1876–1948, Italian Born as Ermanno Wolf, Wolf-Ferrari added his mother’s maiden name to his own when he was 19. He showed ability as both an artist and a musician and initially studied at the Accademia dei Belle Arti in Rome. By the late 1890s, however, he had become a student of Arrigo Boito in Milan and unsuccessfully ...
(Guitar, harmonica, vocals, 1910–76) Chester Arthur Burnett was born in White Station, Mississippi. Inspired by Charley Patton, Wolf earned his living as a farmer in the West Memphis, Arkansas area and was strictly a weekend performer until he was almost 40 years old. He got a radio spot in 1948 and the sound of that ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1910–76) Howlin’ Wolf was born Chester Burnett in West Point, Mississippi, and learned the blues from Charley Patton and harmonica from Sonny Boy Williamson, who married his half-sister. After the Army, he began performing around West Memphis, Arkansas, wowing fans with his aggressive vocals and newfangled electric guitar. Promoting himself on ...
(Hoo’-go Vulf) 1860–1903 German composer A fervent Wagnerian, Wolf worked in Vienna as a music critic. As a composer he was master of the miniature: his songs are mini-dramas which encapsulate Wagnerian expression within a lyrical, intimate form, the subtle vocal melodies matched by an equally important, symphonic piano part. The first collections, settings of poems by ...
prose style (he made extensive use of the vernacular) acted as a catalyst for the regeneration of Italian literature. Introduction | Turn of the Century | Opera Personalities | Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari | Turn of the Century | Opera Techniques | Realism, Naturalisme & Verismo | High Romantic | Opera ...
The legend of Sun Records seems to expand and shine brighter with every passing year, as successive generations discover the almost unbelievable array of musical gems that were created at that modest little studio at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis. Sun was the brainchild of one man and it is no exaggeration to say that without his contribution, not ...
Bass Drum The dominant feature of every military band is its big bass drum. Throughout the history of percussion instruments, this drum has been the mainstay of time-keeping, whether it is used for a marching army or in a late-twentieth century heavy metal band. Early versions of the bass drum (it was certainly known in Asia around 3500 BC) ...
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 ...
Few would deny that the blues has played a more important role in the history of popular culture than any other musical genre. As well as being a complete art form in itself, it is a direct ancestor to the different types of current popular music we know and love today. Without the blues there would have been no Beatles ...
‘Rise and Fall of the city of Mahagonny’ Composed: 1927–29 Premiered: 1930, Leipzig Libretto by Bertolt Brecht Act I Leokadja Begbick, Trinity Moses and Fatty, all wanted by the police, found Mahagonny. They recruit men in search of whisky, gambling and women to join them in the ‘city of gold’. Jenny’s price, thirty bucks, ...
‘The Free-shooter’ The Faustian theme, with its connotations of the black arts, was not new to opera when Weber wrote Der Freischütz. Since 1796 there had already been eight operas based on the sixteenth-century legend as composers responded to one of the most seductive themes of the early Romantic era: a pact with the devil for personal gain or ...
Albert King’s late 1960s and early 1970s recordings for the Stax label remain cornerstones of modern blues. Tunes like ‘Born Under A Bad Sign’, ‘Crosscut Saw’ and ‘I’ll Play the Blues For You’ are also an antidote to the over-the-top playing indulged in by so many contemporary blues guitarists. For King, a six-foot-four, 250-pound man possessed of a big ...
(Harmonica, vocals, 1918–61) Walter Horton was born in Horn Lake, Mississippi. He taught himself harmonica at the age of five and was working the streets shortly thereafter. He moved to Chicago in 1940 but it wasn’t until later in the decade that he began to be more active professionally. Horton replaced Junior Wells in the Muddy Waters Band ...
‘When I first heard of the electric guitar, I thought somebody was bullshittin’ me,’ says George ‘Buddy’ Guy. ‘We lived so far in the country I didn’t even know what an acoustic guitar was until my mother started getting mail-order catalogs’. In 2005, Guy, who was born in Lettsworth, Louisiana on 30 July 1936, stands ...
The first great Delta-blues singer, Charley Patton (c. 1887–1934) developed a raw, driving and percussive kind of guitar playing that was a seminal influence on the following generation of Mississippi blues singers, including Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker. All the elements that became integral to the Delta blues – different guitar ...
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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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