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Them was perhaps the best of the British
blues-rock bands that emerged during the Sixties. The band covered much of the
same blues/R&B terrain as bands such as the Rolling Stones and Yardbirds,
yet they possessed the best white blues shouter of the era, Van Morrison.
Them was formed in Belfast, Ireland, in
1964, and the band quickly gained a reputation for its hard drinking and
brawling as well as music.
The band’s first album, “Here Comes the Night” (1965), was a brilliant debut which combined inspired covers of blues standards
and original material. The title track, “Here Comes the Night,” would become a
hit. “Mystic Eyes” and “Gloria” are also standout tracks. The band’s sophomore album,
“Them Again” (1966), continued in the same rave-up R&B vein with
outstanding covers of “Turn On Your Love Light,” “I Put a Spell on You,” and “I
Got a Woman.”
Van Morrison left the group after Them
Again to pursue a solo career and the band continued without him. Despite the
loss of Morrison, Them produced two more solid albums featuring a new
psychedelic sound, “Now and Them” (1968) and “Time Out! Time in for Them”
(1968). Complete Them (1964-1967)
is a fine compilation of the band’s work
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From the
freezing cold prairie town of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the Guess Who burst
upon the music scene in the late Sixties. When original lead singer, Chad Allen,
left the band to return to school, his replacement, the teenaged Burton
Cummings, would spearhead the band to international fame.
Cummings
and the rest of the band, guitarist Randy Bachman, bassist Jim Kale; and
drummer Gary Peterson would soon score a big hit with “These Eyes.” That song
would be included in the album, “Wheatfield Soul” (1968), the first Guess Who
album to make an impact outside of Canada.
With
keyboardist and lead singer Cummings as front man, the Guess Who would record a
string of hit singles which included “Undun” and “Laughing” from “Canned Wheat”
(1969) and “American Woman” and “No Time” from the “American Woman” (1970)
album. The track, “American Woman,” would become the band’s one and only No. 1
hit.
Randy
Bachman, a Mormon, would leave the band during the height of its success, fed
up with the excessive lifestyles of his band mates. He was replaced by
guitarist Kurt Winter, and the Guess Who kept on churning out hits. The album,“Share The Land” (1970), saw the title track,
“Share the Land,” “Hand Me Down World,” and “Hang On to Your Life” all become
hits. Despite earning a reputation as a “singles” band, the Guess Who produced
solid and consistent albums throughout this period.
The Guess
Who would continue to tour and record until 1975, occasionally scoring hit
singles and releasing decent albums, the best of which is “Live at theParamount
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Sidney Bechet was a musical child prodigy born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1897. Bechet was so musically advanced as a child that he had already played with many of the top bands in New Orleans. Bechet was one of a few jazz musicians of his generation who could rival Louis Armstrong’s brilliance as a soloist.
In 1917, Bechet moved to Chicago. After a tour of Europe, Bechet returned to America with a new instrument, the soprano saxophone and he soon established himself as a master of the instrument. Bechet made his recording debut in 1923 with Clarence Williams. He appeared with Louis Armstrong on a classic session with the Clarence Williams Blue Five that produced superb sides such as “Cake Walkin’ Babies from Home.”
From 1925 to 1929, Bechet lived and played in Europe. While in Paris, Bechet became involved in a daylight gun fight with another musician that resulted in injuries to innocent bystanders. Bechet was imprisoned for a year as a result, and was deported upon release.
During the depression, Bechet supplemented his income by running a tailor shop with trumpeter Tommy Ladnier. Bechet and Ladnier subsequently recorded several outstanding sides of New Orleans jazz under the name, “New Orleans Feetwarmers.” In 1938, Bechet scored a big hit with his stirring rendition of the standard, “Summertime.”
Bechet returned to France in 1952 and continued to record hit jazz records. Bechet died in Paris, in 1959.
Bechet’s recordings can be found on a number of fine compilation albums, including the great two-volume, “Jazz Classics” (1950) and "Chronological Classics."
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Benny
Goodman and long-time rival, Artie Shaw, are the two greatest and best-known
white clarinetists in the history of jazz. Both men achieved huge commercial
and critical success during their respective careers. It was Goodman, however,
who would forever be identified with the title, “King of Swing,” for his role
in the invention of the most popular jazz subgenre during the height of the
music’s popularity.
