Princeton, New Jersey native Trey Anastasio (b. 1964) became the star of the jam-band resurgence through his prolific work both with his band Phish and a multitude of side projects. Phish’s initial touring and recording life spanned from 1983 to 2000, experienced a hiatus from 2000 to 2003 and dissolved in 2004, before regrouping in 2009. Inheriting the ...
Louisiana native James Burton (b. 1939) is one of several guitarists weaned on country music who parlayed his unique talent into session and tour work with rock musicians while maintaining his ties to the country community. Burton first achieved local fame as a backing musician on the popular ‘Louisiana Hayride’ radio show, which spotlighted a young Elvis and rivalled ‘The ...
Alternative-rock guitarist Mike McCready (b. 1966) was born in Pensacola, Florida. His family moved to Seattle soon afterwards. He was 11 when he bought his first guitar and began to take lessons. In high school, McCready formed a band that disintegrated after they were unsuccessful in obtaining a record contract in Los Angeles. Disillusioned, he did not pick ...
The swooping, full-octave slide-guitar riff that opened Elmore James’s (1918–63) first record, ‘Dust My Broom’, in 1951 not only electrified the legacy of Robert Johnson, it also established one of the basic riffs of post-war blues. Bottleneck guitar had always been part of the blues, but James was the first to use it in a hard rocking ...
Groups of fresh-faced young men singing catchy tunes have been one of the mainstays of commercial pop since The Beatles. In the last two decades, manufactured boy bands such as New Kids On The Block and Take That have ruled the roost. Although their musical legacy bears no comparison to that of The Fab Four’s, the devotion they inspired ...
When The Grateful Dead started attracting a large fan following on the Bay Area concert scene during the late-1960s, courtesy of free-form jams that showcased the band’s fusion of folk, rock, country and blues, it signalled that rock’n’roll was latching onto a tradition of improvization that had long been prevalent in other forms of Western music. This ...
1746–1827 English composer and organist Born in Norwich, Hook was musically precocious, performing in public when he was six and composing an opera at eight. At 17 he settled in London as an organist, and soon obtained posts as organist and composer at Marylebone Pleasure Gardens and then (in 1774) at Vauxhall, retiring in 1820. A fluent ...
The classical period saw the rise of the ‘Harmonie’, a small wind band of up to a dozen instruments. Usually this consisted of a mixture of brass and reeds, such as horns, clarinets, oboes and bassoons: Beethoven’s octet op. 103 (1792) is written for two of each of these (the 1796 op. 71 sextet leaves out the oboes). ...
While in the US and several European countries there is a tradition of mixed wind bands, Britain developed bands made up of brass instruments with saxophone and percussion. The repertory of such ensembles tended to be arrangements of dance music, opera overtures and marches. (Twentieth-century British composers have pioneered original music for brass band.) The brass band developed ...
The music of Latin America combines influences from the traditional music of the African slaves transported between 1450 and the end of the nineteenth century, music from the Spanish and Portuguese colonial powers, and latterly, pop and jazz from North America. Samba is an umbrella term describing an energetic style of dancing and drumming performed at the annual ...
(Instrumental group, 1900–17) The Eagle Band, originally led by Buddy Bolden, was an extremely popular and influential New Orleans ensemble. Frankie Duson (or Dusen) (1880–1940), a powerful tailgate trombonist, joined the band in 1906 and went on to take over the band when Bolden suffered a mental collapse the following year. Subsequently, Duson employed various Bolden ...
(Instrumental group, 1917–25) The Original Dixieland Jass Band were five young white musicians from working-class uptown New Orleans – Nick LaRocca (cornet), Larry Shields (clarinet), Eddie Edwards (trombone), Tony Spargo (real name Sbarbaro, drums) and Henry Ragas (piano). All alumni of ‘Papa’ Jack Laine’s stable of bands, they went to Chicago and then to New York, where ...
(Piano, composer, 1894–1955) The seminal figure among the Harlem stride pianists, Johnson was a mentor to Fats Waller and composer of ‘The Charleston’, which launched a Jazz Age dance craze. Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Art Tatum were also directly influenced by Johnson’s skilful stride and compositions, including ‘You’ve Got To Be Modernistic’ – an evolutionary ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1927–34) They did not invent the style, but guitarist/harpist Will Shade (a.k.a. Son Brimmer) and his rollicking aggregation were among the most popular and influential of the jug and string bands that proliferated around Memphis and Louisville, as well as in the Mississippi Delta, during the 1920s and 1930s. With various personnel coming ...
(Trumpet, 1903–32) A key figure in the Duke Ellington Orchestra of 1926–28, Miley played a lead role on such classic pieces of early Ellingtonia as ‘East St. Louis Toodle-Oo’, ‘Black And Tan Fantasy’ and ‘Creole Love Call’. His uniquely expressive, growling trumpet style was influenced by the plunger mute approach of King Oliver, and served as one ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
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