(Vocals, guitar, bandleader, 1917–85) One-time singer and bass player with Spade Cooley’s Orchestra, Sollie Paul ‘Tex’ Williams’ vocals were first heard on the Cooley hit ‘Shame On You’ (1944). It led to a recording deal with Capitol and, following disagreements with his boss, he was fired from the outfit. Disapproving of the sacking, most ...
Classical guitarist-composer John Christopher Williams (b. 1941) is a Grammy-Award winning Australian classical guitarist who has explored many styles beyond the classical tradition. John’s father Leonard (Len) Williams was an accomplished guitarist who emigrated from Britain to Australia and was best known there for his jazz playing. He taught John to play guitar, and it soon became apparent that the ...
Although Texas has a rich legacy of acoustic country blues artists, its primary contribution to the blues was electric. An inordinate number of dazzling electric guitarists hailed from the Lone Star state, including T-Bone Walker, Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown, Albert Collins, Freddie King and scores of hotshot six-stringers still on the scene. Often accompanied by flamboyant showmanship ...
Clarence Williams was born in 1898 in Plaquemine, Louisiana, migrating to New Orleans in the teens to play piano in the District and begin a long career as a composer, bandleader and musical promoter. He was manager of two early jazz venues – the Big 25 Club and Pete Lala’s Café – hiring the best musicians in the ...
(Vocals, 1900–54) Alger ‘Texas’ Alexander’s broad-toned, pugnacious vocal delivery recalled older work songs and field hollers, while his themes evoked the hard-travelling lives of migrant workers and hoboes. His recordings on OKeh in the 1920s paired him with sophisticated instrumentalists such as Clarence Williams, Lonnie Johnson and King Oliver. In his later years, he often worked ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1903–82) Joe Lee Williams was born in Crawford, Mississippi to tenant farmer parents and by the age of five he was playing a homemade guitar. He left home in 1915 to hobo through the South. Williams worked tent shows and medicine shows with a jug band and as a soloist from 1918–24. Often accompanied by Little ...
(Harmonica, vocals, 1914–48) John Lee Williamson was born in Jackson, Tennessee. He taught himself harmonica at an early age and left home in his mid-teens to hobo with Yank Rachell and Sleepy John Estes through Tennessee and Arkansas. He settled in Chicago in 1934 and made his recording debut for Bluebird in 1937. His first song, ‘Good ...
(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 ...
(Drums, 1945–97) Aged 14, Boston-born drum prodigy Tony Williams worked professionally with tenor saxophonist Sam Rivers. In 1962 he went to New York, played with Jackie McLean, then became part of one of Miles Davis’s greatest bands. A dazzling colourist and dynamic rhythm-maker, Williams recorded two albums for Blue Note and played with many of the ...
(Vocal/instrumental duo, 1940s–50s) The hard-driving, bluesy fiddling of Tennessee-born Curly Fox (1910–95) had been heard on radio, and on records by The Shelton Brothers, but his career took an upswing around 1936 when he teamed with Texan singer-guitarist Ruby Owens (1909–63), whom he subsequently married. Over 25 years they had spells on the Grand Ole Opry and ...
(Guitar, bass, bandleader, 1909–90) Texas Jim Lewis is a largely unheralded figure in western swing, but his varied activities deserve far more attention. His career encompassed 1930s stints on New York radio and in vaudeville, and a 1940s run in Hollywood making movies and recording. His Lone Star Cowboys were one of the best bands of ...
(Bandleaders, 1940s) Curley Williams (1914–70) and Paul Howard (1908–84) were – outside of Pee Wee King – the chief exponents of western swing east of the Mississippi during the music’s 1940s heyday. Both led excellent, hot bands on the Grand Ole Opry and both found it necessary to leave the Opry in order to play the music they wanted ...
Rural Alabama-born Hiram Williams (1923–53) has emerged in the half-century since his death – at age 29 – as the archetypal honky-tonk artist and arguably the single most influential artist in modern country music. The songs that Williams wrote and sang in the course of his short and none-too-sweet life – ‘Hey Good Lookin’,’ ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’, ‘Cold ...
(Vocals, guitar, 1915–2005) Born in Carlton Victoria, Australia, Burt ‘Tex’ Banes grew up in an orphanage with Smoky Dawson, another legendary figure in Australian country music. An old-timey singer in the Jimmie Rodgers style, Banes and his long-time band, The Hayseeds, performed extensively in Australia and occasionally in the USA. Styles & Forms ...
(Vocals, 1916–72) Born David Luke Myrick, in Mena, Texas, Tyler first rose to prominence as a member of the Louisiana Hayride and later recorded a string of sentimental hits, including ‘Filipino Baby’ (1946), ‘Deck Of Cards’ (1948), ‘My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It’ (1949) and ‘Bummin’ Around’ (1953). Styles & Forms | War Years | ...
AUTHORITATIVE
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...
CURATED
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
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.