1766–1817, English The English soprano Nancy Storace was the sister of the composer Stephen Storace and sang in his operas at Drury Lane, London, from 1789 until his death in 1796. Nancy was only 10 years old when she made her debut as Cupid in Le ali d’amore by Venanzio Rauzzini (1746–1810). Five years later, in Florence ...
The almost uncategorizable Irish composer Gerald Barry, whose untrammelled imagination and irreverent wit is displayed in operas such as his 1990 ‘opera within an opera’, The Intelligence Park, returned to the stage more recently with his take on Oscar Wilde’s comedy of manners, The Importance of Being Earnest. The Los Angeles concert premiere (conducted by Thomas Adès, ...
(Vocals, 1924–63) Dinah Washington influenced countless R&B and jazz singers, including Nancy Wilson and Esther Phillips. Born Ruth Lee Jones, the young singer moved quickly from her gospel roots to become a pro pianist, big band singer with Lionel Hampton and jazz and blues solo artist. After Washington’s ‘What A Diff’rence A Day Makes’ became a major ...
c. 1745–1824, Italian Francesco Benucci, an Italian bass, created the role of Figaro in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro in 1786. Benucci spent the first 13 years of his career as an opera singer (1769–82) in Italy, before joining the renowned Italian company in Vienna. Benucci remained in Vienna until 1795, with a short break in ...
(Vocals, guitar, songwriter, b. 1932) CMA’s 1976 Entertainer Of The Year caught malaria as an infant, which left him with a speech defect (reflected in the title of his autobiography – Stutterin’ Boy). Nevertheless, the father of Pam Tillis accumulated 77 country hits between 1958 and 1989, including three duets with Nancy Sinatra. Equally famous ...
(Guitar, vocals, b. 1938) Blake grew up as a traditional bluegrass musician in Georgia, but in 1963 he moved to Nashville, where he joined The Johnny Cash Show and recorded with Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson. His combination of virtuoso skills, a traditional background and collaborations with innovators led to dozens of albums under his own ...
1762–96 English composer Born in London of Italian and English parentage, Storace studied in Naples and first worked in Florence. He was back in London in the 1780s and spent time in Vienna, where his sister Nancy was a singer (she was the first Susanna in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro); he was a friend of Mozart’s. Back in London ...
If The Sex Pistols were the face of UK punk, The Clash were the soul. The band was formed in the summer of 1976 by guitarist Mick Jones (born Michael Geoffrey Jones, 26 June 1955) and bassist Paul Simonon (born 15 December 1955) after their proto-punk band, London SS, broke up. They Fought The Law They recruited ...
Although they existed for just over two years and released only two albums, The Sex Pistols had more impact on the British music scene than any band since the 1960s. To the public they represented the face of punk. The Sex Pistols came together in London in 1975 under the aegis of Malcolm McLaren (born 22 January 1946) who was ...
1748–1829, English William Shield, who was both composer and librettist, belonged to a trio of musicians (with Charles Dibdin and Stephen Storace) who dominated the English comic opera stage in the late eighteenth century. Shield started out as an apprentice boat builder, but moved on to become a violinist. In 1772, he arrived in London from ...
January Ian Dury’s Rhythm Stick Hits No.1 An unlikely punk, Ian Dury was 35 when his first solo single, the anthemic ‘Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll’, was released. A childhood polio victim, Dury had previously led pub rockers Kilburn & The High Roads. The album New Boots And Panties made him an equally unlikely star ...
The Pistols On Film Polish-American director Lech Kowalski based his punk documentary, D.O.A: A Rite of Passage, around The Sex Pistols’ American 1978 tour, which ended in the band’s dissolution. Footage from the tour was intercut with live performances by other British punk bands, Generation X, The Dead Boys, Rich Kids, X-Ray ...
January The Sex Pistols Get The Bullet On 6 January 1977 EMI Records terminated its contract with The Sex Pistols, saying it was unable to promote the group’s records ‘in view of the adverse publicity generated over the past two months’. The media furore over the Pistols’ TV appearance six weeks earlier had barely abated and now politicians were weighing ...
January The Sex Pistols Head South At the beginning of January 1978 The Sex Pistols flew out to Atlanta, Georgia, for a series of dates in the American South. It all unravelled at Randy’s Rodeo in San Antonio on 8 January in front of 2,000 rowdy Texans: Sid Vicious was suffering from heroin withdrawal and behaving aggressively; Rotten’s ...
A cheap acoustic guitar, a washboard, some thimbles, a tea chest, a broom handle and a length of string, together with a modicum of musical talent – these were all that was required for skiffle, an amalgam of American jazz, blues and folk that caught on with Britain’s largely cash-strapped teenagers in 1956 and ...
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