The failure of Peter Cornelius’s The Barber of Baghdad was not due to lack of charm or talent – the opera contained both in plenty – but to a small, vociferous group of reactionary musicians who objected to the influence of Franz Liszt and his ‘New German School’. The ethos of the New German School was to foster the work ...
In 1859, at a conference of musicians in Leipzig, the representatives of a musical ‘party of progress’ under the leadership of Liszt gave itself the name New German School in conscious opposition to Brahms and his followers, who were still committed to composing in the spirit of the classical style. During his sojourn in Weimar (1848–61), Liszt had ...
New-wave guitarist Bernard Sumner (b. 1956) was born in Salford, Manchester. Seeing the Sex Pistols in Manchester in June 1976 inspired Sumner and Peter Hook to acquire their first instruments, guitar and bass respectively. Originally called Warsaw, later Joy Division, they recruited drummer Stephen Morris and singer Ian Curtis for their band, making some self-produced records ...
As a schoolgirl, Adele had music constantly on the brain. She even persuaded her mother to make her a sequined eye patch to wear to school so she could channel pop star Gabrielle. Adele’s natural musicality saw her take up clarinet and guitar, but her ultimate devotion was reserved for vocals. She used to queue for hours to get ...
For many veterans of the punk era, new wave is not a genre at all. The term was coined by the music press to encompass acts who were influenced by punk, but less overtly rebellious and with more traditionally crafted pop skills. New wave acts traded largely on a back-to-basics desire to revive the short, sharp thrill of ...
Born out of a reaction to both punk and 2-Tone’s politics and anti-star stance, the British synth-pop wave of the early 1980s brought almost instant change to the UK pop scene. Moreover, the US success of the principal protagonists signalled the biggest ‘British Invasion’ since The Beatles and The Rolling Stones transformed American pop in the 1960s. Mixing a ...
It used to be easy to talk about rap or hip hop, because essentially everybody knew where they stood: the artists made 12-inch singles that didn’t get played on the radio; they dressed in acres of brightly coloured leather, with people break-dancing and body-popping around them; and nobody came from farther west than New Jersey. Back in the day ...
New age music has become the most popular form of contemporary electronic music. Unlike the other variants, new age has become popular with a global mainstream audience, even more so than the most commercial strains of contemporary chill out. Although similarities do exist between new age and ambient music – both styles were influenced by the same pioneers, ...
Unlike the ‘New German School’ of Liszt and Wagner, Schumann did not pursue a path of radical experimentation in form and harmony; his style more aptly encapsulates German literary Romanticism in music, interpreting the rhythms and melodic shapes of German poetry and folk music through his own ardent and whimsical nature, and incorporating themes and ideas from Goethe ...
Conditions were ripe for jazz to evolve in New Orleans at the turn of the twentieth century. A thriving port of immigration, where Africans and Creoles lived side by side with Italians, Germans, Irish, French, Mexicans and Cubans, New Orleans’ unprecedented ethnic diversity allowed for a free and easy mingling of musical ideas between cultures. ...
(Instrumental group, 1922–25) The New Orleans Rhythm Kings (NORK) were one of the major white groups in early New Orleans jazz; after a run at Chicago’s Friar’s Club in 1922, they recorded with Paul Mares (trumpet), George Brunis (trombone), Leon Roppolo (clarinet), Jack Pettis (alto sax), Elmer Schoebel (piano), Lew Black (banjo), Steve Brown (bass) and Frank Snyder (drums). ...
(Vocals, guitar, 1899–1947) A resident of Brownsville, Tennessee, Willie Newbern had only one recording session, for OKeh in Atlanta in 1929. Although he was not widely known outside his area, he influenced quite a few musicians: he recorded the first known version of ‘Roll And Tumble Blues’ and is said to have taught it to ...
(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 ...
(Vocals, b. 1932) Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson (named after the revered Civil War general) was born in Emerson, North Carolina. He grew up in poverty and suffered physical abuse at the hands of a cruel stepfather. After running away from home at 15 and serving a four-year stint in the US Navy, Jackson worked as a sharecropper in Georgia ...
(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 ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.