(Vocals, guitar, 1903–62) Francis ‘Scrapper’ Blackwell is best known as Leroy Carr’s musical partner, but he was also a gifted artist in his own right. In 1928 he recorded ‘Kokomo Blues’, which Kokomo Arnold covered as ‘Original Old Kokomo Blues’, before Robert Johnson retooled it as ‘Sweet Home Chicago’. After Carr died in 1935, Blackwell retired from ...
(Piano, songwriter, 1888–1989) Born Israel Beilin in Siberia, Berlin’s family relocated in 1893 to New York, where he broke into vaudeville. He published his first song in 1907 and in 1911 had his first major hit with ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’. One of America’s most prolific melodicists, Berlin wrote hundreds of tunes that became standards, including ...
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 ...
The 1920s was, without doubt, the Jazz Age. Workers and the newly burgeoning middle class turned into consumers due to relatively higher wages. The international political advantages that came from having just won a major war buttressed a ‘lost generation’ of artistic types, who took up residence in Europe. New moral codes, sophistication and cynicism abounded. Some ...
Eddie Hazel (1950–92) was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey. He played guitar and sang in church. At the age of 12, he met Billy ‘Bass’ Nelson, and the pair sang and played guitar together. In 1967 the Parliaments, a Plainfield-based doo-wop band headed by George Clinton, hit the charts with ‘I ...
British singer-songwriter and guitarist John Martyn (b. 1948) was born Iain David McGeachy in England. In his 40-year career he has released 20 studio albums. Martyn’s parents divorced when he was five, and he spent his childhood in England and Scotland. Martyn’s musical career began when he was 17. He blended blues and folk into a unique style, working ...
(Piano, vocals, b. 1932) Georgia-born Richard Penniman, who combines frantic vocals with uninhibited pianistics, was one of 12 children. Raised in a religious family, he started recording for RCA in 1951 after winning a talent contest. Chart success followed his signing with Specialty Records, where Bumps Blackwell produced a series of classic rock’n’roll tracks between ...
Since his emergence in the mid-1950s, alto saxophonist and creative composer Ornette Coleman has risen above controversy to become a respected elder statesman of jazz. Born in 1930 in Fort Worth, Texas, Coleman taught himself the saxophone through trial and error. By avoiding chord structures and set rhythms in favour of melodic experimentation, he developed the new ...
Peter Tosh (1944–87), born Winston Hubert McIntosh, was the guitarist in the original Wailing Wailers. His mercurial temperament, provocative advocacy of the Rastafari movement and untimely death drew attention from his role in the most important band in the history of reggae. Tosh grew up in Kingston, Jamaica. His height (6ft 5in/2m) and temperament earned him the nickname ...
The western music – be it jazzy, danceable western swing or spare cowboy songs – that thrived for more than two decades from the 1920s grew out of several strains of American folk tradition, chiefly balladry and fiddle-band music, each of which had over time developed its own regional flavours and stylistic quirks. The Development Of Cowboy Music ...
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An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...
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Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.
David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
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sweep of incredible photographs.