(Vocal/instrumental group, 1998–present) Four treadmills and some choreography made Illinois rock quartet Ok Go an internet cult sensation in the Noughties. Their music video for their single ‘Here It Goes Again’, featuring an elaborately choreographed dance on gym treadmills, has received 50 million hits on YouTube alone since its release in 2006. The album it featured on, Oh ...
The two great architectural styles of the medieval age were the Romanesque and the Gothic. The Romanesque, with its round-arch forms borrowed from classical buildings, is a massive style, characterized by solid pillars supporting the great stone roof vaults that were a new feature of construction. It is often crowded with imaginative sculpture. During the twelfth century, ...
(Ne-ko-las’ Gôm-bâr) c. 1495–1560 Flemish composer Joining the Burgundian court around 1525, Gombert travelled widely with the emperor, Charles V, and composed music for state occasions. At a time when many composers were moving towards a style based on clear enunciation of the text and balanced phrases, Gombert wrote complex polyphony with long-breathed melodic lines, unbroken by ...
(Klod Goo-de-mel’) c. 1514–72 French composer Goudimel worked with the French music publisher Nicolas du Chemin, first as proofreader and later as partner. He corresponded with French humanists and writers such as Pierre Ronsard, some of whose verse he set. However, he is most important for his psalms, based on French translations begun by Clement Marot and published ...
Classical-guitar legend Andrés Segovia (1894–1987) was born in the city of Linares, Spain and reared in Granada. He received musical instruction at an early age and was tutored in piano and violin but warmed to neither. When he heard the guitar in the home of a friend, however, he was hooked. Disregarding the objections of his family and ...
Alternative-rock guitarist Joey Santiago (b. 1965) was born in Manila, Philippines, to a wealthy family, who emigrated to the United States when President Marcos declared martial law. The family eventually settled in Massachusetts. Joey first played guitar at the age of nine, becoming a fan of Seventies punk and David Bowie. At the University of Massachusetts, ...
Wes Montgomery (1925–68) emerged in the Fifties and gained a wide following in the cool jazz movement before turning to pop-jazz in the Sixties. With his unique use of lead lines played in octaves with his left hand and strummed by his right-hand thumb, Montgomery mixed jazz harmonies with R&B rhythms to gain a pop following and exert broad influence ...
Fingerstyle master Adrian Legg (b. 1948) defies categorization. But though his music combines British folk, Celtic, rock, classical, blues, jazz and country sounds, Legg’s warm, soulful playing is the thread that unites the styles. Born in Hackney, London, England, Legg took the first steps of his musical journey playing the oboe ...
Southern blues-rock guitarist Dickey Betts was born in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1943. Betts was leading a group called The Second Coming when he met and jammed with the other members of what soon became The Allman Brothers Band. His role as second lead guitarist and his partnership with Duane Allman gave the band their trademark dual-lead sound, ...
Warren Haynes was born in Asheville, North Carolina in 1960. He began to play the guitar at age 12. Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Johnny Winter were early influences. ‘I would read interviews with all these people and find out who they listened to,’ Haynes has said. ‘And they all listened to B.B. King and Freddie King ...
Clad head-to-toe in studded black leather and featuring a thundering rhythm section, a dynamic twin-guitar assault and one of the purest rock vocalists in music history, it simply doesn’t get any more ‘metal’ than Judas Priest. And the man behind many of the band’s greatest riffs and solos is guitarist Glenn Tipton (b. 1947). Born in Blackheath, England ...
Terry Kath (1946–78) was the guitarist and a founding member of the jazz-rock ensemble Chicago Transit Authority (soon shortened to Chicago), which, like their contemporaries Blood, Sweat & Tears, brought a jazzy, horn-based sound to hard rock with their early albums, before settling into a superstardom built around anthemic pop ballads. Early on, however, ...
Alternative guitarist Bob Mould (b. 1960) was born in Malone, New York. Mould was 16 when, inspired by The Ramones, he took up the guitar. While attending college in Minnesota in 1979, he founded Hüsker Dü, originally a hardcore punk/thrash band, with drummer Grant Hart and bassist Greg Norton. The band’s third album, Zen Arcade ...
Johnny Ramone (1948–2004) was born John Cummings in Long Island, New York. As a teenager, Johnny played in a band called The Tangerine Puppets alongside future Ramones drummer Tamás Erdélyi (better known as Tommy Ramone). Johnny worked as a plumber with his father before The Ramones became successful. He also attended military school and briefly attended college in Florida. ...
The original boogie man, John Lee Hooker (1917–2001) sustained a career of more than 50 years with his incessant one-chord stomp and half-spoken vocal style. But behind the captivating, hypnotic rhythm, Hooker found his own deep blues – one with dark tones and mysterious flurries of notes – as he groped to express, often with a wicked ...
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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.