SEARCH RESULTS FOR: Mark Knopfler
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From the unlikeliest of beginnings in the British new wave of the late 1970s, Dire Straits became one of the biggest bands of the 1980s, due in large part to Mark Knopfler’s finger-picking guitar style, which has continued to define the sound of his solo work. Born in Glasgow in 1949, Knopfler spent his teenage years in ...

Source: Rock Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

Mark Tremonti (b. 1974) rose to fame as the lead guitarist of Creed, enjoying enormous success at the turn of the twenty-first century with metal-influenced songs that crossed over to the pop charts. Tremonti’s tasteful power has garnered him many fans. His instructional DVD The Sound And The Story adds tips from several guitarists, including Michael Angelo Batio, ...

Source: Rock Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

(Tenor saxophone, clarinet, b. 1961) Ken Vandermark studied film before turning to music with a trio in Boston in the mid-1980s. He moved to Chicago in 1989, playing reeds with a flinty, aggressive sound. His investigations of free improvisation won him a five-year MacArthur Foundation ‘genius’ grant in 1999 and he has used the funding to invest ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel

(Vocals, b. 1963) Steeped in tradition, Mark Chesnutt has followed a path akin to his heroes Merle Haggard and George Jones. Following in his father’s footsteps as a honky-tonk singer aged only 17, he worked the local Beaumont, Texas, scene for a decade, finally breaking through with ‘Too Cold At Home’ (1990). Although his first ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen

(Vocals, songwriter, b. 1956) Tennessee-born Collie toured the south-west in various bands before his 1982 move to Nashville and a residency at the Douglas Cafe. His debut album Hardin County Line (1990), gained critical acclaim, and although success has greeted such songs as ‘Even The Man In The Moon Is Crying’ (1992), and the albums Unleashed (1994) and ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen

(Fiddle, guitar, b. 1961) O’Connor was a child prodigy who won the junior division of the National Old-Time Fiddlers Contest in 1974. Before he graduated from high school in 1979, he had won the all-ages Grand Masters Fiddling Championship and had released three albums for Rounder Records. Right after graduation, he joined The David Grisman Quintet for ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen

b. 1960, English One of the most important talents on the contemporary British opera scene, Turnage produces work that expertly captures the times and culture within which he lives. A jazz enthusiast who has served as Composer in Association with both the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and English National Opera, he often attempts to combine numerous genres in his ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

b. 1960 English composer Turnage studied with Knussen at the Royal College of Music and later at the Tanglewood Music Center with Henze, who secured for him his first operatic commission for Greek, a setting of Steven Berkoff’s modern retelling of the Oedipus myth in London’s East End. Like his first major orchestral work, Night Dances (1980–81), much ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

One of the young gunslingers who invigorated the blues in the 1960s, Buddy Guy (b. 1936) wowed audiences with high-octane guitar histrionics and energy that were matched by a tortured vocal manner. Guy is a master of dynamics, allowing a song to drift towards oblivion before suddenly bringing it back to a crescendo of intensity. Notable fans have included ...

Source: Rock Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

‘When I first heard of the electric guitar, I thought somebody was bullshittin’ me,’ says George ‘Buddy’ Guy. ‘We lived so far in the country I didn’t even know what an acoustic guitar was until my mother started getting mail-order catalogs’. In 2005, Guy, who was born in Lettsworth, Louisiana on 30 July 1936, stands ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel

(Guitar, producer, 1924–2001) Tennessee-born Chester Burton Atkins, whose father was a music teacher, was one of the most influential twentieth-century guitarists, and was initially influenced by the finger- and thumb-picking country-style playing of Merle Travis. Signed to RCA from 1947, he made scores of mainly instrumental albums, and in 1955 became the head of ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, general editor Michael Heatley

As the first superstar instrumentalist to emerge from the modern Nashville recording scene, Chet Atkins (1924–2001) was a living legend for most of his life, but the Nashville-based guitarist was also a producer, engineer, label executive and A&R man without peer. Chester Burton ‘Chet’ Atkins was born on in June 1924 in Luttrell, Tennessee. He started ...

Source: Rock Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

One of modern country music’s most remarkable figures, Chester Burton Atkins born in Luttrell, Tennessee, rose from rural obscurity to become one of the world’s most celebrated guitarists and one of Nashville’s most influential record producers. Atkins’ musical vision did much to shape country music during the 1950s and 1960s. Early Years Atkins was born on 20 June ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen

(Vocal/instrumental group, 1977–95) Led by guitarist Mark Knopfler with brother David (guitar), John Illsley (bass) and Pick Withers (drums), Dire Straits went from playing the London pub circuit to a US hit album. Knopfler’s inventive, plectrum-free guitar playing, street-poet lyrics and fine pop rock tunesmithery combined to launch their huge career. Their debut single, ‘Sultans Of Swing’, ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, general editor Michael Heatley

Freddie (sometimes spelled Freddy) King (1934–76) revitalized the Chicago blues scene in the 1960s. His aggressive playing and piercing solos helped to set up the blues-rock movement, and he was a major influence on 1960s British guitarists like Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor. King’s mother taught him to play guitar as a child in Gilmer, Texas ...

Source: Rock Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin
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