(Vocals, songwriter, b. 1940) Born in High Point, Louisiana, Newman was one of the first Cajun artists to succeed in country music’s mainstream – though his earliest recordings bore few traces of the Cajun influence. In the early 1950s, Newman became a popular performer on the Louisiana Hayride before moving on to Nashville and the Grand ...
(Piano, bandleader 1899–1981) Roy Newman And His Boys was one of the most distinctive pre-war western-swing bands. Based out of Dallas radio station WRR, pianist Newman was even more heavily pop, jazz and blues-influenced than most contemporaries. The band owed its instantly recognizable sound largely to idiosyncratic clarinetist Holly Horton. Other key band members included fiddlers Cecil Brower ...
‘Something In The Air’, 1969 Named – partially – after pianist Andy Newman, Thunderclap were a three-piece group that drummer John ‘Speedy’ Keen assembled with the aid of Pete Townshend. The Who guitarist’s involvement was a favour for Keen, who wrote ‘Armenia City In The Sky’ for The Who Sell Out (1967). ‘Something In The Air’ was a UK ...
1857–1934 English composer Elgar was born at Broadheath, near Worcester. His father ran a music shop in Worcester, where Elgar embarked on a course of self-instruction that made him total master of music’s craft and one of the world’s greatest orchestrators. Brought up a Roman Catholic in a Protestant community and a tradesman’s son, Elgar never felt socially ...
In his short life, California guitarist-mandolinist Clarence White (1944–73) conceived innovations that would inspire country and rock guitarists from both a stylistic and technical perspective long after his death. He brought bluegrass picking to the forefront of rock, turning acoustic guitar into a solo instrument. He developed a device for electric guitar that let traditional guitarists sound like pedal-steel ...
Malcolm John ‘Mac’ Rebennack Jr., a.k.a. ‘Dr. John the Night Tripper’, was born in New Orleans in November 1940. The singer and pianist began his professional career while he was still a teenager. He backed local favourites including Joe Tex and Professor Longhair on guitar and keyboards, produced and arranged sessions at Cosmio Studio, also frequented ...
(Fri-drikh Fran’-zhek [Fra-da-rek’ Fran-swa’] Sho-pan) 1810–49 Polish composer Chopin was unique among composers of the highest achievement and influence in that he wrote all his works, with the merest handful of exceptions, for the solo piano. Leaving Warsaw, which at the time offered only restricted musical possibilities, and living most of his adult life in Paris, ...
(Vocals, guitar, piano, b. 1961) Iris was the youngest of 14 children in Paragould, Arkansas, and she grew up singing gospel and hillbilly songs in a loud, nasal voice. In 1987 she started writing smart, sharply sketched songs and sang them in her undiluted twang on 1992’s Infamous Angel and 1994’s My Life. Merle ...
(Songwriter, vocals, 1940–2002) Houston, Texas-born Milton Sim Newbury Jr. was a contemporary of Kris Kristofferson; and, like Kristofferson, he greatly expanded the thematic and emotional parameters of country songwriting in the late 1960s and the 1970s with his intensely introspective songs. ‘Sweet Memories’ (recorded by Willie Nelson, among others) and ‘American Trilogy’ (popularized by Elvis ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1933–50s) Patsy Montana And The Prairie Ramblers were stars of the WLS National Barn Dance, fortuitously paired for a number years beginning in 1933. Montana (1908–96) was born Ruby Blevins in Arkansas and arrived in Chicago after stints in Los Angeles and Shreveport. The Ramblers (originally Kentucky Ramblers: Tex Atchison, fiddle; Chick Hurt, mandolin/tenor banjo; ...
Versatile American roots guitarist Ry Cooder was born in Los Angeles, California in 1947. As a child, he mastered the fundamentals of guitar, and at the age of 17, played in a blues outfit with singer/songwriter Jackie DeShannon. In 1965, Cooder teamed up with blues legend Taj Mahal and future Spirit drummer Ed Cassidy in The ...
(Guitar, mandolin, vocals, b. 1947) Cooder is one of America’s most versatile musicians, equally at home with blues, rock, jazz and various ethnic musics. In the mid-1960s he played guitar with Taj Mahal (in the Rising Sons) and Jackie DeShannon, then did studio work with Paul Revere & the Raiders. Especially gifted as a ...
1868–1917 American composer More than any other composer, Joplin brought ragtime to its pinnacle: his Maple Leaf Rag (1899) is characteristic of his joyous and infectious but disciplined art, while 15 years later Magnetic Rag, with its dramatic and unexpected shifts of key, suggests a composer ready to expand into other areas. Joplin evidently thought so, ...
‘Green Tambourine’, 1967 The Lemon Pipers did not write much of their material, and are alleged never to have liked ‘Green Tambourine’. Recorded as a contractual obligation to Buddah, it was a UK bubblegum pop No. 1. The Lemon Pipers always wanted to explore a more psychedelic direction, however, and by the time they were finally allowed ...
(Vocals, songwriter, guitar, b. 1936) Hall had his own band, The Kentucky Travelers, by the time he was 16. He worked as a commercial DJ and for armed-forces radio in Germany between 1957 and 1961, moving to Nashville in 1964. Hall’s career changed overnight in 1968 when Jeannie C. Riley took his song, ‘Harper ...
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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
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