(Vocals, guitar, bandleader, 1916–2000) Adolph Hofner successfully combined the musical heritage of his Texas-Czech youth with hillbilly, pop and swing influences in a career that stretched from the mid-1930s to the late 1990s, with his steel guitar-playing brother Emil (nicknamed ‘Bash’) at his side throughout. Equally influenced by Milton Brown and Bing Crosby, Hofner was ...
The son of the Brussels wind-instrument maker Charles-Joseph Sax, Adolphe Sax (1814–94) studied the clarinet at the Conservatoire in Brussels. Accordingly, his first experiments with instruments were designs for improving the clarinet and then plans for a bass clarinet. Sax patented the saxhorn in 1845. He took the existing valved brass instruments and came up with the idea of ...
1802–39, French Adolphe Nourrit, the French tenor, made his debut at the Paris Opéra in 1821, singing Pylade in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride. Nourrit remained at the Opéra until 1837, singing, among other roles, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Rossini’s Otello. Nourrit was a brilliant all-round performer, charming his audiences with his subtle, ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1930s–42) The Hi-Flyers were among the earliest and most important of Texas western-swing bands. The Fort Worth band predated even the seminal Light Crust Doughboys, though it didn’t ease towards a string swing style until inspired by Brown’s Musical Brownies. Led by guitarist Elmer Scarbrough, the band also included such key musicians as fiddler Darrell Kirkpatrick ...
Bass Guitar In 1951, guitar maker Leo Fender launched the first commercially available electric bass guitar, the Fender Precision. Compared to the cumbersome and often difficult-to-hear acoustic double bass, Fender offered an instrument that had many advantages. Not only was it louder because it was amplified – and more portable – it allowed for more precise intonation because ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1930s–50s) Jimmie Revard And His Oklahoma Playboys formed one of the best and most prolific of early western-swing bands. Revard (1909–91) was from Oklahoma but his band was based in San Antonio, Texas; the original band included Adolph and Emil Hofner, among others. In their heyday, the Playboys struggled locally to compete with The Tune ...
May Stuart Sutcliffe Joins Although the bookings had dried up again at the beginning of 1960, John Lennon’s art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe was persuaded to join the band on bass. Having sold a painting for £65 he was able to buy a big, stylish Hofner bass that he couldn’t actually play. But no matter; it looked good and ...
March Second Hamburg Stint The Beatles returned to Hamburg at the end of March for a three-month residency at the Top Ten Club. The money was marginally better and Paul McCartney was able to afford to buy his first trademark Hofner violin-shaped bass, but the hours were longer: seven hours a night, eight at weekends. Sometimes they shared the ...
(Vocal group, 1955–61) Formed in 1955 in Los Angeles by ex-members of The Robins: Carl Gardner and Bobby Nunn, with Billy Guy and Leon Hughes, plus Adolph Jacobs (guitar), The Coasters were a black act enjoying popularity across the colour divide. Produced by white New Yorkers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who also wrote their often humorous ...
While many hit doo-wop records featured full instrumental accompaniment, the groups themselves had usually started out singing a cappella. It was, in short, a music that required collaborative effort but no instrumental outlay or expertise, to be performed on street corners as a means of escape, public entertainment, personal fulfilment and professional ambition. Deriving its ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
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