Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, the ‘Mother of the Blues’, had been singing the blues for some two decades before she commenced her influential series of recordings for the Paramount label in 1923. She even laid claim to naming the music ‘the blues’ after hearing the singing of a young girl in Missouri in 1902, where Rainey was performing with a ...
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 ...
Spring Origins of The Quarry Men The skiffle craze that swept Britain in the mid-Fifties, spearheaded by Lonnie Donegan, was a defining influence on all four Beatles. They badgered their parents for cheap acoustic guitars and strummed clumsily along to songs like ‘Cumberland Gap’ and ‘Rock Island Line’. John Lennon, a rebel looking for a cause, was ...
February George Joins Despite his friendship with Paul McCartney, George Harrison didn’t get to see The Quarry Men until 6 February at the Wilson Hall, Garston. ‘I remember being very impressed with John’s big thick sideboards and Teddy Boy clothes.’ He did an impromptu audition on the bus home. A few days later McCartney asked John Lennon what ...
January Beginning of Lennon and McCartney The gigs started drying up for The Quarry Men in the autumn of 1958 and by January 1959 there was nothing on the horizon. John Lennon had also been devastated by the death of his mother, killed by a speeding car. George Harrison drifted off to join the Les Stewart Quartet but Lennon, ...
May Stuart Sutcliffe Joins Although the bookings had dried up again at the beginning of 1960, John Lennon’s art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe was persuaded to join the band on bass. Having sold a painting for £65 he was able to buy a big, stylish Hofner bass that he couldn’t actually play. But no matter; it looked good and ...
March Second Hamburg Stint The Beatles returned to Hamburg at the end of March for a three-month residency at the Top Ten Club. The money was marginally better and Paul McCartney was able to afford to buy his first trademark Hofner violin-shaped bass, but the hours were longer: seven hours a night, eight at weekends. Sometimes they shared the ...
January The Decca Audition Using his contacts as a record shop manager, Brian Epstein approached Decca Records and, after A&R manager Mike Smith had seen The Beatles at the Cavern, they were asked to audition in London on 1 January 1962. The band endured a 10-hour drive down on New Year’s Eve in stormy conditions and the following ...
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 ...
January ‘Please Please Me’ ‘Gentlemen, you have just recorded your first number one,’ producer George Martin told The Beatles after they’d completed ‘Please Please Me’. He was right … just. It was released on 11 January, the same day that The Beatles appeared on the influential Thank Your Lucky Stars networked ITV show. The single made the Top ...
January First US No. 1 When ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ shot to No. 1 in the Cashbox chart on 18 January, having leapt from No. 43 to the top slot, The Beatles were in Paris on a three-week run at the Olympia, staying at the grandiose George V Hotel where they were also writing songs for ...
February Ringo Marries Maureen Cox On 11 February a tonsil-less Ringo married Maureen Cox, the Liverpool girlfriend he’d been ‘going steady’ with since the Cavern Club days, at London’s Caxton Hall Registry Office. The ceremony was attended by Mr and Mrs Lennon and George Harrison who quipped, ‘Two down and two to go’. Paul McCartney was on holiday ...
Among the earliest humanist projects was the recovery and study of classical architecture. Many buildings from the Roman period still stood (some stand today); others were in ruins from which the originals could just be discerned. Study of these remains with reference to recently recovered classical architectural treatises led to a new school of architecture. The leader of this school was ...
The fundamental characteristics of Arab classical music are described in splendid treatises including those by al-Kindi (c. ad 801–873) and al-Farabi (d. c. AD 950), in which we read of melodic and rhythmic modes, aesthetics and the physics of sound. The classical music of the Arab world is unified by a system of modes called maqam – analogous to the ...
The most famous female musician and poet of ancient Greece was Sappho (b. c. 612 bc) from the island of Lesbos. Her music has not survived, but she is known to have accompanied her poetry on a variety of harp-like instruments. Sappho’s work includes love songs to other women and epithalamia (choral wedding songs). Elsewhere in ancient Greece women worked ...
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.