Rock and jazz guitarist Neal Schon, son of a jazz saxophonist and composer, was born in Oklahoma in 1954. A precocious talent, he learned guitar at the age of 10 and joined Santana at 15, turning down an invitation to join Eric Clapton in Derek and the Dominos. Schon made two albums with the band, Santana ...
Multitalented guitarist Carlos Santana was born the son of a mariachi musician in the Mexican town of Autlan de Navarro in 1947. The family moved to Tijuana when he was nine, and Carlos, who first played violin before changing to guitar, became interested in rock’n’roll and blues. At 13, he was earning money playing in cantinas and ...
Though he has been cited by countless rock guitarists as a major influence, and despite the fact that he cofounded legendary metal band Scorpions, guitarist Michael Schenker (b. 1955) remains one of the most underrated and underappreciated guitarists of all time. Born in Sarstedt, Germany, Schenker was first turned on to the guitar when his older brother ...
The rise of arena rock began in North America during the mid-1970s with a surge in the popularity of bands like Journey, Foreigner, Boston and Styx. Embraced by a network of FM radio stations, these bands and others like them became so profitable to their record companies that they almost represented a licence to print money. The formula ...
During the 1970s, tuneful hard rock loomed over the US charts like a fluffy, pink colossus. The arrival of baby-faced guitarist Tommy Shaw led Chicago rockers Styx to become the first American group to achieve four consecutive triple-platinum albums, and when Journey appointed singer Steve Perry, it made them one of the biggest bands in the world. ...
(Vocals, b. 1948) Although over time the name Alice Cooper came to attach itself to singer Vincent Furnier, it originally applied to the rock band that he fronted, the classic line-up of which comprised Cooper, Glen Buxton (guitar), Michael Bruce (guitar), Dennis Dunaway (bass) and Neal Smith (drums). After recording two albums for Frank Zappa’s Straight label ...
If swing in its most characteristic form was a hot and hard-driving music, William ‘Count’ Basie showed that there was a cooler and softer side to the music, an alter ego that even at swift tempos could move with a relaxed, almost serene restraint that subliminally mirrored the streamlined design forms of the Machine Age, in which ...
(Vocals, 1935–71) Virginia-born Eugene Vincent Craddock, who wore a steel leg brace after a 1953 motorcycle crash and used it as a stage prop, fronted The Blue Caps: Cliff Gallup (lead guitar), Willie Williams (rhythm guitar), Jack Neal (double bass), and Dickie Harrell (drums). Gallup’s lead guitar work on Vincent’s early recordings has been admired by innumerable rock’n’roll ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1982–present) Durham-born songwriter Paddy McAloon crafts credible, intelligent pop music, drawing on a treasury of past styles. Brother Martin (bass), Wendy Smith (vocals, guitar) and Neal Conti (drums) played on 1985’s Steve McQueen, their breakthrough album. From Langley Park To Memphis (1988) made the Top 5, and ‘The King Of Rock’n’Roll’ went to ...
Woodrow ‘Woody’ Herman (originally Herrmann) led several of the most exciting big bands in jazz history, hitting peaks of achievement in the 1940s that few have equalled. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1913 to German immigrants, Herman began his stage career in vaudeville as a child, but his ambition was to lead his own band. He played ...
New Orleans is widely acknowledged as the birthplace of jazz, but it also produced its own indigenous brand of blues, which borrowed from Texas and Kansas City while also making use of Cajun and Afro-Caribbean rhythm patterns. A mix of croaking and yodeling, floating over the top of the music in an independent time scheme, Professor Longhair’s ...
Canadian trio Rush had little idea of the magnitude of their actions when they released Caress Of Steel in September of 1975. Just seven months after the group’s second album, Fly By Night, it saw them board a creative wave that for many fans would peak with their next studio release, 1976’s conceptual album 2112. Though still recognizeable ...
Although the 1960s Golden Age established soul as the foundation of Afro-American pop, the 1970s and 1980s saw soul’s supremacy challenged and ultimately ended by, in turn, funk, disco, electro, dance-rock, hip hop and house. In hindsight, the soul music of the 1980s went into a form of stasis, waiting for a ...
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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.