(Vocals, songwriter, b. 1957) The daughter of a coal miner, Loveless took her stage name from her first husband, Terry Lovelace, drummer with the Wilburn Brothers, with whom she toured. In 1985, after the marriage crumbled, she moved to Nashville and her first Top 10 single, ‘If My Heart Had Windows’ (1988), ...
(Songwriter, vocals, guitar, 1929–2002) Harlan Howard, inspired by Ernest Tubb, first began reaping his songwriting rewards in the late 1950s. ‘Pick Me Up On Your Way Down’ (1958) was his first hit when recorded by Charlie Walker, followed by ‘Heartaches By The Number’ (1959), which covered country and pop by Ray Price and Guy Mitchell ...
(Vocals, b. 1946) Linda Ronstadt has had success with many different kinds of music – folk, rock, soul, operetta, show tunes and Tex-Mex – but much of her biggest success is associated with country music and she has been cited as a major influence by such singers as Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless and Terri Clark. ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1953) Williams began as a blues revivalist on Woody Guthrie’s old label, Folkways, releasing an album of standards in 1979 and an album of originals in 1980. But it wasn’t until she formed a partnership with guitarist-producer-arranger Gurf Morlix that her songwriting and singing became more focused and country in style. Their 1988 album ...
(Vocals, songwriter, b. 1929) Long regarded as an Australian treasure, Lindsay has written more than 500 songs, and has been the winner of three Golden Guitars at the Australasian Country Music Awards, as well as the recipient of the Order of Australian Merit for services to music. He gained his first break on radio in Sydney in 1951 ...
From the urban cowboys came the neo-traditionalists, who offered a stark and welcome alternative. Their music, with its resolute devotion to earlier styles like honky-tonk, bluegrass and old-time country, bristled with the vitality and spirit of innovation that urban cowboy lacked. Emmylou Harris, a lovely, ethereal singer, came of age in the country and ...
New country took many years and miles of travel before its current evolution – not least the new traditionalist movement of the 1980s, which returned country music to its roots. Garth Brooks (b. 1962) did it far more quickly, but that’s a different story. Sometimes it seemed like these artists were chipping away at a mountain with nothing more ...
The most influential country act of 2001 was a band that didn’t even exist. The Soggy Bottom Boys were the prime attraction on O Brother, Where Art Thou ? the soundtrack album that topped the country and pop charts and sold more than four million copies. The group revived the late 1930s and early 1940s sound when old-time string-band music ...
In comparison to Manon, Werther is the romantic dreamer, totally lost as he sees his beloved Charlotte marry another man. But his music – a seductive, rocking melody where he and Charlotte at once express the strength of their love and the necessity to deny it in the face of social pressure – etches itself on the audience’s ...
(Fränts Yo’-sef Hi’-dan) 1732–1809 Austrian composer Joseph Haydn was the most celebrated musician of the late-eighteenth century and the first of the great triumvirate (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) of Viennese classical composers. A tireless explorer and innovator, he did more than anyone to develop the dramatic potential of the sonata style. When he composed his cheerful F major Missa brevis ...
Alternative-rock guitarist Kevin Shields (b. 1963) was born in Queens, New York. When he was 10, the family relocated to Dublin, where he learned guitar as a teenager with Johnny Ramone as his role model. My Bloody Valentine came together in 1984. The band moved to Holland and then Berlin, where they recorded the mini-album This Is ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1983–97, 2007–present) MBV began as a thrashy 1960s garage band and ended up redefining the sound of rock guitar on the swirling, distorting but lambently beautiful Loveless (1991). Isn’t Anything from 1988, features slightly more recognizable tunes and song forms. Vocalist/guitarist Bilinda Butcher contributed lyrics and (guitarist/vocalist) Kevin Shields the revolutionary sounds. Deb Googe (bass) ...
(Songwriter, vocals, guitar, 1914–2002) Red River Dave McEnery spent most of his long career in his native San Antonio, though he initially rose to fame in New York in the late 1930s. A prolific songwriter, who specialized in event songs like ‘Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight’, in later years he would even tackle such topics as the ...
Originally coined as a criticism of the bands’ static stage performances – band members were said to stand stock still staring at their shoes – the so-called shoegazers played slow- or medium-paced rock, generally with heavily distorted or heavily reverbed guitars topped by dreamy, melodic and ethereal vocals. Influenced by the use of distorted guitars by The Jesus & ...
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David Bowie
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