1868–1917 American composer More than any other composer, Joplin brought ragtime to its pinnacle: his Maple Leaf Rag (1899) is characteristic of his joyous and infectious but disciplined art, while 15 years later Magnetic Rag, with its dramatic and unexpected shifts of key, suggests a composer ready to expand into other areas. Joplin evidently thought so, ...
The original rock’n’roll lead guitarist, Scotty Moore (b. 1931) was born near Gadsden, Tennessee. Moore began playing guitar at the age of eight, largely self-taught. Although he aspired to playing jazz like Barney Kessel and Tal Farlow, he was also influenced by country guitarists like Merle Travis and, in particular, Chet Atkins. After Navy service ...
Sir Walter Scott was perhaps the most popular literary figure in Europe in the 1820s. His adventurous tales set in chivalrous times captured an atmosphere of romance and mysticism, and exploited the vogue for Scottish subjects which was enveloping Europe. Rossini’s La donna del lago (‘The Lady of the Lake’, 1819), was the first successful opera derived from Scott’s works. ...
(Vocals, 1943–70) Influenced by Bessie Smith, Joplin became a rock star while in San Francisco’s Big Brother & the Holding Company, and enjoyed a meteoric solo career before her untimely death from a heroin overdose in Los Angeles. Nonetheless, she was perhaps the most commanding female blues singer of the modern era. Joplin’s raw emotional expression and ...
(Vocal duo, 1933–58) In Chicago in the early 1930s, Myrtle Cooper (Lulu Belle, 1913–99) and Scott Wiseman (1909–81) were young North Carolinians performing on WLS’s National Barn Dance. When they fell in love, the station exploited them as sweethearts of the radio, increasing their fan mail and attracting record and movie companies. Their rapport and old-fashioned ...
(Vocals, guitar, songwriter, b. 1936) Jack Scafone was born in Windsor, Ontario. He wrote most of his own material and all his recordings are highly distinctive, owing to his bluesy, baritone voice and, in many cases, the vocal harmonies of The Chantones. A shy man, he should have become a major country ...
(Singer-songwriter, b. 1936) Canadian Jack Scafone Jr. has enjoyed hits on three record labels since his 1958 breakthrough with the US Top 3 rock ballad, ‘My True Love’, whose full throttle rock’n’roll flipside, ‘Leroy’, also peaked just outside the US Top 10. When Scott left Carlton Records in 1959, after nine US hits in 18 months, ...
(Vocals, 1943–70) During a troubled adolescence in Texas, Joplin sang in regional clubs before a move to California, where she emerged as focal point of San Francisco’s Big Brother and The Holding Company, sounding weary, cynical and knowing beyond her years. In 1968, she began a solo career that was triumphant and tragic – for ...
(La’-osh Ya’-na-chek) 1854–1928 Czech composer Janáček came from a teaching family and initially followed that calling, though he later studied music in Prague, Leipzig and Vienna. He made his mark by fostering musical life in the Moravian capital Brno as teacher and conductor, and by collecting and publishing folksong. His musical voice crystallized in the realist opera Jenůfa ...
In the later years of the nineteenth century, the world of black religion was in ferment. Breakaway sects began to found their own churches and followed the drift of black people from the country to the cities, resulting in the mass migrations from Southern oppression to a newer, but not always easier life in the industrialized cities of ...
A forerunner of jazz, ragtime was derived from brass-band music and European folk melodies, African-American banjo music and spirituals, minstrel songs, military marches and European light classics. The ‘raggy’ style, or ragged-time feeling, of this jaunty, propulsive, toe-tapping piano music refers to its inherent syncopation, where loud right-hand accents fall between the ...
Jazz and blues are rooted in the enormous technological and social transformations affecting the USA and Western Europe at the turn of the twentieth century. The most striking changes were the advent of easier and cheaper travel; better communications; electric lighting; improvements in audio recording and moving pictures; increased urbanization; and the rise of the US, concurrent with the fall ...
The first half of the nineteenth century was essentially a period of insurgence in Europe, from the French Revolution in 1789 to the series of uprisings that rocked the continent around 1848. Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution was also underway, beginning in Britain, then spreading south through the rest of Europe. With these two strands of revolution came ...
The early nineteenth century was a period of insurgence in Europe, beginning with the French Revolution in 1789 to the uprisings in 1848. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain before spreading south to the rest of Europe, was also making its mark. These two strands of revolution caused transformations in society: growing awareness of national identity, ...
During the mid-nineteenth century, and in particular Liszt’s time in Weimar in the 1850s, there were many personal and idealistic tensions in the musical world. The cohesive spirit of early Romanticism during the years following Beethoven’s death (1827) had become fragmented. Liszt had surrounded himself in Weimar with pupils who shared his musical ideals; they became known as the ...
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David Bowie
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