(Piano, vocals, b. 1932) Georgia-born Richard Penniman, who combines frantic vocals with uninhibited pianistics, was one of 12 children. Raised in a religious family, he started recording for RCA in 1951 after winning a talent contest. Chart success followed his signing with Specialty Records, where Bumps Blackwell produced a series of classic rock’n’roll tracks between ...
Veteran Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards (b. 1943) was born in Dartford, Kent. After being expelled from technical school in 1958, Richards attended Sidcup Art College. The art-school environment was crucial to Richards’ development, as it was for many of his generation. Here he was able to nurture his passion for rhythm and blues, finding many fellow ...
In his 40-year career as an award-winning songwriter, guitarist and musician’s musician, Richard Thompson (b. 1949) has won fans for his work as an original member of Fairport Convention, as part of a duo with former wife Linda Thompson and as a solo artist. His songs have been recorded by Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris ...
(Me-shel’ Re’-share de La-län-de) 1657–1726 French composer During the mid-1660s Lalande, along with Marais, was a member of the choir at St Germain-l’Auxerrois in Paris and later, as an organist, he was the mentor of Couperin. In 1683 he was appointed one of four sous-maîtres of the Chapelle Royale, gradually acquiring all the other major musical positions ...
(Re-khart Shtrous) 1864–1949 German composer During an amazingly productive career, Richard Strauss wrote 15 operas, five ballets, several orchestral masterpieces, well over 200 songs and many other works. As a conductor he contributed in countless practical ways to the musical life of Europe and the US in the flourishing period from the last two decades of the nineteenth ...
(Rich’-ärd Varg’-na) 1813–83 German composer Wagner is one of the most influential and controversial composers in the history of classical music. He was born in Leipzig and educated there and in Dresden. His later years were spent in Bayreuth, the home of the festival theatre and the yearly summer festival he founded, which still flourish today. The idea of Bayreuth ...
(Piano, vocals, 1906–85) Eurreal Wilford Montgomery was born in Louisiana and taught himself piano, dropping out of school to work functions and juke joints. He first recorded for Paramount in 1930 (‘Vicksburg Blues’/‘No Special Rider’) and then for Bluebird and ARC in 1935–36. Often featured with traditional jazz bands in addition to his primary work as a soloist ...
(Vocals, 1935–84) Esther Mae Washington was born in Galveston, Texas. She moved to the Los Angeles area at the age of five and in 1949 was discovered by Johnny Otis. Her first recording with Otis, ‘Double Crossing Blues’, was a number-one R&B hit in 1950. In that year the pair had two more number ones on the R&B ...
(Harmonica, vocals, 1930–68) Marion Walter Jacobs was born in Marksville, Louisiana. He taught himself harmonica at the age of eight and was working the New Orleans streets by the time he was 12. He worked in Helena, Arkansas (where he met Rice Miller) and St. Louis before arriving in Chicago in 1946. He was encouraged by guitarists ...
(Harmonica, vocals, 1932–71) Herman Parker Jr. was born in Bobo, Mississippi and worked with Howlin’ Wolf as early as 1949 in West Memphis. Parker was associated with B.B. King, Bobby Bland and Johnny Ace in the Memphis scene of the early 1950s. He recorded for Sun with his own group, the Blue Flames, in ...
(Piano, b. 1930) Muhal Richard Abrams was one of the principal architects of free jazz in Chicago. After playing with Eddie Harris and the MJT+3, Abrams founded his Experimental Band in 1961 to explore original composition and new directions. In 1965 he founded the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), which emphasizes creativity, professionalism and social ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1934–2005) Born to sharecroppers in Inverness, Mississippi, the country music Milton Campbell heard in radio broadcasts from the Grand Ole Opry shaped his soulful sound as much as gospel and blues. After regional success, he signed to the Chess Records subsidiary Checker in 1961 and cut the classics ‘If Walls Could Talk’, ‘Feel So ...
(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 ...
‘Richard the Lionheart’ Composed: 1784 Premiered: 1784, Paris Libretto by Michel-Jean Sedaine Prologue Richard I has disappeared on his way home to England from the Third Crusade. Blondel, his squire and a troubadour, is trying to find his master. Act I Peasants are returning in the evening to their homes near Linz Castle. A local boy, Antonio ...
1813–83, German If – to quote Mark Twain – Wagner’s music ‘is not as bad as it sounds’, then the composer’s life was by no means as turpitudinous as it is generally claimed to be. Idolized by his friends and supporters as a family man who was kind to animals and plagued by self-doubts, he was demonized by his ...
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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.