Benny
Goodman was born in Chicago,
Illinois, in 1909. His parents
were Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire who struggled to provide for
their large family. Despite the family’s relative poverty, David Goodman
arranged for music lessons for three of his sons, including Benny, at a local Chicago synagogue. After
a year’s training, Benny Goodman, aged eleven, joined a boys’ club band and
received further musical training from the club’s director, and later from a
classically-trained clarinetist. With this solid foundation, Goodman would
launch a career that would span seven decades and would span musical genres
from early classic jazz to classical music.
Goodman’s
began his jazz career as a clarinetist in the Ben Pollack Orchestra at the age
of sixteen. He would make his first recording with the Pollack Orchestra in
1926. He would continue performing and recording with the Pollack Orchestra and
its various off-shoots until 1929. During this frenetic period, Goodman also
recorded with nationally- known bands of Ben Selvin, Red Nichols, and Ted
Lewis. He also recorded under his own name with trombonist Glenn Miller and
others as “Benny Goodman’s Boys.”
In the
early Thirties, John Hammond of Columbia records arranged for Goodman to record
in the company of other stellar jazz musicians in a jazz “all star” band. Other
members of the band included pianist Teddy Wilson and drummer Gene Kroupa, two
musicians that would form the core of the rhythm section of Goodman’s later orchestra.
In 1935, Goodman expressed interest in appearing on the nationwide radio dance
music show, “Let’s Dance.” At the advice of John Hammond, Goodman secured
“swinging” arrangements of songs from Fletcher Henderson, leader of one of New York’s best jazz
orchestras. These arrangements helped make Goodman a hit with the West Coast
audience that heard his performance.
On the
strength of the Let’s Dance performance and the rave reviews of Goodman’s
recordings of “King Porter Stop” and “Sometimes I’m Happy” with Fletcher
Henderson arrangements, a large and enthusiastic crowd of young fans were
waiting in Oakland, California when the band played a show there
in August of 1935. When the Goodman band began to play, the crowd went wild.
The same reaction greeted the band in Los
Angeles during the debut of a three week engagement at
the Palomar Ballroom in August, 1935. During the three-week engagement the “Jitterbug”
dance was born, and along with it, the “Swing Era.”
In the
wake of the tremendous success of the Goodman band in California, Fletcher Henderson disbanded his
great orchestra and become Goodman’s full-time arranger. With the addition of
Henderson and pianist Teddy Wilson, both African-Americans, Goodman’s band became
the first racially-integrated jazz band in America. Goodman would later add
another African-American, the great Charlie Christian, on guitar.
Goodman was
coined, “The King of Swing” in 1937, and was secured as such when his orchestra
became the first jazz band to play New
York’s Carnegie Hall, in 1938. The concert, which
included members of Count Basie’s and Duke Ellington’s orchestras, was a true
test for jazz music as an art form. If the high-brow Carnegie Hall set could be
moved by jazz, the music would earn a much needed stamp of approval from the
music establishment. After an uninspired start, the Goodman Orchestra slowly
built momentum and climaxed with an epic version of “Sing, Sing, Sing”
featuring spectacular solos by Goodman and pianist, Jess Stacy.
In 1939,
John Hammond introduced the electric guitarist, Charlie Christian, to Goodman
as a prospective band member. Despite initial doubts, Goodman was greatly
impressed with Christian’s playing and included him in the Benny Goodman Sextet
for the next two years. The sextet recordings with Christian including “Rose
Room,” “Breakfast Feud,” and “Grand Slam” are some of the finest recordings in
jazz history.
Goodman
continued to have tremendous success as a big band leader until the mid-Forties
when swing music began to lose steam. Goodman flirted with be-bop music and
even formed a bebop band before finally denouncing the music. In 1949, at the
age of 40, Goodman turned his back on jazz to devote himself to the study of
classical music. Following a lengthy retirement from jazz, Goodman died of a
heart attack in 1986.
