(Vocal group, 1953–present) The Detroiters line-up (Levi Stubbs, Lawrence Payton, Renaldo Benson, Abdul Fakir) remained unchanged for 44 years. The 1960s signalled their heyday with a run of Top 10s, including No. 1s ‘I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)’ and ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’. During the late 1960s and early 1970s their ...
Composed: 1927–28 Premiered: 1934, Hartford, Connecticut Libretto by Gertrude Stein with scenario by Maurice Grosser Background The saints are introduced. Note that St Teresa of Avila is sung by two performers (soprano and contralto). Act I Seven tableaux involving St Teresa II, described as a ‘Pageant, or Sunday School Entertainment’, are revealed behind a curtain on the ...
1906–86 French cellist Fournier studied the piano, but turned to the cello after an attack of polio. He was a student and a teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, and in 1943 replaced Casals in the Cortot-Thibaud-Casals piano trio. His elegant and refined playing can be heard in recordings of the Bach suites and the Dvořák Cello Concerto. Introduction | ...
(Vocal group, 1960–present) In 1962, after performing as The Four Lovers, New Jersey session singers Frankie Valli, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi plus songwriter Bob Gaudio issued a single, ‘Sherry’, as The Four Seasons. With Valli’s shrill falsetto to the fore, it was an international million-seller. Other such triumphs of the same persuasion included ‘Big ...
(Vocal group, 1978–84, 1991–95, 2005–present) A post-punk Leeds quartet acclaimed as a major influence on twenty-first century music (e.g. Franz Ferdinand), The Gang Of Four’s often jarring sound embraced funk and reggae with lyrics concerning political and social realities. Jon King (vocals), Andy Gill (guitar), Dave Allen (bass) and Hugo Burnham (drums) made two albums before Gill ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1940–80) He is most renowned for other artists’ interpretations of his compositions from the mid-1960s. While Rod Stewart took ‘Reason To Believe’ to No. 1 on both sides of the Atlantic in 1971, the most ‘covered’ Hardin opus is ‘If I Were A Carpenter’, which provided hits for both Bobby Darin and The Four Tops. 1969 ...
The story of soul’s Golden Age is linked with the story of two American record labels: Berry Gordy’s Motown and Jim Stewart & Estelle Axton’s Stax. They discovered artists, wrote songs and developed recording and marketing methods that would irrevocably change popular music, and have a profound effect on the perception of race all over world. Motown’s base in ...
This enduring British cult dance scene takes its name from the post-mod discos in the north-west of England where it developed, rather than the geographical location of the music-makers. Legendary disco venues like Manchester’s Twisted Wheel, Blackpool’s Mecca and The Wigan Casino, are still spoken about in reverential tones by soul and dance connoisseurs. The reason northern soul ...
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 ...
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 ...
Western classical music since the seventeenth century, because it placed great emphasis on harmonic subtlety and tensions between keys, had been less interested in melodic flexibility (a maximum of 12 notes to the octave, while Indian music uses 22) and in rhythm (regular division into bars, normally of two, three, four or six beats; Indian ...
Once hailed by the Pope as ‘Defender of the Faith’ against Martin Luther, Henry VIII made an about-face when he declared himself primate of the Church of England in order to grant himself a divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. The political, religious and social results of Henry’s action are well-known; the impact on music was ...
During the mid-nineteenth century, and in particular Liszt’s time in Weimar in the 1850s, there were many personal and idealistic tensions in the musical world. The cohesive spirit of early Romanticism during the years following Beethoven’s death (1827) had become fragmented. Liszt had surrounded himself in Weimar with pupils who shared his musical ideals; they became known as the ...
From the late 1940s onwards, John Cage was a figure of major significance as a thinker, inventor and exemplar whose approach drew crucial sustenance from outside the Western tradition. A different conception of time and sound informed Cage’s music from the start, including his influential makeover of the conventional piano, which he ‘prepared’ by inserting bolts, ...
Between 1860 and 1918 Wagner became the most influential intellectual figure in Europe. For his Gesamtkunstwerk (‘Complete Art-Work’) he drew on a wide range of inspirations, including Greek tragedy, the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) and his own historicist ideas of realizing the latent tendencies of all arts. This ensured that his music-dramas reached into almost every area ...
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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
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.