(Vocals, b. 1940) Born Harry Webb in India, Cliff Richard is the ultimate British pop star, with over 100 UK hit singles to his credit since 1958, when ‘Move It’, widely regarded as the first credible British rock’n’roll record, reached the UK Top 3. More than a dozen UK No. 1s include 1959’s ‘Living Doll’ and ...
Veteran Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards (b. 1943) was born in Dartford, Kent. After being expelled from technical school in 1958, Richards attended Sidcup Art College. The art-school environment was crucial to Richards’ development, as it was for many of his generation. Here he was able to nurture his passion for rhythm and blues, finding many fellow ...
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 ...
(Me-shel’ Re’-share de La-län-de) 1657–1726 French composer During the mid-1660s Lalande, along with Marais, was a member of the choir at St Germain-l’Auxerrois in Paris and later, as an organist, he was the mentor of Couperin. In 1683 he was appointed one of four sous-maîtres of the Chapelle Royale, gradually acquiring all the other major musical positions ...
(Re-khart Shtrous) 1864–1949 German composer During an amazingly productive career, Richard Strauss wrote 15 operas, five ballets, several orchestral masterpieces, well over 200 songs and many other works. As a conductor he contributed in countless practical ways to the musical life of Europe and the US in the flourishing period from the last two decades of the nineteenth ...
(Rich’-ärd Varg’-na) 1813–83 German composer Wagner is one of the most influential and controversial composers in the history of classical music. He was born in Leipzig and educated there and in Dresden. His later years were spent in Bayreuth, the home of the festival theatre and the yearly summer festival he founded, which still flourish today. The idea of Bayreuth ...
(Trumpet, 1930–56) The tragic death of Clifford Brown in a road accident robbed jazz of one of its brightest young stars, but even his truncated legacy has established his standing as a major figure and profound influence. He took up the trumpet at the age of 13, drawing on the influence of bebop stars Dizzy Gillespie and Fats ...
(Piano, b. 1930) Muhal Richard Abrams was one of the principal architects of free jazz in Chicago. After playing with Eddie Harris and the MJT+3, Abrams founded his Experimental Band in 1961 to explore original composition and new directions. In 1965 he founded the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), which emphasizes creativity, professionalism and social ...
(Vocal/instrumental duo, 1930s–50s) Raised near Louisville, Kentucky, Cliff Carlisle (1904–83) was attracted as a boy to blues and Hawaiian music. His fusion of the two would make him one of the most distinctive musicians of his time. Playing the dobro resonator guitar with a slide, he transmuted the blue yodels of Jimmie Rodgers, becoming a popular ...
(Fiddle, bandleader, 1915–2000) Cliff Bruner was one of the most influential western-swing fiddlers and bandleaders of the late 1930s–40s era. Born in Texas City, Texas, the self-taught Bruner was playing professionally by his mid-teens and joined the music’s pioneering ensemble, Milton Brown’s Musical Brownies, in 1935. His stint with Brown made him a name, ...
(Vocals, comedian, record producer, bandleader, 1917–98) Native Californian Cliffie Stone – the son of country comedian Herman the Hermit (a.k.a. Herman Snyder) – was a West Coast, one-man industry during the 1940s. Hard to pinpoint any particular activity, he began to get his name known on Stuart Hamblin’s Covered Wagon Jamboree before establishing ...
‘Richard the Lionheart’ Composed: 1784 Premiered: 1784, Paris Libretto by Michel-Jean Sedaine Prologue Richard I has disappeared on his way home to England from the Third Crusade. Blondel, his squire and a troubadour, is trying to find his master. Act I Peasants are returning in the evening to their homes near Linz Castle. A local boy, Antonio ...
1813–83, German If – to quote Mark Twain – Wagner’s music ‘is not as bad as it sounds’, then the composer’s life was by no means as turpitudinous as it is generally claimed to be. Idolized by his friends and supporters as a family man who was kind to animals and plagued by self-doubts, he was demonized by his ...
‘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 full title of this opera in three acts is Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg (‘Tannhäuser and the Song Contest on the Wartburg’). Wagner, who took nearly three years to write the opera, conducted the first performance at the Dresden Hofoper on 19 October 1845. This was the first of two Wagner operas in which a song contest ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
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