‘Green Tambourine’, 1967 The Lemon Pipers did not write much of their material, and are alleged never to have liked ‘Green Tambourine’. Recorded as a contractual obligation to Buddah, it was a UK bubblegum pop No. 1. The Lemon Pipers always wanted to explore a more psychedelic direction, however, and by the time they were finally allowed ...
Blind Lemon Jefferson (c. 1893–1929) opened up the market for blues records in 1926 when ‘Got The Blues’, backed with ‘Long Lonesome Blues’, became the biggest-selling record by a black male artist. It brought him the trappings of success, including a car and chauffeur, and he released nearly 100 songs over the next four years, before his death. ...
Although he is often cited as the first ‘folk’ bluesman to record, Blind Lemon Jefferson was actually much more than that: he was America’s first male blues pop star. On the strength of his recordings for the Paramount label – some of which are said to have sold upwards of 100,000 copies – Jefferson became a celebrity throughout the ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1983–96, 2005–present) Evan Dando (vocals, guitar, drums) and Ben Deily (guitar, drums) were the main movers behind the indie rock of Boston’s Lemonheads. Hate Your Friends and Creator (both 1988) and Lick (1989) got them a deal with Atlantic. An acrimonious split with Deily eventually brought Dando’s girlfriend, Juliana Hatfield, into the ...
‘Have I The Right ?’, 1964 A vehicle for legendary British producer Joe Meek, The Honeycombs’ ‘Have I The Right ?’ was a UK No. 1 in 1964. Plenty of other singles followed, as well as two full-length LPs, but Meek and The Honeycombs were unable to re-create this debut’s chart-topping magic. After Meek passed away in 1967 ...
Few would deny that the blues has played a more important role in the history of popular culture than any other musical genre. As well as being a complete art form in itself, it is a direct ancestor to the different types of current popular music we know and love today. Without the blues there would have been no Beatles ...
When the great Mississippi musician Riley King left the cotton fields to seek his fortune in Memphis in 1946, he had $2.50 in his pocket and a battered guitar in his hand. Today, his name is synonymous with blues music itself, yet his ascendance to the zenith of the blues world never altered his friendly, downhome ...
The swooping, full-octave slide-guitar riff that opened Elmore James’s (1918–63) first record, ‘Dust My Broom’, in 1951 not only electrified the legacy of Robert Johnson, it also established one of the basic riffs of post-war blues. Bottleneck guitar had always been part of the blues, but James was the first to use it in a hard rocking ...
Huddie Ledbetter was born in January 1888 in Mooringsport, Louisiana. He was exposed to music from an early age and began playing guitar before he was in his teens. The music he performed was composed of shouts, hollers and Native American songs, as well as ballads, religious songs and dance tunes from a variety of traditions. He ...
Vocalist/pianist Leroy Carr’s life and career belie the myth that pre-war acoustic blues artists were necessarily ‘rural’ or ‘primitive’. Carr was born not on a plantation but in Nashville, Tennessee on 27 March 1905. His father worked as a porter at Vanderbilt University. After his parents separated, his mother brought him and his sister to Indianapolis (known in the ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1911–82) Sam Hopkins was born in Centerville, Texas. His father and two brothers were musicians and he learned guitar from an early age. He met and played with Blind Lemon Jefferson at the age of eight. He accompanied his cousin, Texas Alexander, for much of the 1930s, drifting through Texas. He was discovered ...
Alonzo ‘Lonnie’ Johnson will probably be forever classified as a ‘blues’ guitarist, and – at least in his later years – he seemed to accept the label, albeit somewhat gruffly. But in fact he was a consummate musician, deft enough to move between jazz, pop and blues stylings with ease, and inventive enough to imbue everything ...
(Vocals, banjo, c. 1890–1938) New Orleans-born Charlie Jackson brought a jazzman’s sophistication to an instrument still too often overlooked by blues historians. He alternated single-string solos with percussive chording and dexterous fingerpicking, allowing him to bridge styles and genres with rare facility. He released more than 60 sides of his own, and he also recorded with Freddie ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1961–71) This merger of three solo artists from New York – Mary Travers (vocals), Paul Stookey (guitar, vocals) and Peter Yarrow (guitar, vocals) – resulted in the first Top 40 appearances of a ‘New Left’ act. Yet, after an inaugural flush of success with ‘Lemon Tree’, ‘If I Had A Hammer’, self-penned ‘Puff The Magic ...
Aaron Thibeaux Walker was born in Linden, Texas on 28 May 1910, the only child of Rance and Movelia Walker. The family moved to Dallas in 1912 and as a pre-teen Walker would lead Blind Lemon Jefferson around the Dallas streets. He taught himself guitar and worked streets and functions until he toured with various travelling shows in the ...
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