(Drums, b. 1925) Roy Haynes is a major jazz drummer in settings ranging from swing to jazz rock, taking in most genres of the music including free jazz. He spent three years with Charlie Parker (1949–52) and five with Sarah Vaughan (1953–58), and by the mid-1960s had also worked with Bud Powell, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, ...
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 ...
Vocalist/pianist Leroy Carr’s life and career belie the myth that pre-war acoustic blues artists were necessarily ‘rural’ or ‘primitive’. Carr was born not on a plantation but in Nashville, Tennessee on 27 March 1905. His father worked as a porter at Vanderbilt University. After his parents separated, his mother brought him and his sister to Indianapolis (known in the ...
While Louis Armstrong remained a pre-eminent jazz symbol in the public mind through the 1930s, and inspired many imitators (Taft Jordan, Hot Lips Page, Wingy Manone), younger and better-schooled musicians were coming up who could navigate the trumpet with great agility and dexterity. They would break through the perimeters that Armstrong had established in the 1920s and take ...
(Vocals, 1925–81) Roy James Brown was born in New Orleans and raised in Texas and Louisiana. A strong blues shouter, Brown was one of the first stars of New Orleans R&B. He led his own group, Roy Brown & his Mighty, Mighty Men, and wrote most of the material he recorded. He began recording for DeLuxe ...
(Drums, vocals, 1907–83) Roy Bunny Milton was born in Wynnewood, Oklahoma. He had his own bands before moving to Los Angeles in 1935, where he formed the Solid Senders combo in 1938 and worked small clubs throughout the city. He began recording in 1945 and had a lengthy relationship with Specialty records throughout 1946–54, which produced ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1939–88) Roy Buchanan’s use of harmonics and his melodic sense were incomparable. Raised on gospel and R&B, he performed with Johnny Otis, Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson and Ronnie Hawkins’ Hawks as a young man. A 1971 PBS documentary, The Best Unknown Guitarist In The World, together with adulation from the likes of John Lennon ...
(Guitar, vocals, b. 1950) An exponent of acoustic and electric blues, California-based slide guitarist Rogers played with John Lee Hooker’s Coast To Coast band from 1982–86, before releasing his debut recording as a leader, Chops Not Chaps (1986). He followed up with 1988’s Slidewinder and in 1990 produced Hooker’s Grammy-winning comeback album The Healer. Rogers maintained ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1973–present) Thorogood’s energetic, Delaware-based band drew inspiration from Elmore James and Hound Dog Taylor. Flash guitarist and raw vocalist Thorogood moved the band to Boston in 1974 and gained popularity on the blues circuit there, leading to its 1978 self-titled debut on Rounder Records. The 1979 album Move It On Over was a commercial breakthrough and ...
(Trumpet, b. 1969) Encouraged by Wynton Marsalis while in high school in Dallas, Texas, Hargrove has a jauntier approach to trumpet than his mentor. He principally employs hard-bop vocabulary, but has also led the Latin jazz band Crîsol with Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés, recorded with hip hop/soul singer D’Angelo, and co-starred in Herbie Hancock’s New ...
If Jimmie Rodgers is the father of country music, Uncle Dave Macon its first radio star and the Carters its first family group, Roy Acuff (1903–92) has a claim to be called the father of the country-music business. Not only was he a key figure in the Grand Ole Opry – indeed, for many, its figurehead – ...
The Sons Of The Pioneers are one of the most influential vocal groups in American history – an impeccable hallmark of fluid precision and musical integrity since 1933, universally admired for their tight sound and gorgeous harmonies. The group also boasted two great American songwriters in Tim Spencer and Bob Nolan, and two of the most influential country instrumentalists ...
(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, guitar, 1936–88) Orbison, in his distinctive dark glasses, became a major star during the 1960s as a result of a succession of hits in a rock-ballad style that was quite unique – and a contrast to the British beat-group craze of the period. Born in Vernon, Texas, he earlier performed rockabilly with his group ...
(Entertainer, b. 1933) Voted CMA Entertainer Of The Year in 1973, Clark – apart from being a champion banjo player and electric guitarist – appeared regularly in the 1960s television series, The Beverly Hillbillies, and was the host of Hee Haw from its 1960 beginning. His sparkling show was greatly sought after in the 1970s and he ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
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