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Ali “Farka "Toure is
among only a handful of African folk musicians who have found an audience for their
music beyond the borders of the African continent. Toure’s involvement with
American guitarist and musicologist Ry Cooder in the Nineties brought him to
the attention of North American roots music listeners. Toure would eventually
become known as the “Bluesman of Africa”
Toure was born in Kanau, Mali,
in 1939. As a youth, Toure was introduced to African-American music, including
soul from the likes of Ray Charles and Otis Redding and the Delta blues. Toure
wrote music and performed for a group called Troupe 117 which was organized by
the Malian government following the country’s establishment of independence.
In 1968, Toure
appeared in a performance in Sofia, Bulgaria, his first such appearance outside of Africa. By the Seventies, Toure was performing on Radio Mali, and the Sonafric
label recruited him to recorded several albums during the decade.
In 1995, Toure recorded the brilliant “Talking Timbuktu” with Ry Cooder and
embarked on a world tour. For his next album, “Niafunke” (1999), Toure’s
producer needed to install remote recording equipment near Toure’s farm as the
performer refused to leave his rice fields unattended to make recordings.
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Bessie Smith was known as the “Empress of
the Blues,” so it’s only fitting that her mentor and senior, Ma Rainey, should
be forever remembered as “The Mother of the Blues.” Ma Rainey was born Gertrude
Pridgett in Columbus, Georgia, in 1886. She acquired the
moniker, “Ma,” after she married William “Pa” Rainey in 1904.
Rainey began performing music when she was
12-years-old, and she and her husband eventually became members of the
legendary touring ensemble, F.S. Walcott’s Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels. From 1914,
the Raineys became known as “Rainey and Rainey, Assassins of the Blues.” Ma
Rainey eventually met Bessie Smith, and she acted as a mentor for the younger
singer.
Mamie Smith became the first African-American
woman to make a blues record in 1920, and the sensation that her recording,
“Crazy Blues,” stirred led to record companies searching out other African-American
blues singers. Paramount
discovered Rainey in1923, and enabled her to make her first recordings. She
went to Chicago
in late 1923 to make her first record “Bad Luck Blues,” Bo-Weevil Blues,” and
“Moonshine Blues.”
Rainey would record over 100 sides for Paramount over the next
five years. She was marketed as “Mother of the Blues” among other tags. In 1924,
she recorded with the young Louis Armstrong on “See See Rider Blues,” “Jelly
Bean Blues,” and “Countin’ the Blues.”
As the Thirties approached, Rainey’s brand
of Vaudeville blues was beginning to lose popularity, and Paramount failed to renew her recording
contract. Rainey died in Rome,
Georgia, in
1939, of a heart attack.
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Alberta Hunter was
one of the first female blues singers to record. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee,
in 1895, and made her first recordings, “Bring Back the Joys/ How Long, Sweet
Daddy, How Long,” in 1921, for the Black Swan label. By 1922, she had moved on to
the Paramount label and established herself as
one of the most prolific blues performers of the early Twenties.
Hunter continued to
perform and record late into her long life. She died in New York City in 1984 and the age of 89. Among
several compilation albums of Hunter’s music are “Complete Recorded Works”
(Volumes 1-4) (1996) and “Young Alberta Hunter: The 20’s and 30’s” (1996).
Albert King is one
of three blues singers/guitarists, Freddie, BB and Albert, with the surname,
“King.” Of the three, BB King is by far the most famous, but blues purists will
often point to Albert as the best of the trio. King was born in Indianola, Mississippi in
1923 and died in Memphis, Tennessee in 1993.
King made his first
recordings during the early Fifties for the Parrot label, but his career didn’t
get started in earnest until the early Sixties with singles for the King label.
King recorded for the legendary Chess Records, but may have produced his best work,
“Born under a Bad Sign” (1967) for the soul label, Stax.
Other fine albums by
King include, “The Big Blues” (1963), “Live Wire/Blues Power” (1968), “Years
Gone By” (1969) and “King of the Blues Guitar” (1969). King appears on the
superb compilation, “The Complete Stax/Volt Singles” series along with the rest
of the stellar Stax roster of blues and soul stars.
Johnson was one of the best of the early acoustic
blues guitarists. He possessed a technical proficiency that separated him from
his peers, and he was always in high demand as a session guitarist for blues
and jazz recordings. Johnson was a fine vocalist as well, and his prodigious
chops made him a hot recording property in the Twenties.
