(Vocals, songwriter, b. 1958) As a teenager, New Jersey-born Carpenter moved to Washington, D.C., where music became an integral part of her life. Establishing herself on the local folk circuit, she signed with Columbia, resulting in her 1986 debut album, Hometown Girl. Produced by guitarist John Jennings, it marked the beginning ...
1874–1967, American Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, Garden moved to America when she was six. She studied in Chicago and then Paris, where she debuted as Charpentier’s Louise at the Opéra-Comique. Perhaps her most historically significant role was creating Mélisande in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902. It was in this part that she made her American debut ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1961–71) This merger of three solo artists from New York – Mary Travers (vocals), Paul Stookey (guitar, vocals) and Peter Yarrow (guitar, vocals) – resulted in the first Top 40 appearances of a ‘New Left’ act. Yet, after an inaugural flush of success with ‘Lemon Tree’, ‘If I Had A Hammer’, self-penned ‘Puff The Magic ...
(Vocals, 1943–92) One of Motown’s first female superstars, Wells was signed when she demo’d a song she had written for Jackie Wilson. Instead it became her own 1961 debut single ‘Bye Bye Baby’, and reached No. 8 in the R&B chart. Although only her 1964 US pop No. 1 ‘My Guy’ charted in Britain, she had many more ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1983–98) This irascible, much-lauded Scottish crew featured the Reid brothers, William and Jim (both vocals, guitar) and, for a while, Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream (drums). They took The Velvet Underground’s art rock and overlaid surprisingly poppy melodies. Their early gigs turned into riots, but 1985’s Psychocandy was a very good debut ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1936) Glen Campbell’s route to fame took him first to America’s West Coast, where he grew to be much in demand as a session musician, earning $50,000 to $70,000 a year. Signing to Capitol in 1962, he became a temporary member of The Beach Boys three years later, and ‘By ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1953) Williams began as a blues revivalist on Woody Guthrie’s old label, Folkways, releasing an album of standards in 1979 and an album of originals in 1980. But it wasn’t until she formed a partnership with guitarist-producer-arranger Gurf Morlix that her songwriting and singing became more focused and country in style. Their 1988 album ...
When Steve Earle (b. 1955) was released from prison on 16 November 1994, it had been four years since he had released a studio album and three years since he’d done a tour. During that time lost to heroin and crack, much had changed in the world of country music. The charismatic but mainstream-pop-oriented Garth Brooks (b. 1962) was ...
‘Renaissance’ is a French word meaning ‘rebirth’. It has been used since the nineteenth century to describe the period between c. 1300 and 1600. Three hundred years is a long time for a single historical or cultural period, and the strain shows in any attempt to define the term ‘Renaissance’. The cultural phenomenon central to the Renaissance was a revival ...
An important aspect of Romanticism was its focus on individual feeling and expression, in contrast to the universal strictures of classical form and style. This led inevitably to a concept of the artist as a misunderstood genius, battling against the world. The second generation of English Romantic poets, including Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, contributed significantly ...
Once hailed by the Pope as ‘Defender of the Faith’ against Martin Luther, Henry VIII made an about-face when he declared himself primate of the Church of England in order to grant himself a divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. The political, religious and social results of Henry’s action are well-known; the impact on music was ...
Opposing tastes in opera have often provoked minor wars. One of them was the guerre des bouffons, which took place in Paris between 1752 and 1754 and ranged the supporters of French serious opera against the advocates of Italian opera buffa. On the French side were King Louis, his influential mistress Madame de Pompadour, his court and the ...
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band started out in 1966 as a student jug band in Los Angeles, and in an early incarnation it included a teenage Jackson Browne. Among the group’s founder members was singer and guitarist Jeff Hanna. Both Hanna and multi-instrumentalist Jimmie Fadden are still Dirt Band members 40 years on. The extremely ambitious Will The Circle Be ...
The medieval pipe was played by blowing directly into a mouthpiece, like a recorder or penny whistle. Although it usually had only three holes to finger, by varying the force of blowing, players could achieve a working range of about one-and-a-half octaves. It was played with the right hand; the left hand held a thick, stubby beater ...
The revival and imitation of ancient theatrical genres in sixteenth-century Italy bore fruit in seventeenth-century England and France in the works of the great dramatists of those countries: William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, Pierre Corneille and Jean Racine. In Italy, however, the sixteenth-century innovations in spoken drama were followed in the next century not by a great national ...
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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.