(Instrumental group, 1962–71, 1973–77, 1994–present) Stax Records’ house band, Booker T. And The M.G.s also toured and recorded instrumentals in their own right. More than any other group they defined the sound of 1960s soul with their sparse, funky arrangements on hits for other Stax and Atlantic stars like Wilson Pickett, Sam and ...
Few blues guitarists had more style and presence than Albert King (1923–92). At 6ft 4in (1.93m) and 250lbs (113kg), he cut an imposing figure onstage. Equally distinctive was his Gibson Flying V guitar, a right-handed instrument that King played left-handed and upside down. This gave him an unusual, tormented sound when he bent the strings on his fretboard. ...
Albert King’s late 1960s and early 1970s recordings for the Stax label remain cornerstones of modern blues. Tunes like ‘Born Under A Bad Sign’, ‘Crosscut Saw’ and ‘I’ll Play the Blues For You’ are also an antidote to the over-the-top playing indulged in by so many contemporary blues guitarists. For King, a six-foot-four, 250-pound man possessed of a big ...
(Vocals, b. 1942) Aged 17, Thomas recorded ‘Gee Whiz (Look At His Eyes)’, the 1960 track that put Stax Records on the national map with its first Top 10 hit. She went on to become the Queen of Memphis Soul, backed by the talents of producer Isaac Hayes, house band Booker T. And The M.G.s ...
(Founder, Stax Records, b. 1930) Stewart founded Memphis-based Stax Records in 1957 with his sister, Estelle Axton. Local musicians became the house band, Booker T. And The M.G.s. Their backing on many recordings defined the gritty Southern Soul sound. An early hit by Carla Thomas attracted Atlantic, who took options on all Stax releases ...
Georgia’s finest soul son, Otis Redding’s story encapsulates the history of soul music. He was a hard-working performer with special gifts who became a role model of dedication and success, an icon for his African-American peers. In the process he also won the hearts of the white audience with his music, and, by the simple act of ...
One of the UK’s finest rock vocalists, Roderick David Stewart was born on 10 January 1945 to Scottish parents. He went to the same school as Ray and Dave Davies of The Kinks and briefly trained as an apprentice footballer before busking around Europe. Many Faces Back in London he started singing with The Hoochie Coochie Men in 1964 alongside ...
Steve ‘The Colonel’ Cropper is an American guitarist, songwriter, producer and soul musician, best known for his work creating the trailblazing soul records produced by Memphis’s Stax label as a member of its studio band, which became Booker T. & The M.G.s, in the mid-1960s. Stephen Lee Cropper was born on a farm outside ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1978–present) Jake and Elwood Blues began life in a 1976 Saturday Night Live sketch featuring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd singing ‘I’m A King Bee’ dressed as giant bees. The show’s musical director, Paul Shaffer helped assemble a band to support comedian Steve Martin in 1978. They recruited legendary Booker T. And The M.G.s guitarist ...
(Comedy group, 1962–69) Though they scored their only big hit, ‘I’m The Urban Spaceman’, two years later, this London band, led by Vivian Stanshall (vocals, euphonium) and Neil Innes (vocals, guitar), had run in the same pack as The New Vaudeville Band, Whistling Jack Smith and other leading lights of a 1966 craze for ...
(Vocal group, 1968–85) Roebuck ‘Pops’ Staples, born 1915, migrated musically and geographically from Mississippi blues to Chicago gospel. In the late 1950s, he was leading a vocal group with his children, and by 1968 had signed with Stax. With lead vocals shared by Pops and daughter Mavis, and backed by Booker T. And The M ...
(Vocals, 1941–2006) After an early career with the seminal R&B group The Falcons (he replaced Eddie Floyd as lead singer), Pickett signed with Atlantic in 1965, recording with Booker T. And The M.G.s at Stax in Memphis, and scored an early hit with ‘In The Midnight Hour’, first of many successes characterized by mighty horn stabs ...
The story of soul’s Golden Age is linked with the story of two American record labels: Berry Gordy’s Motown and Jim Stewart & Estelle Axton’s Stax. They discovered artists, wrote songs and developed recording and marketing methods that would irrevocably change popular music, and have a profound effect on the perception of race all over world. Motown’s base in ...
Popular music’s most influential decade saw British and American rock develop in parallel, the creative torch passing across the Atlantic to The Beatles, then returning as the West Coast rock boom reflected the influence of drugs on music. In rock, guitar was now the undisputed focus of the music with ‘axe heroes’ like Clapton, Hendrix, Townshend ...
The cultural momentum of the 1950s spilled directly into the 1960s – arguably, the change of the decade (and century) in jazz was 1959, when Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Gil Evans, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, Jackie McLean, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Wes Montgomery, Sun ...
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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.