(Vocals, guitar, 1899–1947) A resident of Brownsville, Tennessee, Willie Newbern had only one recording session, for OKeh in Atlanta in 1929. Although he was not widely known outside his area, he influenced quite a few musicians: he recorded the first known version of ‘Roll And Tumble Blues’ and is said to have taught it to ...
(Vocals, guitar, c. 1902–47) Texas-born Willie Johnson, a purveyor of sacred material who would probably have been appalled at being categorized as a ‘blues’ artist, was blinded at the age of seven when his stepmother threw lye in his face after being beaten by his father. He sang in a hoarse, declamatory voice and his fretwork ...
(Vocals, guitar, 1901–59) A skilled purveyor of the ragtime-influenced Piedmont fingerpicking style, Atlanta-based Blind Willie McTell incorporated pop songs and novelty numbers, as well as blues, into his repertoire – befitting an entertainer who got his start in tent shows, medicine shows and carnivals. His voice was unusually tender and expressive for a musician who ...
(Vocals, 1937–68) Arkansas-born William Edgar John, who moved to Detroit as a child, was signed to King Records from 1955. A string of US R&B Top 20 hits followed, several of which crossed over to the US pop chart. He is said to have influenced many major soul singers of the 1960s, and his best-known hits ...
(Piano, 1897–1973) In the 1920s Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith was an obscure master of Harlem stride (a virtuoso style that evolved out of ragtime after 1919) whose brilliant technique influenced countless young pianists who heard him in person. His legend began to emerge in 1935 as stride was fading into nostalgia and he started to record regularly. For the next ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1900–52) An associate of Charley Patton, Brown was a part of the Mississippi blues scene in the early 1920s. While he started out playing with Patton and Tommy Johnson, he teamed up with Son House in 1926 and accompanied his Paramount session in May 1930, also cutting four songs of his own. Brown played ...
(Bass, vocals, songwriter, 1915–92) Willie James Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi and moved to Chicago at the age of 11. He learned bass and made his recording debut with the Five Breezes in 1940. After the Second World War he formed the Big Three trio, with whom he worked and recorded until 1952. He began ...
A few days after Christmas, 1969, Willie Nelson (b. 1933) watched his house outside Nashville burn to the ground. Going up in flames were not only his furniture, guitars and only copies of unpublished songs – but also some of his ties to Music Row. A New Beginning Nelson had begun the decade as one of the hottest ...
When Vassar Clements formed a band called Hillbilly Jazz in 1975, Bill Monroe’s former fiddler pulled the cover off the hidden connection between country music and jazz. The two genres had more in common than most people thought. After all, Jimmie Rodgers recorded with Louis Armstrong early in their careers; jazz legend Charlie Christian debuted on Bob Wills’ radio ...
Almost no Texan musicians have ever herded cattle, but most like to think of themselves as cowboys nonetheless. They imagine themselves pulling out an acoustic guitar after dinner and singing a song about the adventures and frustrations they have known. And not just any old song – it has to be one they wrote and it has to be more ...
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band started out in 1966 as a student jug band in Los Angeles, and in an early incarnation it included a teenage Jackson Browne. Among the group’s founder members was singer and guitarist Jeff Hanna. Both Hanna and multi-instrumentalist Jimmie Fadden are still Dirt Band members 40 years on. The extremely ambitious Will The Circle Be ...
When Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family became country music’s first superstars in 1927, their audience was the farmers, miners, wives and other blue-collar workers of the rural South. It was an audience that left school early for a life of hard work in isolated communities. When those men and women gathered at a tavern or schoolroom on ...
The parents of William Lee Conley Broonzy were born into slavery. He was born in June 1893 in Scott, Mississippi, one of 17 children. Raised on a farm in Arkansas, Broonzy’s first musical instrument was a home-made violin, which he played at church and social functions. In the early teens he was an itinerant preacher, while ...
Joseph Vernon Turner was born on 18 May 1911 in Kansas City, Missouri. He dropped out of school after sixth grade and worked with blind singers on the streets. The blues was in the air in Kansas City and when Turner joined in with the street singers he would make up blues lyrics. Turner was functionally illiterate and never learned ...
(Harmonica, vocals, 1926–84) Willie Mae Thornton was born in Montgomery, Alabama. She settled in Houston, Texas in 1948 and began recording for the Peacock label in 1951. She toured with Johnny Otis in 1952–53 and recorded her number-one R&B hit, ‘Hound Dog’, with his band. The record, famously covered by Elvis Presley, enabled her ...
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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.