Eddie Van Halen redefined the sound of heavy metal at the end of the 1970s. His high-velocity solos, distinguished by his finger-tapping technique and tremolo-bar effects, on Van Halen’s 1978 debut album heralded a new era in hard-rock guitar that rejected the clichés of a jaded genre. His solo on Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ in 1982, which effectively ...
(Jo-van’-e An’-ne-moo-chya) c. 1500–71 Italian composer Animuccia, who lived and worked in Rome in the 1550s and 1560s, was one of the earliest composers of music for the Catholic Counter-Reformation. For Filippo Neri and his Oratorians he composed two books of laudi spirituali, simple devotional songs with Latin or Italian texts. His first book of Masses (1567) was, ...
(Jo-van’-ne Gab-re-a’-le) c. 1553–1612 Italian composer Gabrieli was taught by his uncle Andrea Gabrieli and, like him, was first employed in Munich with Lassus. After Andrea’s death Giovanni became principal composer for St Mark’s, Venice, and he wrote much of his music with its choir (and building) in mind. His musical debt to his uncle is evident in ...
(Jo-van’-ne Gas-tol’-de) c. 1550s–1622 Italian composer Gastoldi spent much of his career in Mantua, where in the early 1590s he composed music for a production of Battista Guarini’s famous play, Il pastor fido (‘The Faithful Shepherd’); although the production was scrapped, Gastoldi published some of his music in 1602. He is best known, however, for his ballettos ...
(Jo-van’-e Per-loo-e’-je da Pa-les-tre’-na) 1525/6–94 Italian composer Palestrina is named after a small town near Rome, where he is thought to have been born. He was educated in Rome; in 1537 he was a choirboy at the basilica of S Maria Maggiore, one of the city’s principal churches and an important musical establishment. By 1544 he was back in Palestrina ...
Eddie Hazel (1950–92) was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey. He played guitar and sang in church. At the age of 12, he met Billy ‘Bass’ Nelson, and the pair sang and played guitar together. In 1967 the Parliaments, a Plainfield-based doo-wop band headed by George Clinton, hit the charts with ‘I ...
One of rock’n’roll’s most influential guitarists, Eddie Cochran was born in Albert Lea, Minnesota in 1938. Eddie wanted to join the school band as a drummer, but opted for trombone when he was told that he would have to learn piano before being allowed to play drums. When advised that he didn’t have the ‘lip’ for trombone ...
Freddie (sometimes spelled Freddy) King (1934–76) revitalized the Chicago blues scene in the 1960s. His aggressive playing and piercing solos helped to set up the blues-rock movement, and he was a major influence on 1960s British guitarists like Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor. King’s mother taught him to play guitar as a child in Gilmer, Texas ...
Many were those in 1972 who would have snorted at the idea that an artist so obsessed with superficiality and chart success would sustain a multi-decade career characterized by career-jeopardising innovation. Hours… (1999) saw Bowie co-writing with Tin Machine guitarist and subsequent frequent collaborator Reeves Gabrels. The album had originated in a commission to score a computer game called Omikron: The ...
(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 ...
(Jo-van’-ne Bat-tes’-ta Pâr-go-la’-ze) 1710–36 Italian composer Pergolesi studied in Naples with Francesco Durante (1684–1755). He received his first commission in 1731 and the following year was appointed maestro di cappella to the equerry of the Viceroy of Naples. Pergolesi composed comic and serious opera, sacred music and a small quantity of instrumental music. He is chiefly remembered for two works of ...
(Lood’-wig van Bat’-ho-fan) 1770–1827 German composer Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the greatest composers in history – perhaps the greatest. Standing at the crossroads between the classical and Romantic eras, he created music that belongs not just to its period but to all time. He excelled in virtually every genre of his day, and had enormous influence on the ...
(Jo-van’-ne Bat-tes’-ta Mär-te’-ne) 1706–84 Italian theorist and composer Padre Martini, as he was always known, was the most influential theorist and musical thinker of his time. He was born in Bologna, traditionally a centre of learning, where he studied with his father and leading musicians before entering a monastery. He returned to Bologna as organist and then as ...
(Jo-van’-ne Pi-se-el’-lo) 1740–1816 Italian composer Paisiello was trained in Naples and had early successes as an opera composer there and in north Italy. He served as court composer to Catherine the Great in St Petersburg, 1776–84; there, in 1782, he wrote Il barbiere di Siviglia, his most admired comic opera. He returned to Italy and spent most of ...
(Mekh’-a-il E-va-no’-vich Glin’-ka) 1804–57 Russian composer Known as the ‘father of Russian music’, Glinka was the initial force behind nineteenth-century Russian nationalism. He grew up in a cosseted environment, and his early exposure to music was confined largely to the folksongs sung by his nurse, the traits of which were later absorbed into his melodic style. After a couple of ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.