(Guitar, vocals, 1940–2002) Rose was omnipresent in the clubs of New York’s vibrantly bohemian Greenwich Village when his arrangement of the murder ballad ‘Hey Joe’ was covered in 1966 as The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut single. ‘Morning Dew’ proved the hardiest of his own compositions via retreads by such as The Jeff Beck Group, The Grateful Dead and ...
Tim Farriss (b. 1957) was born in Perth, Western Australia, and found fame with his brothers Andrew and Jon as a member of the band INXS, originally known as the Farriss Brothers Band. The oldest of the Farriss children, Tim was classically trained on the guitar for four years, starting at the age of eight. He ...
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 ...
There is no distinct boundary line between the early and old-time country era, when the music was still relatively unshaped by the American mainstream, and the modern age, when country music’s popularity and ubiquity have made it very much a part of the mass culture. But it was in the 1920s, due to the emerging radio and ...
Timpani are bowl drums or kettledrums, constructed by stretching a skin across a round metal, wooden or pottery bowl. They are beaten with sticks or leather thongs. Timpani originated in Islamic countries in Africa and the Middle East, where they were used to accompany hunting and for ceremonial and military music. Tuning Tuning a large kettledrum or timpani ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1915–73) Born in Arkansas, Rosetta Nubin was the daughter of a missionary. She had learned to play guitar by the age of six and accompanied her mother at church functions. The family moved to Chicago and Tharpe signed with Decca in 1938. She was essentially a gospel performer, but with Lucky Millinder’s Orchestra (1941–43) she ...
(Music publisher, songwriter, 1898–1954) Born in Evansville, Indiana, Fred Rose was a key figure in Nashville’s rise from a provincial backwater to an international musical capital. Rose penned a number of country standards, including ‘Wait For The Light To Shine’ and ‘Blue Eyes Cryin’ In The Rain’. He began his career in Chicago as a jazz ...
(Vocals, 1925–98) Before rockabilly, hillbilly humour and flashy rhinestone outfits, there was the feisty Rose Maddox and her brothers Cal, Fred and Don. She started singing on radio when she was 11, as part of Maddox Brothers And Rose, gaining popularity with a wild, fast-paced presentation that mixed loud honky-tonk music and almost vaudeville-style ...
(Publisher, 1918–90) The son of legendary songwriter and publisher Fred Rose, Chicago-born Wesley Herman Rose entered the music business in 1945 as general manager of Acuff-Rose, the Nashville publishing company co-founded by his father and singer Roy Acuff. Under the younger Rose’s steady hand, Acuff-Rose (whose crown jewel was the priceless Hank Williams song catalogue) became one ...
(Vocals, songwriter, b. 1967) Louisiana-born Tim McGraw moved to Nashville in 1989. His charisma brought him a record deal in 1993, and after several minor hit singles, he released ‘Indian Outlaw’, which was certified gold. McGraw has regularly crossed over to the Billboard pop chart, both solo and with his wife, Faith Hill. CMA Vocalist ...
(Vocals, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, b. 1954) Tim O’Brien is a good example of the restless spirit that puts the new in new-grass. He first fell in love with bluegrass during his West Virginia childhood, and he led the 1978–90 Colorado new-grass band Hot Rize that also included Pete Wernick (banjo, b. 1946), Charlie Sawtelle (bass ...
‘The Knight of the Rose’ For the follow-up to Elektra, Strauss declared he wanted to write a Mozart opera. Despite Hofmannsthal’s protests about a light, Renaissance subject set in the past, the librettist soon came up with a scenario that delighted Strauss. The correspondence between librettist and composer was good-natured and respectful. Each made suggestions to the other ...
1903–82 Scottish violist Primrose played as a soloist and as a member of the London String Quartet before moving to the US to become principal viola of the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Toscanini, 1937–42. He continued with his solo career, and commissioned a concerto from Bartók in 1944. He taught in Los Angeles and at Bloomington, Indiana. Introduction ...
The most widely used tuned percussion in early twentieth-century classical music are the timpani. These instruments, often called ‘kettledrums’, are metal hemispheres with a tense membrane (formerly leather, now plastic) across the top and are tuned to play a single note. An instrument with military origins (as the timpani/trumpets combination in Monteverdi’s Orfeo, 1607, reminds us), timpani ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1947–75) As one of a bohemian clique of singer-songwriters in mid-1960s New York, he developed a style of de rigueur melancholy introspection that was jazzier and more daring than most – though this was moderated on his first three albums. However, after 1970’s transitional Blue Afternoon, offerings like Lorca and Starsailor were virtually free-form ...
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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
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.