The place and date of his birth are the subject of
some debate, although many believe his birthplace to be New Orleans. It is known for sure that
Johnson was raised in New Orleans and later
moved to St. Louis
in the Twenties where he began recording for Okeh Records. That label would
release his first side, “Mr. Johnson’s Blues,” in 1925. Johnson recorded
numerous sides for the label including, “Very Lonesome Blues,” “Lonesome Jail
Blues,” Five o’clock Blues,” “Backwater Blues,” and many others.
Johnson lent his nimble guitar skills to Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five recordings in
1927. The next year, Johnson and the white jazz guitarist, Eddie Lang, made
some of the first racially-integrated jazz recordings. Johnson’s career
suffered during the Depression Era of the Thirties when Okeh went bankrupt and
he relocated to Canada.
Johnson died in 1970, in Toronto,
from injuries he had suffered in a car accident.
Like most other musicians of his era, Johnson’s work
is best heard on any number of compilation albums. “Blues in My Fingers: The
Essential Recordings of Lonnie Johnson” (1994), and “Complete Recorded Works
1925-1932” (1991) are the best compilations available for this artist.
Woody Guthrie was the most important figure in the history
of American folk music. Guthrie was more than a singer and musician. He was a
real-life incarnation of John Steinbeck’s character of Tom Joad from the Grapes
of Wrath and a committed left-wing political activist.
Guthrie was born in Okemah,
Oklahoma in 1912. When he was 14
he began playing the guitar and harmonica and learned the English and Scottish
folk songs from the parents of his friends. Despite being a bright student,
Guthrie dropped out of high school and started busking on streets. When he was
eighteen his father called for him to come to Texas to attend school, but Guthrie spent
his time busking and reading in the library.By 1930, Guthrie joined thousands of other “Okies” (Oklahomans) who were
migrating to California to search for work and
escape the “dust bowl” drought that plagued Oklahoma.
In California,
Guthrie worked odd jobs, and by the end of the thirties, he had managed to land
a job playing folk and “hillbilly” music on the radio. At this time he would
write the songs about his experiences during the dustbowl era migration to California that would
later become his legendary collection of dustbowl ballads. In 1936, he would
begin to perform at communist party events in California, and although he never joined the
party, he would later be tagged as a communist.
By the 1940s, Guthrie was in New York
City, and his “Oklahoma
cowboy” nickname and reputation endeared him to the leftist folk music
community in the city. He would record his album, “Dust Bowl Ballads” (1940)
for the Victor Records in Camden,
New Jersey, shortly after his
arrival. The album has long been hailed as a superb document of an episode of
American history told by a man who lived it. Guthrie would also record for Alan
Lomax of the Library of Congress, singing and speaking about his adventures of
the dust bowl period of ten years before.
Guthrie would land another radio job in New York, this time as the host of the “Pipe
Smoking Time” show which was sponsored by a tobacco company. He also appeared
on CBS radio on the program, “Back Where I Came From”. He managed to get a sopt
on the show for his friend, the legendary black folk singer, Huddie “Leadbelly”
Ledbetter. By 1941, Guthrie was off to WashingtonState
to write and perform songs about the construction of Grand Coulee Dam in the
employ of the American Department of the Interior. Guthrie wrote 26 songs for a
film which was to be produced about the project, but the film never came to
fruition. The songs, “Pastures of Plenty” and “Grand Coulee Dam” would become
well known nonetheless.
In 1944, Guthrie met Moses Asch of Folkways Records for whom
Guthrie would record hundreds of songs including the first recording of perhaps
his best known tune, “This Land is Your Land”. Folkways would later release
these songs in various collections.
By the mid 1950s, Guthrie’s health was deteriorating with
the onset of Huntington’s disease. He was eventually bedridden in BellevueHospital, and in 1960 was visited by a
very young and awestruck admirer, Bob Dylan.
Leadbelly is a legendary figure in both the fields of
folk music and the blues. Leadbelly’s life is the stuff of American popular
legend. He was a hard man who was convicted of murder and spent much of his
early adult life in prison. While in prison, he worked in chain gangs doing
hard labor.
Leadbelly is remembered for his twelve-string guitar
virtuosity and his catalogue of songs, both blues and folk that he either wrote
or collected on his travels in the early days of the 20th century.
