(Record producer, b. 1911) A major force in country music’s development during the post-war years, Minnesota-born Kenneth F. Nelson began his days at Capitol Records on the behest of old friend Lee Gillette, handling transcriptions. When Gillette took over the label’s pop division in 1951, Nelson took over the A&R country responsibilities, having first become involved ...
(Oz’-valt fun Vol’-ken-shtin) c. 1376–1445 South Tyrolean poet Oswald von Wolkenstein has been called the most important poet writing in German between Walther von der Vogelweide and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). He is known to have been a singer and was also very active in the political sphere. Well over 100 poems can be attributed to him, but it ...
(Yo-han A’-dam Rin’-ken) 1623–1722 Netherlandish-German composer Reincken studied the organ with Heinrich Scheidemann (c. 1595–1663) at St Catharine’s, Hamburg, becoming his assistant then successor. Reincken was both teacher and virtuoso organist. Many musicians travelled to hear him play, including Georg Böhm (1661–1733), Buxtehude and J. S. Bach. In 1720 Bach himself played on the organ of St Catharine’s before ...
(Drums, 1914–85) Kenny ‘Klook’ Clarke was a native of Pittsburgh, but made his primary contribution to jazz in New York in the early flowerings of bebop. Clarke, who adopted the Muslim faith as Liaquat Ali Salaam in 1946, is widely credited with developing the new rhythmic concepts that fuelled bebop. His work with Dizzy Gillespie and especially ...
(Piano, arranger, composer, 1911–79) Stan Kenton pushed big-band jazz in new directions throughout his career, and in the process divided critical opinion more radically than any other bandleader. He formed his first band in 1940, which became the Artistry in Rhythm Orchestra in 1942. Imaginative arrangements and excellent soloists ensured the band’s success. It gave way ...
(Cornet, trumpet, guitar, 1928–88) Ken Colyer was a key figure in the UK revivalist movement. He took an infamously purist stance on the New Orleans style of ensemble playing, brooking no departures from orthodoxy. He co-founded the influential Crane River Band in 1949 and formed his own Jazzmen after a visit to New Orleans in 1953, ...
(Trumpet, 1924–72) The star of fame never shone brightly enough upon trumpeter Kenny Dorham, who too often took a back seat to his peers. He played with Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine and Lionel Hampton before joining Charlie Parker’s bebop band in 1948. Dorham was a founding member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in 1954, then replaced Clifford ...
(Soprano and alto saxophones, b. 1956) Kenny Gorelick came up as a sideman in Jeff Lorber’s fusion band of the 1970s, before releasing his first R&B-flavoured recordings as a leader in the early 1980s. He hit pay dirt in 1986 with his phenomenally successful Duotones, which sold millions on the strength of his huge radioplay hit ‘Songbird’. His ...
(Tenor saxophone, clarinet, b. 1961) Ken Vandermark studied film before turning to music with a trio in Boston in the mid-1980s. He moved to Chicago in 1989, playing reeds with a flinty, aggressive sound. His investigations of free improvisation won him a five-year MacArthur Foundation ‘genius’ grant in 1999 and he has used the funding to invest ...
(Fiddle, b. 1926) Bill Monroe often introduced Kenny Baker onstage as ‘the greatest fiddler in bluegrass music’. It was no exaggeration, for Baker, a third-generation fiddler from Kentucky, was capable of blistering breaks, elegant, long-bow phrases and swinging syncopation. He joined Monroe in 1956 and played with him off and on for more than 30 ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1935) Bluegrass was an all-boys club when Hazel Dickens came along from the coalfields of West Virginia with a ‘high, lonesome’ soprano that grabbed the attention of anyone who tried to ignore her. Her singing was powerful enough, but she also developed into a terrific writer of songs about coalmining tragedies and mistreated women ...
(Vocals, b. 1920) West Virginia-born James Cecil Dickens was a long-time fixture on the Grand Ole Opry and is best known for the novelty hits he released in the late 1940s and early 1950s, including ‘Sleepin’ At The Foot Of The Bed’, ‘I’m Little But I’m Loud’ and ‘Take An Old Cold Tater And Wait’. Dickens was inducted into ...
A few days after Christmas, 1969, Willie Nelson (b. 1933) watched his house outside Nashville burn to the ground. Going up in flames were not only his furniture, guitars and only copies of unpublished songs – but also some of his ties to Music Row. A New Beginning Nelson had begun the decade as one of the hottest ...
(Vocals, b. 1938) In the early 1960s Rogers joined The New Christy Minstrels, and formed The First Edition in 1968. The following year, the group became Kenny Rogers And The First Edition. Their worldwide hit, ‘Ruby Don’t Take Your Love To Town’, was written by Mel Tillis. In 1973, Rogers went solo, and 1977 brought ...
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band started out in 1966 as a student jug band in Los Angeles, and in an early incarnation it included a teenage Jackson Browne. Among the group’s founder members was singer and guitarist Jeff Hanna. Both Hanna and multi-instrumentalist Jimmie Fadden are still Dirt Band members 40 years on. The extremely ambitious Will The Circle Be ...
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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.