Highly respected blues guitarist Rory Gallagher was born in Ballyshannon, Ireland in 1948, and grew up in Cork. After learning his trade as a teenager playing in Irish show bands, Gallagher formed the power trio Taste in 1966. The band released two studio and two live albums. Shortly after their appearance at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival ...
(Guitar, vocals, harmonica, 1949–95) Irish blues musician Rory Gallagher fell in love with Delta and Chicago blues as a child, collecting as many records as he could get his hands on. In 1969 he formed the band Taste, receiving moderate acclaim, and a year later he released his own eponymous album to very good reviews. ...
Britpop guitarist Noel Gallagher (b. 1967) was born in Manchester, England. He began teaching himself guitar at the age of 13, later adopting Johnny Marr as his role model. His other inspirations were primarily British guitar bands: the Kinks, the Who, Slade, the Jam and the Stone Roses. After unsuccessfully auditioning for the role of lead ...
(Guitar, vocals, b. 1949) An interpreter of classic country blues, Block took guitar lessons from Rev. Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt and Son House before moving to California and working on the folk-blues coffeehouse circuit. She recorded for small labels before signing with Rounder Records and debuting with 1982’s High Heeled Blues. She is featured in the ...
Southern-rock guitarist Duane Allman was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1946. Allman was inspired to take up the guitar by his brother Gregg. At first, they played country music, their initiation into the blues coming when the brothers saw B.B. King performing in Nashville. The pair began playing professionally in 1961, first in The Allman Joys ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1968–73) Fronted by charismatic Paul Rodgers, Free was a catalyst in the popular shift from blues-dominated rock to heavy-metal forms. Rodgers left Brown Sugar to form Free with guitarist Paul Kossoff, whose playing on the hit ‘All Right Now’ sealed its popularity in 1970. Not long thereafter, tensions and drug abuse began to weaken the ...
Joe Bonamassa, born in 1977, began playing guitar at the age of four on a small instrument given to him by his father. By the age of seven, he was playing Stevie Ray Vaughan songs on a full-size guitar. Bonamassa began performing in upstate New York at the age of 10 and was discovered by the blues great ...
Indie guitar legend Johnny Marr (b. 1963) was born John Maher in Manchester, England to Irish Catholic parents. He grew up in a household where music was a constant fixture, and he recalled, ‘I always had guitars, for as long as I could remember.’ Guitar technique came easily to young Johnny, and he quickly mastered ...
Juan Cristóbal Martín (b. 1948) was born in Málaga, Spain, and started learning the guitar at the age of six. In his early twenties he moved to Madrid to study under Nino Ricardo and Paco de Lucía. Martín was influenced by classic flamenco and the Spanish classical guitar tradition. His major influences included de Lucía, Tomatito and Andrés ...
Muddy Waters (1915–83) is the vital link between the pre-war Delta blues and the post-war Chicago blues. Born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, he grew up on Stovall’s Plantation near Clarksdale and became steeped in the slide-guitar blues of Son House and Robert Johnson. In 1941, he was recorded by archivist Alan Lomax, playing ‘Country Blues’ and ‘I’s ...
Muddy Waters was without question the creator of the Chicago blues sound, the most important figure in post-war blues and the greatest influence on the British blues movement that followed. The Rolling Stones even went as far as to name themselves after a Muddy song. Muddy’s music blended the downhome essence of Mississippi Delta blues with the sophistication of Chicago’s ...
Blues rock grew out of the British blues movement that started during the late-1950s, which was in turn developed in the 1960s. The Brits used more powerful amplification than their American counterparts, resulting in a harder, more imposing sound. Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and other artists developed this into a riff-oriented rock style. Among the earliest blues ...
Of the entire century, the 1970s were the years of catching one’s breath. Superficially, the promise of the 1960s had faded or failed, the victim of wretched excess and just plain bad taste. America’s war in Vietnam sputtered to an end, international relations elsewhere seemed to stalemate in détente and economically the world suffered from stagflation: exhaustion ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1939) Texas-born Williams worked in 1964 with folk trio The Pozo-Seco Singers. Encouraged by producer Cowboy Jack Clement, his solo career began in 1971, and resulted in gentle hits like ‘Amanda’ (1973), ‘You’re My Best Friend’ (1976) and ‘Tulsa Time’ (1978). He enjoyed immense popularity in the UK, where he had success with ...
January Grammy For Best Rock Album ‘Is this old hat now ?’ an interviewer from TV Guide asked the band after 21st Century Breakdown won a Grammy for Best Rock Album, ‘No, no, this is never old hat,’ replied Billie Joe, ‘when you put that much effort into a record nothing is old hat.’ At ...
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