Among Leadbelly’s most famous songs are: “Good Night Irene,” “Black Betty,”
“Midnight Special,” “On a Monday,” “Pick a Bale of Cotton,” “Green Corn,” and
“Stewball.”
Leadbelly was born Huddie Ledbetter in Mooringsport, Louisiana,
in 1885. By the time he was five-years-old, his family had settled in Bowie County, Texas.
Leadbelly learned the guitar in childhood, and by 1903, he was performing in Shreveport, Louisiana,
clubs and steadily honing his craft. The wide range of music which Leadbelly
heard in Shreveport
had an indelible influence on his music. In 1912, following the sinking of the
Titanic, Leadbelly wrote a song about the ship noting that African-American
boxer, Jack Johnson, was denied the right to sail on the ship and was able to
live out his life as a result.
In 1915, Leadbelly landed in trouble when he was
convicted of carrying a pistol. Three years later, his volatile temper
exploded, and he killed one of his relatives, Will Stafford, in a fistfight
over a woman. He was sentenced to imprisonment in the SugarLand prison near Houston, where he served 7 years. A song written
for the Texas
governor and his performances for fellow prisoners helped to earn him an early
release. He was released in 1925, but would wind up back in prison at Angola
Prison Farm, in 1930, for attempted murder, after he had knifed a white man in
a fight. Between his stints in prison, Leadbelly traveled around Texas with blues master, Blind Lemon Jefferson, playing
music and acting as Jefferson’s guide.
In 1933, John Lomax of the Library of Congress
“discovered” Leadbelly in Angola
and recorded him on primitive recording equipment. Lomax would return the
following year with better recording equipment and record hundreds of songs
from Leadbelly’s vast repertoire of blues and folk tunes. Later that year,
Leadbelly was released for good behavior and accompanied Lomax on several song
collecting excursions through the American South.
Later in 1934, Leadbelly landed a recording deal with
ARC Records, and recorded blues material. His recordings were commercially
unsuccessful, and he returned to Louisiana.
In 1936, Leadbelly traveled to New York where
he tried to appeal to black audiences in Harlem’s
Apollo Theatre by playing the blues. He failed to win over the Apollo
audiences, but began to attract attention from the white leftist folk crowd.
In 1939, Leadbelly landed in trouble again, this time
for stabbing a man in a fight in Manhattan-a
crime which landed him in jail again for two years. Upon his release in 1941,
Leadbelly became a fixture on the New
York folk club scene, appearing with other folk
luminaries such as Josh White, Brownie McGhee, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger.
In 1944, Leadbelly went to California
where he made a series of excellent recordings for Capital Records. Leadbelly
contracted Lou Gehrig’s disease in 1949 and died later that year in New York City.
Leadbelly’s music is best heard on the compilations,
“Last Sessions” (1953), “Sings Folk Songs” (1962), “Leadbelly” (1965),
“Midnight Special” (1991), “King of the 12-String Guitar” (1991) and “Where Did
You Sleep Last Night: Leadbelly Legacy Vol 1.” (1996), and “The Definitive
Leadbelly” (2008).
When guitar heroes of rock music are
discussed, Jimi Hendrix’s name is often mentioned as perhaps the best of them
all. Of course, the topic is highly subjective, and Hendrix status as a rock
star who died while still in his twenties can prejudice any such discussion. It
is clear, however, that he is among an elite group of rock guitarists, and his
prodigious technical skill and showmanship rendered him the first true guitar
god of rock.
Hendrix was born in Seattle, Washington,
in 1942. Following a less than stellar stint in the army, he got his start in
music as a session guitarist for R&B acts such as King Curtis and the Isley
Brothers, and in live performances with the likes of Slim Harpo, Jackie Wilson,
Curtis Knight and the Squires, and Sam Cooke. By the mid-Sixties, Hendrix had
dubbed himself, “Jimmy James” and with his band, The Blue Flames, was playing
the club scene in New York’s Greenwich
Village.
In a fortuitous turn, Hendrix met the
girlfriend of The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, Linda Keith, at a New York City club. Keith
recommended Hendrix to the Stones’ manager, Andrew Loog Oldham and Chas
Chandler of the Animals. Chandler was impressed
with Hendrix’s song, “Hey Joe,” and brought him to London in the fall of 1966.
