(Piano, vocals, b. 1935) After signing to Sun Records in 1957, Louisiana-born rock’n’roller Lewis, noted for his percussive piano style, opened his account with two million-selling US Top 3 hits, ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On’ and ‘Great Balls Of Fire’ (both 1957), but caused major media controversy during a 1958 UK tour when it was ...
If Jerry Lee Lewis had never existed, it seems unlikely that anyone would have had a sufficiently vivid imagination to have invented him. Through a 50-year career, this massively talented, yet infuriatingly self-destructive genius has scaled the heights and plumbed the depths, never for one moment compromising his music or his life. Most people mellow with age. ...
Lee Ritenour (b. 1952) began his career as a session player at 16 and grew into an internationally respected guitarist, composer and producer. He has appeared on over 3,000 sessions and recorded 40 solo and collaboration albums. He had a worldwide hit with ‘Is It You’ in 1981. As for his guitar playing, his nickname, Captain Fingers ...
A leading figure on America’s West Coast music scene, Jerry Garcia was born in San Francisco in 1942. His father was a retired professional musician, his mother a pianist. The musically inclined Jerry began taking piano lessons as a child. The emergence of Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran inspired him to learn guitar at 15, ...
Blues-rock guitarist Peter Green was born Peter Greenbaum in Bethnal Green, London in 1946. He began playing guitar at the age of 10. Among his early influences were Hank Marvin, Muddy Waters and B.B. King. After Green played bass in several semi-pro outfits, keyboardist Peter Bardens invited him to play lead in his band. Three months later ...
Rock guitarist Albert Lee was born in Leominster, Herefordshire in 1943. The son of a musician, Lee started his musical career on piano, but like many of his generation, took up the guitar upon the arrival of rock’n’roll, inspired in particular by Buddy Holly. He played in various bands after leaving school at the age of ...
Blues-rock guitarist Alvin Lee was born Graham Barnes in Nottingham in 1944. Inspired by rock’n’roll guitarists Chuck Berry and Scotty Moore, Lee began to play at the age of 13, and formed his first band, Ivan Jay & The Jaymen, in 1960. Lee became lead vocalist in 1962 when the band changed their name to The Jaybirds ...
Jakey Lou Williams (b. 1957) was born in Norfolk, Virginia. His father was a member of the US Navy, which meant frequent relocation. Finally, however, the Williams family settled down in San Diego, California, where Jake began taking classical piano lessons. But, upon hearing his older sister’s Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Black ...
The original boogie man, John Lee Hooker (1917–2001) sustained a career of more than 50 years with his incessant one-chord stomp and half-spoken vocal style. But behind the captivating, hypnotic rhythm, Hooker found his own deep blues – one with dark tones and mysterious flurries of notes – as he groped to express, often with a wicked ...
In the later years of the nineteenth century, the world of black religion was in ferment. Breakaway sects began to found their own churches and followed the drift of black people from the country to the cities, resulting in the mass migrations from Southern oppression to a newer, but not always easier life in the industrialized cities of ...
(Vocals, guitar, 1893–1981) Born in Greenwood, Mississippi, Walter ‘Furry’ Lewis played medicine shows as a young man. After moving to Memphis, he recorded 23 sides for Vocalion and Victor between 1927 and 1929. Despite a somewhat chaotic guitar technique, he was an indefatigable entertainer and he became a beloved figure among younger-generation aficionados throughout his ...
(Clarinet, alto saxophone, 1900–68) Lewis (born George Louis Francis Zeno) led bands in New Orleans in the 1920s, but he remained in the Crescent City while many of his colleagues headed north to Chicago, where the Jazz Age was being forged on the city’s South Side. Lewis did not record until the 1940s (in sessions that teamed ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1899–1977) John Adams Estes was born in Ripley, Tennessee. He teamed up with mandolinist Yank Rachell to work the area from 1919 until the late 1920s. His first recordings were made for Victor in 1929 and included his celebrated ‘Divin’ Duck Blues’. He left Brownsville for Chicago in 1931. With harmonica player Hammie Nixon, Estes ...
(Piano, 1905–64) Born in Chicago and inspired by Jimmy Yancey, Meade Anderson ‘Lux’ Lewis recorded an early boogie-woogie masterpiece, ‘Honky Tonk Train Blues’, for Paramount in 1927 (the song was also recorded for Parlophone, 1935 and Victor, 1937). He recorded for Decca in 1936 (‘Yancey Special’) and Vocalion, Blue Note and Solo Art throughout 1941, ...
John Lee Hooker’s sparse blues sound was a major influence on the younger generations of blues musicians dominating the music scene in the 1960s and 1970s. His individual style retained a primitive purity at a time when many of his contemporaries were experimenting with groups and incorporating the influences of other types of music into their blues. Hooker’s guitar technique was ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
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