(Vocal/instrumental group, 1967–79, 1985–present) Not so much a premier folk rock ensemble as one of the most English of veteran rock bands, Fairport formed in London in 1967 in a vague image of Jefferson Airplane, but traditional folk pervaded a second LP, What We Did On Our Holidays (1969), on which singer Sandy Denny debuted, ...
(Founder, Atlantic Records, 1923–2006) Ertegun came to the US as son of the Turkish ambassador in 1934 and stayed, founding Atlantic Records in 1947 with brother Nesuhi. Having won the trust of performers with fair contract and royalty dealings, he actively pursued the crossover market in the 1950s, selling black music by Ray Charles and others ...
(Guitar, vocals, b. 1943) Fairport Convention were among several artists who had already covered her songs when this gifted Canadian soprano’s debut LP, Songs To A Seagull, appeared in 1968. A move to California coupled with relentless touring assisted the passage of the following year’s Clouds into the US Top 40. However, it was not until ...
The acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter Nick Drake (1948–74) was a tragic figure in the English folk-rock community. His beautiful if bleak songs became fully appreciated only after decades had passed since he succumbed to an overdose of anti-depressant medication. Born Nicholas Rodney Drake, he spent his childhood in Burma and on his parents’ estate in Warwickshire. A bright youth and ...
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 ...
(Guitar, singer-songwriter, b. 1949) The career of this brilliant guitarist and songwriter began in the 1960s with Fairport Convention. Solo releases throughout the 1970s and 1980s – especially I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight (1974), with then-wife Linda – cemented a reputation for an influential guitar style equally at home in folky acoustic and electric settings. During ...
Folk pop is often looked down on by connoisseurs of the music who believe that in its purest form it should have nothing in common with the charts and the commercial world. Yet folk has punctured the mainstream more often than most would imagine, and in many ways its popularity has been reliant on those who’ve broadened the market by ...
For many people in the 1960s, folk was equated with acoustic music or even unaccompanied music – and electric guitars were the great taboo. The sense of propriety among the revivalists of the time made them fiercely protective of the music, determined to preserve its purity in the face of attack from the evil forces of pop. Many saw ...
A British phenomenon, pub rock was a reaction to the self-indulgence of the progressive rockers and the vain preening of the glam rockers. The pub rock bands drew from a variety of roots-music styles, such as blues, folk and country, with the folk influence dating back to the UK folk-rockers of the late-1960s such as Fairport Convention. ...
Folk music in Britain has an erratic history, susceptible to the fickle fates of fashion and image and almost eradicated completely by the apathy of the people whose culture it represents. Yet a hugely colourful treasure chest of music and traditions survives in the network of folk clubs that still exist up and down the country. British folk clubs have ...
Popular music’s most influential decade saw British and American rock develop in parallel, the creative torch passing across the Atlantic to The Beatles, then returning as the West Coast rock boom reflected the influence of drugs on music. In rock, guitar was now the undisputed focus of the music with ‘axe heroes’ like Clapton, Hendrix, Townshend ...
January–June Down Time After a quiet 1978, the first half of 1979 didn’t see much action for the group. Maureen Plant had borne Robert another son, Logan Romero, in January and, perhaps as a way of indulging in his love for singing without the stress of the band, Plant had begun sitting in and singing with ...
After the seismic shifts of the previous decade, the 1970s reflected faster-moving, less permanent crazes, beginning with glam rock and ending with the new wave. Glam rock saw the likes of Alice Cooper and Kiss taking make-up to extremes, while the comparatively anonymous Eagles and Bruce Springsteen respectively updated the blueprints established the previous decade by country ...
The bagpipe principle is simple: instead of the player blowing directly on a reed pipe, the air is supplied from a reservoir, usually made of animal skin, which is inflated either by mouth or by bellows. The result is the ability to produce a continuous tone, and the possibility of adding extra reed-pipes to enable a single ...
The organ is an instrument of extremes – the biggest, the loudest, the lowest, the highest, the oldest, the newest and the most complex, it is also among the smallest, the most intimate, the most modest, and the simplest. Organ Extremes The aptly named portative organ – much played from the twelfth ...
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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
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