Chandler brought in two Englishmen, bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch
Mitchell as Hendrix’s sidemen and named the newly formed trio, “The Jimi
Hendrix Experience.” Hendrix and his new band would soon make rock music
history by recording three albums that would all go down in history as ground-breaking
classics in the annals of rock.
The first album,
“Are You Experienced,” was released in the United
Kingdom in the spring of 1967, and shortly thereafter in North America. It was an instant commercial and critical
success and contained the classic tunes, “Are You Experienced,” “Fire,” “Hey
Joe,” and “Purple Haze.” The album is now hailed as one of the greatest rock
albums ever recorded.
Hendrix would follow-up
his outstanding debut with “Axis: Bold as Love,” also from 1967. This album
contained fewer “hits,” but featured some technical innovations previously
unheard on popular music recordings. The opening track, “EXP,” contains channel-switching
stereo effects which have the guitar sound fading in one channel and re-emerging
in the other. Hendrix also uses the “wah-wah” pedal for the first time on this
recording.
For his third
effort, “Electric Ladyland” (1968), Hendrix brought in Steve Winwood, Dave Mason
and Chris Wood from Traffic and Al Kooper from The Blues Project. The ambitious
double album featured the epic tracks, “All Along the Watchtower,” probably the
best and most original Bob Dylan cover ever, and “Voodoo Chile (slight return).”
Hendrix and the
Experience would break-up and later reunite as “They Band of Gypsys,” and a
live album of the Gypsys would appear in 1970. Hendrix died of an apparent drug
overdose in London,
in September of 1970.
Buffalo Springfield formed as a result of a
famous chance meeting on the Sunset Strip between Neil Young and Steven Stills.
After driving his 53’Pontiac hearse from Toronto to Los
Angeles with his friend, bassist Bruce Palmer, Neil
Young encountered Stills on that famous street. Stills was with his friend,
singer and guitarist Ritchie Furay, at the time. Stills and Young had
previously met in Toronto
and instantly recognized each other. The four musicians stopped, chatted, and
decided to form a band. Americans Stills and Furay and Canadians Young, Palmer,
and drummer Dewey Martin would become famous as “Buffalo Springfield” in 1966.
Buffalo Springfield released their debut
album, “Buffalo Springfield” in 1966 and found instant critical acclaim and
popularity. Their music could best be described as folk-rock, but this talented
assemblage of musicians played a variety of styles including folk, country,
rock, and pop. “For what it’s Worth,” “Go and Say Goodbye,” Flying on The
Ground Is Wrong,” and “Nowadays Clancy Can Even Sing” are all classic tracks
from the debut album.
With their next effort, “Buffalo
Springfield Again” (1967), the band would produce their masterpiece. This album
was more consistent than the debut and featured more studio polish courtesy of
producer Jack Nitzche. “Expecting to Fly” and “Broken Arrow,” two songs by Neil Young, are
the albums’ highlights.
The band would produce one more solid
album, “Last Time Around” (1968), featuring outstanding tracks in “Kind Woman,”
“One the Way Home,” and “I Am a Child” before disbanding.
Despite their brief run of just two years,
Buffalo Springfield was a hugely influential band that spawned the solo careers
of Young and Stills and future country-rock bands Poco, Manassas
and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.
The Byrds are among the greatest bands in
the history of American pop music. The band is the original folk-rock outfit
and was the first band to play country-rock. Pioneered by folk singer turned
rocker, Roger McGuinn, the Byrds saw many lineup changes throughout the years,
but despite the turnover of musicians, the band always produced original and
inspired music. Originally called the “Beefeaters,” the Byrds formed in early
1964 with members, McGuinn on guitar; David Crosby on guitar; Gene Clark on
guitar; Michael Clarke on drums; and Chris Hillman on bass.
The Byrds “jangly” sound was derived from
McGuinn’s 12-string Rickenbacker guitar. This trademark sound was in full
evidence on their first album, “Mr. Tambourine Man” (1965). The album opens
with the title track, a rocking hit version of the Bob Dylan classic. Dylan
songs would be covered often by the Byrds and be infused with that unmistakable
Byrds sound.
The Byrds next recorded the very solid,
“Turn, “Turn, “Turn” album in 1965. The title track of this album also became a
big hit.
