(Harmonica, vocals, c. 1912–65) Alex Ford ‘Rice’ Miller was born in Glendora, Mississippi. He taught himself the harmonica at the age of five and by his early teens had left home to sing and play as ‘Little Boy Blue’. He worked streets, clubs and functions through Mississippi and Arkansas during the 1930s, often playing with Robert ...
(Trumpet, cornet, 1894–1971) One of the leading New Orleans cornettists during the 1920s, Ernest ‘Punch’ Miller moved to Chicago in 1926 and found work with fellow New Orleanians Freddie Keppard and Jelly Roll Morton, as well as with Tiny Parham and Albert Wynn’s Gutbucket Five. He spent the 1930s in New York before returning to Chicago. In ...
(Trombone, 1904–44) Glenn Miller was a trombonist of modest accomplishments, but he became one of the most famous big-band leaders in jazz. Although disdained by jazz purists, tunes such as ‘In The Mood’, ‘Moonlight Serenade’, ‘String Of Pearls’ and ‘Tuxedo Junction’ have remained enduringly popular. Miller’s bands played precisely executed riff-based swing tunes and very slow ballads; his ...
(Piano, 1908–92) Samuel Blythe Price was born in Honey Grove, Texas. His recording debut came in 1929. In 1938 he moved to New York and became the pianist for Decca Records blues sessions. In this capacity – in addition to making his own recordings – he accompanied Blue Lu Barker, Johnny Temple and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, among ...
(Piano, vocals, songwriter, publisher, 1895–1955) A Memphis riverboat pianist and bandleader, Miller got into the publishing and songwriting business in his twenties. Moving to New York, he worked for several labels as a record producer, supplying acts like Gene Autry and Cliff Carlisle with material of his own, such as ‘Twenty-One Years’, ‘Seven ...
(Vocals, bandleader, b. 1926) One of the most important singers and innovators of the 1950s and 1960s, Perryville, Texas-born Ray Price introduced a more rhythmic and modernized variation of honky-tonk in the 1950s. In the early 1960s Price alienated some honky-tonk fans when he embraced the pop influences of the Nashville sound, with easy-listening hits like ...
(Vocals, songwriter, 1936–92) Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Roger Dean Miller wrote and recorded a string of brilliant novelty hits that earned him 11 Grammy Awards, as well as country and pop stardom during the 1960s. Chief among his self-penned songs are ‘Dang Me’, ‘Chug-A-Lug’ – both hits in 1964 – ‘King Of The Road’ and ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1952) Miller is short and stocky, just like Buck Owens, and applies a similar thick hillbilly twang to similar down-to-earth, hard-country songs. Julie Miller (vocals, b. 1956) is as tall and willowy as Joni Mitchell, and writes the same sort of poetic, folk-rock songs for the same sort of reedy ...
(Guitar, vocals, b. 1951) Tony Rice is one of the most inventive, elegant guitarists to emerge from the bluegrass community. As a teenager he was part of the California bluegrass scene with his brothers Larry and Wyatt, his hero Clarence White and his future collaborator Chris Hillman. Rice’s virtuosity soon won him jobs with The Bluegrass Alliance ...
1862–1949, Belgian Maeterlinck is best known for his play Pelléas et Mélisande set verbatim but with cuts by Debussy. It has become one of the pinnacles of French opera. Maeterlinck was one of the main founders of symbolist theatre. Thoroughly Belgian in his dark mysticism, he took Paris by storm in the early 1890s and was suddenly proclaimed the ...
b. 1927, American From the Mississippi to the concert stages of Europe, Price helped to pave the way for black American singers. Assisted by Paul Robeson and an affluent white family in her hometown, she gained entry to Juilliard, where she appeared in George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts. When ...
1875–1937, French A meticulous craftsman whose constant reworking and rewriting may have accounted for his relatively small body of work, Ravel composed music that consciously moved away from the influence of Richard Wagner. Along with Claude Debussy, he invented a highly personalized French style. Ravel also imbued his music with his love for Spanish culture (perhaps because his ...
Composed: 1907–09 Premiered: 1911, Paris Libretto by Franc-Nohain, after his own play Ramiro, a muleteer, brings a watch for repair to Torquemada’s workshop in Toledo. Concepcion reminds her husband that it is Thursday, when he has to wind all the municipal clocks. He asks Ramiro to wait until he gets back. Concepcion, however, is ...
Composed: 1920–25 Premiered: 1925, Monte Carlo Libretto by Colette (Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette) The child has been naughty. His mother does not think he deserves more than tea without sugar and dry bread. He must think about how sad he has made her. He shouts after her, ‘I don’t love anybody! I’m naughty!’ He starts smashing and ill-treating everything ...
(Mo-res’ Ra-vel’) 1875–1937 French composer Ravel is often described (like Debussy, but still more misleadingly) as an ‘Impressionist’, but Ravel’s music is in fact precisely and delicately crafted, subtly perfect in its artifice (in the best sense of the word). Influenced by Emmanuel Chabrier (1841–94), Satie and his close friend Stravinsky, attracted to Spain temperamentally (he never visited ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
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sweep of incredible photographs.