Eddie Hazel (1950–92) was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey. He played guitar and sang in church. At the age of 12, he met Billy ‘Bass’ Nelson, and the pair sang and played guitar together. In 1967 the Parliaments, a Plainfield-based doo-wop band headed by George Clinton, hit the charts with ‘I ...
By the 1970s, the new sound of funk dominated Afro-American music. Jazzers such as Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock scored their biggest commercial successes by incorporating its hip-grinding rhythms into what became known as fusion or jazz funk, while soul acts enjoyed a second wave of popularity as funk provided the bridge between the soul and disco eras. Fuelled ...
Funk stars of the 1970s like The Ohio Players, Sly & The Family Stone and Funkadelic didn’t realize for a decade that hard rock ears had been paying attention. That same decade, Aerosmith’s combination of white-boy electric blues and propulsive arena hard rock had been deemed as unique, with just Grand Funk Railroad working along the similar lines. ...
James Brown, who pioneered a music so orientated towards pure, African-derived rhythm that melody would finally be forced to take a back seat as backbeat took the wheel. Funk as a term had been around since the turn of the twentieth century, when it applied specifically to the odours produced by the human body during and after sex. ...
was limited to military bands, a move indoors ensured that its distinctive timbre would create some of the best popular music of the twentieth century – from rock’n’roll to funk, soul to jazz, for which it became a universal icon. When the tenor sax was adopted by the jazz world it was imbued with the dangerous allure the ...
through guitar effects – such as a wah-wah pedal – prior to amplification. The clavinet’s distinctively bright percussive sound ensured that the instrument became a firm favourite with players of funk and rock music. John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin used the instrument extensively on the Physical Graffiti album, but perhaps the clavinet’s defining moment was its use in Stevie ...
Rhodes or the Wurlitzer. Fender Rhodes Most influential in the 1970s, the ‘Rhodes’ helped define the sound of jazz-funk and jazz-fusion, and was played by many soul, funk and disco artists. Harold Rhodes developed his Army Air Corps Piano from old bits salvaged from B-17 bombers. Using no electrics at all, he achieved a compact portable piano ...
that groups could create very rich, multi-layered textures, with the help of skilled record producers, such as Phil Spector. In styles such as rhythm and blues, funk and disco, extra musicians were often included to add richness. These included string sections (usually violins), horn sections (wind and brass instruments such as trumpet, saxophone and trombone) ...
Zacharias had developed some years earlier as an electronic counterpart to the harpsichord. The clavinet’s distinctively bright percussive sound ensured that the instrument became a firm favourite with players of funk and rock music. John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin used the instrument extensively on the Physical Graffiti album, but perhaps the clavinet’s defining moment was its use in Stevie ...
somebody who plays other people’s records, the practice has become a hugely popular one, despite being frequently maligned and misunderstood. As DJ culture evolved through northern soul, funk and reggae and towards disco, the art of DJing came to be about communicating with a roomful of people through music. With a box of records to play, ...
was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.’ Frederick Douglass, My Bondage And My Freedom Styles Jubilee Quartet Barbershop Spirituals Gospel Funk Gospel Rap Sacred Steel Gospel Style Traditional gospel music followed the ‘call and response’ pattern of work songs sung by the slaves in the cotton fields. The main vocalist – ...
enduring musical genres, hip hop was born out of invention. When, as the 1970s came to a close, a combination of disco and big record company involvement had diluted funk and soul to the extent that it had become boring to go out to a club on a Saturday night, something rumbled out of New York’s South Bronx that would change ...
have fallen into the pop category – such as new wave (an offshoot of punk) and 2-tone (a by-product of ska). Having split off from rock while incorporating anything from funk to Latin, pop music keeps evolving. Even so, its most consistent feature is its propensity for instant gratification. ‘If you can really get it together in three minutes ...
Doom Metal Heavy Metal Speed & Thrash Metal Death Metal & Grindcore Madchester Alternative/Indie Rock Shoegazing US Underground & Garage Rock Progressive Metal Black Metal Southern Rock Jam Bands Grunge Funk Metal Riot Grrrl Nu Metal Rock Style Rock music is characterized by a heavy drum style, which provides a steady yet rhythmically varied base for the other musicians to ...
Sounds In Country And Western Music from the same year, established soul as an album-selling genre. James Brown, of course, was key in turning soul music into funk and disco, and through his ability to make African-derived rhythm into a complex but universally understood musical language, he had the most profound influence upon hip hop and ...
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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.