(Vocals, b. 1946) Linda Ronstadt has had success with many different kinds of music – folk, rock, soul, operetta, show tunes and Tex-Mex – but much of her biggest success is associated with country music and she has been cited as a major influence by such singers as Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless and Terri Clark. ...
(Vocals, b. 1946) A former member of The Stone Poneys, Ronstadt launched a solo career in 1968 with the country-flavoured rock that would characterize her 1970s work. Her third album Linda Ronstadt (1972) featured the core of musicians who would go on to form The Eagles. On 1974’s Heart Like A Wheel, Ronstadt and producer/manager Peter Asher arrived ...
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 ...
Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on 19 January 1946, in Locust Ridge, Tennessee. Immediately after graduation in the summer of 1964, she travelled from the Blue Ridge Mountains to Nashville, taking with her dreams of country stardom and little else. Ever since, she has thrilled audiences worldwide. An entertainer extraordinaire, Dolly has also become an ...
(Singer-songwriter, b. 1947) Possessing the voice of an angel, Harris is one of the most adventurous country artists of the past four decades. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, she released a folk album in 1969; but it was her duets with Gram Parsons in the early 1970s that set her on the road. Fine solo sets with Parsons’ ...
The undisputed queen of country rock, Emmylou Harris has long been both a student of traditional country music and a peerless innovator. Even now, some 30 years after she debuted with the tormented genius Gram Parsons, she is still the one others turn to for acceptance and support. Gram Parsons’ Influence Born in Birmingham, Alabama, on ...
1812–67, Italian The angelic-looking soprano Fanny Tacchinardi-Persiani was made to play the delicate, suffering heroines of early Romantic opera. Fanny Tacchinardi – as she was before marrying the composer Giuseppe Persiani in 1830 – made her debut in 1832 at Livorno and went on to great success in Venice, Naples and Milan. She sang at the Théâtre Italien ...
1797–1848, Italian Gaetano Donizetti, who was born in Bergamo, wrote seven operas, some of them while still a student in Bologna, and several of them unproduced, before he scored his first success with Zoraide di Grenata (‘Zoraide of Granada’, 1822), which was performed in Rome. Zoraide attracted the attention of impresario Domenico Barbaia, who ...
Alternative-rock guitarist Joey Santiago (b. 1965) was born in Manila, Philippines, to a wealthy family, who emigrated to the United States when President Marcos declared martial law. The family eventually settled in Massachusetts. Joey first played guitar at the age of nine, becoming a fan of Seventies punk and David Bowie. At the University of Massachusetts, ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1946) Prine was a Chicago mailman when Kris Kristofferson stumbled across him at a local folk club and recognized him as one of the best lyricists of his generation. A very different lyricist than Bob Dylan, Prine used the unspoken implications of plain, blue-collar speech rather than the dazzle of literary language to make ...
It makes sense that Australia would be the one country outside North America to develop an important country-music scene of its own. Like the USA and Canada, Australia had a large, under-populated frontier that was settled by English, Irish and Scotch immigrants who brought their folk songs with them. Roughened and toughened by frontier life, those songs ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1942) Former member of The Monkees, Nesmith wrote key hits for Linda Ronstadt (‘Different Drum’) and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (‘Some Of Shelly’s Blues’) and formed the First National Band, whose albums demonstrated how country-rock might marry the Americana mythology of the former and the conceptual ambition of the latter. The TV-savvy Nesmith ...
(Guitar, b. 1952) In addition to writing, producing and performing with Chic, Rodgers, along with long-time collaborator Bernard Edwards, undertook similar duties for Sister Sledge. The pair worked with Diana Ross on her 1980 Diana album and Deborah Harry’s Koo-Koo (1981). Rodgers went on to helm many high-profile albums – David Bowie’s Let’s Dance (1983), Madonna’s ...
A true pioneer and musical visionary, Pat Metheny (b. 1954) is one of the most important voices in the history of jazz guitar. Winner of countless ‘Best Jazz Guitarist’ polls and 12 Grammy Awards – including an unprecedented seven consecutive wins for seven consecutive albums – Metheny’s impact on jazz guitar is on a par with that of Charlie Christian ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1971–81) McCartney put together Wings in the summer of 1971, featuring wife Linda (keyboards), Denny Laine (guitar) and Denny Seiwell (drums) for the debut album Wildlife (1971). The line-up was bolstered by the inclusion of guitarist Henry McCullough. In 1973, Seiwell and McCullough abruptly quit, refusing to travel to Nigeria to record Band On The ...
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