadon (born 19 July 1947) and bassist Randy Meisner (born 8 March 1946) were recruited ...
Vince Gill (b. 1957) broke out of a respected but static 10-year career as a bandmember and solo act and into country stardom with the 1990 hit ‘When I Call Your Name’. Gill was in the forefront of the neo-traditional country movement and became one of the biggest crossover singing stars in Nashville. It helped that he was an excellent country ...
Blues rock grew out of the British blues movement that started during the late-1950s, which was in turn developed in the 1960s. The Brits used more powerful amplification than their American counterparts, resulting in a harder, more imposing sound. Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and other artists developed this into a riff-oriented rock style. Among the earliest blues ...
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