Two excellent albums came next: “Fifth
Dimension” (1966) and “Younger than Yesterday” (1967) spawning hits with “Eight
Miles High” and “So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star,” respectively.
It was at this point, seemingly at the peak
of the band’s commercial and critical success, when Gene Clark and David Crosby
departed to pursue solo careers. For their next project, “The Notorious Byrd
Brothers” (1968), the band was reduced to a trio. No matter it seems when the
listening to the result-a brilliant album of stunning experimental music. The
album is inspired from start to finish, especially on numbers like, “Draft
Morning,” “Wasn’t Born To Follow,” “Natural Harmony,” and “Get to You.”
Now a trio, the Byrds added new members,
country-hippie Gram Parsons from the International Submarine Band and the
superb country guitarist Clarence White. With the overt country influence of
its new members, the Byrds produced the first true country-rock album, the
excellent “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” (1968). Parsons soon left the band to form
the Flying Burrito Brothers.
The Byrds had reached the peak of their
creative powers and would continue to record until 1973, but only the
“Untitled” album released in 1970 would approach the heights they achieved in the
Sixties.
George Gershwin was an American pianist and
modern classical composer whose contributions to popular music fall within the
realm of jazz. Gershwin was the first classical musician or composer who
embraced the new 20th century music of jazz and melded it with
classical music.
Gershwin was born Jacob Gershowitz in Brooklyn, New
York, in 1898, to Russian/Ukrainian parents. He
studied piano from age ten under the tutelage of classical pianist Charles
Hambitzer, who would remain Gershwin’s mentor until Gershwin was around 20-years-old.
Gershwin began his music career upon
dropping out of high school at age 15, finding work as a songwriter of pop
tunes in New York City’s
famed Tin Pan Alley. His first successful song was the ragtime hit, “Rialto
Ripples,” in 1917. Two years later he penned the famous song, “Swanee,” which
would become a huge hit for Al Jolson. Gershwin also produced piano rolls for
player pianos for the Aeolian company.
Gershwin began writing jazz songs in the
early Twenties with lyricist Buddy DeSylva and his brother, Ira Gershwin. The
team’s early songs included “Oh, Lady Be Good” and “Fascinating Rhythm.” These
classic songs were followed by “Funny Face,” “I Got Rhythm,” and “Of Thee I
Sing.”
In 1924, Gershwin wrote the jazz-infused
modern classical masterpiece, “Rhapsody in Blue.” This famous work was
introduced to the world by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra in a New York City performance. Gershwin then
headed to Paris
with the ambition of furthering his classical training, but was rejected by
several prospective mentors including Maurice Ravel. While in Paris,
Gershwin penned another jazzy classical masterpiece, “An American in Paris,” which made its debut at New York City’s Carnegie Hall in 1928.
In 1929, Gershwin turned his attention to Hollywood and the
burgeoning film industry that required his musical talents to write scores. He
wrote the score for the film, “Delicious,” in 1929, but was upset when much of
the music he wrote was scrapped by the film’s producers.
Gershwin, embittered by the treatment of
the Delicious score, switched his efforts back to classical music and wrote the
American folk opera masterpiece, “Porgy and Bess,” which contained some of
Gershwin’s most brilliant compositions including, “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” “I
Got Plenty of Nuttin’,” and “Summertime.” Porgy and Bess was a commercial
failure at the time, but has since become a staple of American opera and
popular music.
Gershwin returned to Hollywood and wrote film scores, including
the one for the Fred Astaire musical, “Shall We Dance.” In 1937, Gershwin died
suddenly from the effects of a brain tumor.
Gershwin’s music is best heard on the
following collections: “Rhapsody in Blue/An American in Paris (New York
Philharmonic; The Columbia Symphony/ Leonard Bernstein)” (1959), ‘S Marvelous:
The Gershwin Songbook” (1994) and “The Essential George Gershwin” (2003).
Riley B. King was born in Itta Bena, Mississippi,
in 1926. He is still active today as a blues performer well into his eighties.
He is currently a resident of Memphis,
Tennessee, the city he came to in
the Forties to play music and work as a radio DJ.
King arrived in Memphis
with his cousin, the country blues guitarist Bukka White, and landed a job as a
disc jockey on the Memphis
radio station, WDIA. It was here that he was coined “BB,” a moniker which
means, “blues boy.” In 1949, he landed a recording contract with RPM Records.
