(Vocal/instrumental group, 1983–97, 2007–present) MBV began as a thrashy 1960s garage band and ended up redefining the sound of rock guitar on the swirling, distorting but lambently beautiful Loveless (1991). Isn’t Anything from 1988, features slightly more recognizable tunes and song forms. Vocalist/guitarist Bilinda Butcher contributed lyrics and (guitarist/vocalist) Kevin Shields the revolutionary sounds. Deb Googe (bass) ...
Of all the guitar players of the last 40 years, none produce music as confounding yet beautiful as Allan Holdsworth (b. 1946). His blinding speed, fluid legato, impossible intervallic leaps, perplexing chord voicings and unpredictable melodies have made his style one of the most mystifying to guitarists everywhere. Allan Holdsworth was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire ...
The last of the triumvirate of guitar legends who played with The Yardbirds, Jimmy Page became an icon of rock guitarists in the 1970s with Led Zeppelin. Elements of his playing style have been copied to the point of cliché in the years since Led Zeppelin dominated the rock world, but as the originator, Page developed the heavy-metal ...
Twenty-first-century guitar hero Matthew Bellamy (b. 1978) was born in Cambridge, England. His father George was rhythm guitarist in the Tornadoes, who scored a massive transatlantic hit with the Joe Meek-produced ‘Telstar’. Before learning guitar, Bellamy took piano lessons as a boy, equally inspired by Ray Charles and classical music. In the mid-1980s, the family moved ...
Alternative-rock guitarist Kevin Shields (b. 1963) was born in Queens, New York. When he was 10, the family relocated to Dublin, where he learned guitar as a teenager with Johnny Ramone as his role model. My Bloody Valentine came together in 1984. The band moved to Holland and then Berlin, where they recorded the mini-album This Is ...
The hold that the legend of Robert Johnson (1911–38) exerts on the blues is out of all proportion to his career and output. He died relatively unknown at the age of 27 and recorded just 29 songs. But those songs of dreams and nightmares, crossroads and hellhounds revealed a darkness at the heart of Johnson’s blues, expressed with a ...
In 2009, London-born soul sensation Adele said that to be nominated for a Grammy Award was ‘a dream come true’ and to win two ‘blew my mind.’ Fast-forward to the 54th Grammy Awards in February 2012 and the singer was practically staggering as she posed for pictures with six further gongs. She won Record of the Year, Album ...
1867–1944 American composer Beach (née Cheney) made her debut as a pianist in 1883, the year in which her first composition was published. In 1885 she married, and retired from a professional performing career. She did, however, continue to compose, writing large-scale works such as the ‘Gaelic’ Symphony in E minor op. 32 (1896) and the ...
1858–1944 British composer A determined and talented composer, Smyth studied in Germany and returned to England in the 1890s to well-received performances of her orchestral works and her dynamic Mass in D (1891). Although she wrote compelling songs and chamber music, her main musical attention was devoted to six operas, the most successful of which was The Wreckers ...
(Vocals, guitar, c. 1896–1956) Johnson was a highly influential early blues artist due to the impact of his three 1928 records for Victor, which earned him a niche as Mississippi’s first black recording star. Johnson recorded only three more 78s after that, for Paramount, plus a few unissued sides, but the songs he recorded for ...
(Cornet, trumpet, 1900–39) A stylistic descendant of King Oliver, Ladnier learned under Bunk Johnson and played in various bands around New Orleans. Around 1917 he moved to Chicago, where he became part of the hot jazz scene and worked with Jimmie Noone and King Oliver. In 1925 he toured Europe with Sam Wooding’s band and the following ...
(Trumpet, 1907–91) Part of the Chicago-based Austin High School Gang, along with Bud Freeman, Frank Teschemacher, Jim Lannigan and Dave Tough, McPartland was inspired by recordings of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and Bix Beiderbecke, who he replaced in the Wolverines in 1925. He joined Ben Pollack’s band in 1927 and recorded with the McKenzie-Condon ...
(Bandleader, alto saxophone, clarinet, 1904–57) Thoroughly educated in music as a child, Jimmy Dorsey freelanced in New York in the early 1930s, recording frequently with brother Tommy as the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra. They formed a working band in 1934 but split up in 1935. Jimmy carried on, backing Bing Crosby on radio and recording prolifically ...
(Bandleader, trombone, trumpet, 1905–56) With the break-up of the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra, Tommy Dorsey quickly hired the Joe Haymes Orchestra en masse and built a new band to his specifications. For all the talent it would attract, however, it would always be built around the leader’s warm trombone sound and flawless perfection on ballads. The ...
(Vocals, 1899–1972) James Andrew Rushing was born in Oklahoma City into a musical family. He worked in California in the mid-1920s as a pianist and vocalist, joined Walter Page’s Blue Devils in Oklahoma City in 1927 and made his recording debut with the band in 1929. He played with the Bennie Moten Band in Kansas City from 1929, ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.