(Vocal/instrumental group 1963–68) Though Dick Heckstall-Smith (saxophone), Jack Bruce (vocals, bass) and John McLaughlin (guitar) became respective mainstays of Colosseum, Cream and The Mahavishnu Orchestra, it is too sweeping to say that this group was most notable for those members who went on to greater success. The late Bond (vocals, keyboards, saxophone) was one of the ...
Davey Graham (b. 1940) (originally Davy Graham) is a guitarist who is credited with sparking the folk-rock revolution in the UK in the Sixties. He inspired many of the famous fingerstyle guitarists, such as Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Martin Carthy, Paul Simon and even Jimmy Page, who heavily based his solo ‘White Summer’ on Graham’s ‘She ...
Indie guitarist Graham Coxon (b. 1969) was born in West Berlin, the son of an army bandsman. His early years were characterized by the itinerant army life until the family settled in Colchester in the late 1970s. The young Coxon was a Beatles fan and possessed a talent for art. He began to learn saxophone and then at 12, ...
(Vocals, guitar, 1915–78) Oklahoma-born Johnny Bond originally formed a trio with Jimmy Wakely and gained national attention on Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch radio show. He made appearances in several singing-cowboy movies, first as a member of The Jimmy Wakely Trio, then leading his own group, The Red River Valley Boys. A prolific songwriter, he is ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1959) Graham was, like Alejandro Escovedo, an alumnus of The True Believers, who found in alt.-country an effective catalyst for fusing his Mexican-American childhood and his punk-rock youth. With a rumbling baritone not unlike Tom Waits’, Graham wrote haunting songs about real despair and possible redemption on such albums as 2002’s Hooray ...
(Vocals, b. 1939) This former church chorister from Virginia reached global Top 20s in 1961 with call-and-response ‘New Orleans’. While its ‘Not Me’ follow-up flopped, ‘Quarter To Three’ topped the US chart. Further US-only hits included 1962’s ‘Seven Day Weekend’, his last before the patronage of Bruce Springsteen facilitated a commercial revival in the early 1980s, both home ...
(Founder, Motown Records, b. 1929) Gordy co-wrote Jackie Wilson’s ‘Reet Petite’ in 1957 while working on Detroit’s Ford assembly line and started Motown in 1959 with an $800 loan, creating a factory-like hit-making process. Gordy scouted talented Detroit performers and matched them to equally talented in-house writers and producers. He fostered a family atmosphere of (mostly) friendly rivalry ...
The first and arguably most famous of hard rock’s much touted ‘supergroups’, Cream comprised Eric Clapton (born Eric Patrick Clapp, 30 March 1945) on guitar/vocals, Jack Bruce (born 14 May 1943) on bass/harmonica/keyboards/vocals and Ginger Baker (born Peter Edward Baker, 19 August 1939) on drums, a trio who achieved lasting fame courtesy of their technically virtuosic, ...
John McLaughlin (b. 1942) led the Mahavishnu Orchestra and a series of other bands that stretched the boundaries of jazz-rock fusion and world music, as he inspired guitarists worldwide with his inventiveness and devotion to exotic sounds and spirituality. McLaughlin started on guitar when he was 11 and was initially inspired by blues and swing players. McLaughlin worked with Alexis ...
By turns avant-garde adventurer, high-voltage rocker and Third World explorer, Yorkshire-born guitarist John McLaughlin has seldom repeated himself. Born in 1942, McLaughlin studied piano from the age of nine and taught himself guitar after becoming interested in country blues, flamenco and Django Reinhardt. A gig with Pete Deuchar’s Professors of Ragtime in 1958 was his ticket to ...
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 ...
There is no escaping the crucial importance of World War I (1914–18) in the formation of the Modern Age (as the first half of the twentieth century has come to be known). The war changed irrevocably the development and directions of almost all pre-war innovations in politics, society, the arts and ideas in general. Declining economic conditions also altered ...
The most successful librettist of the modern era was W. H. Auden, who provided texts for Britten’s first opera, Paul Bunyan and, in collaboration with Chester Kallman, for operas by Stravinsky (The Rake’s Progress), Henze (Elegy for Young Lovers, 1961; The Bassarids, 1966), and for less acclaimed works by John Gardner (1917–2011) and Nicolas Nabokov ...
Just as sports have their pantheon of greats, the country-music industry established its own Hall Of Fame in 1961 to honour its most influential figures and deepen public understanding and appreciation of the music’s rich heritage and history. A Pantheon Of Country Stars As of 2005, 62 artists and industry leaders – starting with Jimmie Rodgers (1897–1933) and songwriter ...
Bugle Best known in its military guise, the bugle is one of the simplest of brass instruments in terms of construction, but it is very difficult to play. The single tube of metal has no valves to help create different notes, so players have to do all the work by changing their embouchure – a combination of the ...
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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
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.