Many of his early recordings were produced by Sam Philips who would later found
Sun Records. He also assembled a band which came to be known as the BB King
Review.
During 1949, King played at a honky-tonk
where a fire broke out during one of his shows. As the patrons, musicians, and
King fled the bar, King realized that he had forgotten his guitar inside. He
battled the flames as he reentered the burning structure in order to save his
forgotten guitar. He later heard that the fight in the bar was about a girl named,
“Lucille.” King named his guitar after the girl and Lucille, the guitar has
been with him ever since.
By the Fifties, King had become one of the
biggest names in the blues, amassing numerous hit recordings and touring almost
constantly. Among his hits during the Fifties were, “3 O Clock Blues,” “Woke Up
This Morning,” “Please Love Me,” Whole Lotta Love,” “Everyday I Have the Blues,”
“Ten Long Years,” and “Bad Luck.” He gained a reputation as one of the best
guitarists in popular music with his economical style which featured string
bending and heavy vibrato. Every rock guitarist that followed would be
influenced directly or indirectly by King’s style of playing.
In late 1964, King would perform a show at
the Regal Theatre in Chicago.
The performance was recorded, and the resulting album, “Live at the Regal,”
would be hailed as one of the best live blues or rock recordings of all-time.
King had a huge hit in 1970 with the song, “The Thrill is Gone.” The song would
appear on both the pop and R&B charts. By 1964, King had signed with ABC
Records which would be absorbed into MCA Records and then Geffen Records, his
current label.
In addition to Live at the Regal, “Live in
Cook Country Jail” (1971) is an excellent live album. “Completely Well” (1969)
and “Indianola Mississippi Seeds” (1970) are outstanding studio albums. Several
greatest hits collections are also recommended especially for his earliest
work. Among these albums are: “The Best of B.B. King” (1973), “The Best of B.B.
King Volume One” (1986), “The Best of B.B. King Volume Two” (1986), “The
Vintage Years” (2002), “Original Greatest Hits” (2005), and “Gold” (2006).
Creedence Clearwater Revival, often
referred to as simply, “CCR,” is among the ranks of the greatest-ever American pop/rock
bands. The tremendous commercial success and critical acclaim that the band
attracted during their relatively short career places the band among the elite
of American rockers.
Emerging from the working-class town of El Cerrito, California,
in the mid-Sixties as the “Blue Velvets” and then later, the “Golliwogs,” CCR
evolved into the quintessential American band with a sound that rejected the
psychedelic fashion of the day in favor of a rootsy, traditional sound heavily
influenced by country and blues music. Their sound would be dubbed, “swamp
rock” as it was reminiscent of Southern performers such as Dale Hawkins and
Lightnin’ Slim and evoked images of the American South.
CCR was comprised of Stu Cook on bass, Doug
Clifford on drums, and the Fogerty brothers, Tom and John, on guitar. John
Fogerty was lead singer, lead guitarist, sole songwriter and the creative force
of the band. It was his creative domination of the band that would eventually
lead to resentment by the other members and eventual dissolution of the band.
John Fogerty wrote some of the greatest
songs in rock history during CCR’s run and many were released as singles that
reached high positions on the pop charts. “Proud Mary,” “Born on the Bayou,”
“Fortunate Son”, “Down on the Corner,” “Lodi”, “Green River,” Who’ll Stop the
Rain,” “Lookin’ Out My Back Door,” and others cemented John Fogerty’s place in
rock history.
CCR’s hit singles are scattered fairly
evenly through their studio albums. All CCR’s albums, “Creedence Clearwater
Revival”, (1968) “Bayou Country” (1969), “Green River” (1969), “Willie and the
Poor Boys” (1969), “Cosmo’s Factory” (1970) and “Pendulum” (1970), are
classics, save the last one, “Mardi Gras” (1972), which was an extremely spotty
effort..
It was on Mardi Gras that John Fogerty encouraged
his band mates, Clifford and Cook, to contribute songs. The result: several
good songs by John such as “Sweet Hitchhiker” and “Someday Never Comes” and mediocre
ones by the others. This album proved once and for all that CCR was really a
one-man show, after all.
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