b. 1970 Norwegian pianist A Eurovision Young Musicians finalist in 1988, he performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1989, made his Proms debut in 1991, and has since appeared regularly with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and other major orchestras. Praised especially for his Grieg performances, his repertoire also embraces Mozart, Schubert, ...
Liverpool’s most famous sons, The Beatles, were wartime babies: Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr) born 7 July 1940; John Winston Lennon born 9 October 1940; James Paul McCartney born 18 June 1942; and George Harrison born 24 February 1943. All four families moved at least once at the end of the war as Liverpool was rebuilt and renovated. They were ...
Between early 1963 and early 1964 The Beatles went from being virtual unknowns to international pop superstars, a position they maintained over the next two years by an intense schedule of recording and touring, as well as two major feature films. They did it by writing consistently better and better songs, often under extreme pressure, and by ...
Vince Gill (b. 1957) broke out of a respected but static 10-year career as a bandmember and solo act and into country stardom with the 1990 hit ‘When I Call Your Name’. Gill was in the forefront of the neo-traditional country movement and became one of the biggest crossover singing stars in Nashville. It helped that he was an excellent country ...
Young mod. Hairy hippie. Ziggy Stardust. Aladdin Sane. Halloween Jack. The Thin White Duke. Plastic Soulman. Godfather of the New Romantics. Tin Machinist. Across the course of his four decades-plus career, David Bowie (1947–2016) adopted more personas and musical genres than just about any other musical icon. He viewed his music and public profile as intertwined, at one point ...
(Lood’-wig van Bat’-ho-fan) 1770–1827 German composer Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the greatest composers in history – perhaps the greatest. Standing at the crossroads between the classical and Romantic eras, he created music that belongs not just to its period but to all time. He excelled in virtually every genre of his day, and had enormous influence on the ...
By the late-1960s, the Nashville music industry had grown slick, complacent and predictable, even as the greater national culture, in the shadow of the Vietnam War, was entering an era of tumult and rebellion. Largely as a result of this, the outlaw movement arose. It began as a rudimentary grassroots uprising, instigated by a ...
Rock, jazz, soul; each of these genres, while containing a multiplicity of various offshoots, is defined by some kind of unifying theme. But this miscellaneous section, as any record collector will know, is where everything else ends up. Most of the styles within this ‘genre’ have little in common save the fact that they do ...
A product of the spiritual searching of the 1960s, Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) has always been controversial. Combining rock’n’roll with a Bible-based message has seemed profane to some and artistically invalid to others. Despite such criticisms, CCM has attracted millions of loyal fans and given rise to a host of gold- and platinum-selling artists. There’s ambiguity as to what ...
Straddling genres from pop to rock, country to dance, novelty songs tell humorous stories using satire, wackiness or a topical link with television, film or a popular craze. Though often musically dubious, they have enjoyed massive, but generally fleeting, success in the modern era. Music and comedy have been bed fellows since the days ...
During its golden years, music hall rivalled European cabaret and American vaudeville. But music hall performers were bawdier than their cabaret counterparts, indulging in more boisterous banter with audiences than their American cousins. It was singalong fun, sprinkled with lewd humour. The term first entered common usage in 1848, when the Surrey Music Hall opened in London. ...
Children’s songs have evolved from mothers’ lullabies to teachers’ nursery rhymes to the singalong numbers of TV and film. Through all of their incarnations, they have retained the same stylistic values: a melodic, upbeat mood; a catchy, easily repeatable chorus; and lyrics that tell a story. Many popular musicians have released child-friendly songs. The 1960s, in particular ...
Being perched at the top of the charts on 25 December has represented a prestigious achievement for musicians since the dawn of the pop era, while the shopping frenzy of the festive period makes it one of the most potentially profitable times to release a record. It wasn’t always that way: the original Yuletide songs were church carols that endure ...
Until it was reclaimed with an ironic wink by 1990s hipsters, easy listening had been hugely popular, but rarely cool. While the teenagers of the 1950s and 1960s were getting off on dangerous rock’n’roll and subversive R&B, their parents were sweetly cocooned in the music of Mantovani and Percy Faith. Easy listening music never launched any rebellions; no ...
Following on from the lush bombast of the swing era, and established by a colourful group of American artists in the 1950s and 1960s, lounge was easy listening’s quirky kid brother. It was more playful than its more populist relative and, when viewed retrospectively, had a high camp factor. Although ostensibly laid-back and mellow, lounge ...
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.