(Vocal group, 1963–present) Peter ‘Herman’ Noone (vocals) had been a TV actor before the group’s maiden single, 1965’s ‘I’m Into Something Good’, was a hit both at home and in the States; ‘Hermania’ was manifested by high Hot 100 climbs for songs such as ‘Silhouettes’, ‘Mrs Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter’ and ‘Listen People’ before a predictable decline ...
Woodrow ‘Woody’ Herman (originally Herrmann) led several of the most exciting big bands in jazz history, hitting peaks of achievement in the 1940s that few have equalled. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1913 to German immigrants, Herman began his stage career in vaudeville as a child, but his ambition was to lead his own band. He played ...
Next to The Beatles, Bob Dylan was the most influential artist of his generation, writing and performing songs whose poetic, sometimes-abstract, often-philosophical lyrics of astute commentary and therapeutic introspection spoke to the masses during an era of social unrest, political upheaval and radical change. While cross-pollinating folk and country with electric rock, Dylan elevated the ...
As the 1960s approached, the controversy associated with rock’n’roll was superseded by an array of inoffensive smoothies on both sides of the atlantic. However, the ongoing popularity of artists such as Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin, Ricky Nelson, Sam Cooke, and, in the UK, Lonnie Donegan, Billy Fury and Cliff Richard, ensured ...
On 1 February 1964, The Beatles’ ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ topped America’s Cashbox singles chart. Six days later, they arrived in New York for their first US visit, and on 9 February an audience of around 73 million people tuned in to see them on The Ed Sullivan Show, which had been booked the previous ...
1960 Jimmy Page: First-Ever Serious ‘Gig’ Aged just 16, Jimmy Page – whose first guitar was a steel-stringed Spanish guitar on which he learnt to play skiffle, before quickly moving on to rock’n’roll and the electric guitar – played his first ever serious ‘gig’. Though he had been in local bands before, playing for British poet Royston Ellis ...
January Saville Theatre Concerts With a new record label (Lambert and Stamp’s Track Records) and the lure of America ahead, the year started well. The Who appeared at the Saville Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue for one of Brian Epstein’s Sunday Soundarama shows. Playing two performances on 29 January, the supporting bill included Track stablemates The Jimi Hendrix Experience, ...
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 ...
Unusually among musical instruments, a specific date has been posited for the invention of the clarinet. Johann Christoph Denner of Nuremberg has been claimed as the man who, in 1700, devised and built the first of these instruments. Like all the best stories, however, the history of the clarinet is shrouded in mystery. The instrument attributed ...
The flugelhorn developed from the bugle, a signalling horn used in the Middle Ages and made out of bull or ox horn. This developed into a large, semicircular hunting horn made of brass or silver that was used by the military during the Seven Years’ War (1756–63). History Wrapping the horn around itself once, so the bell pointed ...
First performed at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden on 1 December 1951, this adaptation of Herman Melville’s short story saw E. M. Forster writing large portions of prose while Eric Crozier focused on the dramatic execution. Accordingly, Billy Budd was one of the most meticulously researched and well-written librettos of any Benjamin Britten opera. Typically for ...
(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 ...
(Vocal group, 1955–65) New Yorker Lymon (1942–68) was invited to join a school vocal group with Sherman Gaines (1940–78), Jimmy Merchant, Joe Negroni and Herman Santiago. Before finding Lymon, the others, who were known as The Premiers, were working on a song they had written, but needed a soprano lead voice, a vacancy Lymon ...
(Clarinet, baritone, tenor and soprano saxophones, b. 1921) Jimmy Giuffre composed ‘Four Brothers’ for Woody Herman’s saxophone section in 1947 and later joined the Second Herd. He formed his important trio with Jim Hall (guitar) and Ralph Peña (bass) in 1957, then replaced bass with Bob Brookmeyer’s trombone in 1958. A subsequent trio with Paul Bley (piano) ...
(Various saxophones, clarinet, drums, b. 1952) The son of Cleveland saxophonist Tony ‘Big T’ Lovano, Joe Lovano attended Berklee School of Music before working in organ groups. He was in Woody Herman’s 1970s Thundering Herd and Mel Lewis’s Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, freelanced extensively and joined drummer Paul Motian’s trio with Bill Frisell in 1990. He has ...
AUTHORITATIVE
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...
CURATED
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.