Hear You Now’. In 1981 he released his seminal synth-driven soundtrack to the film Chariots Of Fire, which became a US No. 1. Further soundtracks, and Anderson and Vangelis albums followed. Styles & Forms | Eighties | Rock Personalities | Stevie Ray Vaughan | Eighties | Rock ...
The piano has occupied a special place in music and, since the advent of amplification, musicians have sought ways in which its expressive, versatile sound could be made louder in order to carry above the sound of other amplified instruments and also how it could be packaged into an instrument more easily transportable than the traditional acoustic piano. ...
tapes and synthesizers, questioning and changing the nature of the ‘traditional’ band. By the 1970s, Brian Eno had produced the first ambient music, and Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis were writing epic compositions for synthesizers. Kraftwerk explored sampling, and their fusion of synthesized melodies and rigid electronic beats laid the foundation for techno and electro, while Terry ...
This section encompasses styles that were, at least initially, designed to work in tandem with other forms of expression, deepening or enhancing their impact. The scores of musical theatre are woven into stories played out by the characters on stage. A film soundtrack is composed to interlock with the action on a cinema screen, while cabaret songs ...
Of Love – Love Power’. Collaborations with Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey were also successful. He died in 2005 aged 54. Styles & Forms | Eighties | Rock Personalities | Vangelis | Eighties | Rock ...
Originating as a device to mask the sound of a whirring projector, film music has become so much more than ‘music from the movies’. Before the advent of video and DVD, the soundtrack was the most accessible way to return to a favourite movie. It has since evolved into a multi-million dollar industry and one of the most thriving ...
of her 1991 album, Shepherd Moons, worldwide. Synth Pioneers The easiest way to explain its popularity is to look at where new age evolved from. Greek synth pioneer Vangelis contends ‘nothing’s new, we didn’t invent anything. It’s just one particular moment where we take a piece of something and it belongs to us for just a little bit ...
(Producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, b. 1936) One of Nashville’s most influential producers during the 1970s and early 1980s, Alabama-born Billy Norris Sherrill started out playing piano at tent shows where his father, an evangelist minister, preached. Later, he played in local rock’n’roll and R&B bands. When he came to Nashville in 1964, Sherrill brought ...
(Vocals, 1896–1977) Ethel Waters’ most significant blues releases, on Cardinal and Black Swan, were recorded in the early 1920s. Versatile and ambitious, she soon moved into a more pop-oriented direction, and she also began to work in films and theatrical productions. It was in theatre that she eventually made her greatest mark, but after a ...
If Jerry Lee Lewis had never existed, it seems unlikely that anyone would have had a sufficiently vivid imagination to have invented him. Through a 50-year career, this massively talented, yet infuriatingly self-destructive genius has scaled the heights and plumbed the depths, never for one moment compromising his music or his life. Most people mellow with age. ...
(Yo’-han Sa-bäs’tyan Bakh) 1685–1750 German composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born into a closely knit musical family of which he was rightly proud. His father Johann Ambrosius Bach (1645–95) had an identical twin brother, Johann Christoph (1645–93), who was like a second father to the young Sebastian. Johann was such a common name that almost all boys called Johann were known ...
(Fränts Yo’-sef Hi’-dan) 1732–1809 Austrian composer Joseph Haydn was the most celebrated musician of the late-eighteenth century and the first of the great triumvirate (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) of Viennese classical composers. A tireless explorer and innovator, he did more than anyone to develop the dramatic potential of the sonata style. When he composed his cheerful F major Missa brevis ...
1910–86, English England’s leading tenor from 1945 to 1960, Pears created many of Benjamin Britten’s leading roles, including Peter Grimes, Albert Herring, The Male Chorus (The Rape of Lucretia) and Aschenbach (Death in Venice). An oratorio specialist, he performed the Evangelist in the Bach Passions with distinction, while in recitals, often accompanied by ...
b. 1935 German tenor Schreier made his debut as the First Prisoner in Fidelio (Dresden, 1961), before joining the Berlin State Opera. On the death of Fritz Wunderlich in 1966, he became the best-known exponent of Mozart’s Belmonte, Don Ottavio, Ferrando and Tamino (The Magic Flute), the part with which he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in ...
A product of the spiritual searching of the 1960s, Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) has always been controversial. Combining rock’n’roll with a Bible-based message has seemed profane to some and artistically invalid to others. Despite such criticisms, CCM has attracted millions of loyal fans and given rise to a host of gold- and platinum-selling artists. There’s ambiguity as to what ...
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...
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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.