(Vocal/instrumental group, 1968–70) When on a US tour with The Hollies, Graham Nash (vocals, guitar) had sown the seeds of a ‘supergroup’ with ex-Byrd Dave Crosby (vocals, guitar) and Stephen Stills (vocals, guitar) from Buffalo Springfield. The new combine rehearsed in London for an eponymous album that featured hippy lyricism, flawless vocal harmonies and neo-acoustic ...
Stephen Stills (b. 1945) turned acoustic guitar into a fiery blues instrument as a solo artist and performer. That alone might have made him a rock icon, but of course Stills was also busy producing, composing and singing with the most popular rock vocal group of all time, creating hit singles on his own, teaming up with ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1970–present) An Anglo-American trio formed in the UK by Gerry Beckley (guitar, vocals, keyboards), Dewey Bunnell (guitar, vocals) and Dan Peek (guitar, vocals, keyboards), sons of US military personnel and British mothers. America’s acoustically backed three-part harmonies were reminiscent of Crosby, Stills and Nash. Best-known for the transatlantic 1972 hit ‘Horse With ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1966–68) Migrating from New York to Los Angeles, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay rehearsed with a third singing guitarist, Canadian Neil Young, who recommended Bruce Palmer (bass) and Dewey Martin (drums). 1967’s Buffalo Springfield was remarkable for an acoustic bias and clever vocal harmonies. A hit single, ‘For What It’s Worth’, and healthy sales ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1967–72) If John Fogerty (vocals, guitar), Tom Fogerty (guitar), Stuart Cook (bass) and Doug Clifford (drums) were Californian hippy in appearance, their music harked back to the energy and stylistic cliches of 1950s rock’n’roll, and their spiritual home seemed to be the swamplands of the Deep South, as instanced in titles like ‘Born On ...
A leading figure on America’s West Coast music scene, Jerry Garcia was born in San Francisco in 1942. His father was a retired professional musician, his mother a pianist. The musically inclined Jerry began taking piano lessons as a child. The emergence of Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran inspired him to learn guitar at 15, ...
(Guitar, vocals, b. 1945) This highly respected Canadian musician first came to prominence in 1967 as a member of Buffalo Springfield. Young’s solo career began in 1969 with Neil Young. For his next album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969), he recruited Danny Whitten (guitar), Billy Talbot (bass) and Ralph Molina (drums), collectively known as Crazy Horse. Shortly ...
Canadian rock legend Neil Young (b. 1945) has become respected as much for his playing as for his composing and vocal work with his occasional partners Crosby, Stills & Nash. Born in Toronto, Canada, Young got a ukulele from his father for Christmas in 1958. In 1960, Young moved to Winnipeg with his mother. A poor student ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1962–present) The sound of Manchester’s most acclaimed beat group hinged on the jazz sensibility of Bobby Elliott (drums) and, more so, on the breathtaking chorale of Allan Clarke (vocals), Tony Hicks (guitar, vocals) and Graham Nash (vocals, guitar) who, under the pseudonym ‘L. Ransford’, also composed many of an unbroken series of smashes ...
Hank Williams Jr. (b. 1949) was only three years old when his daddy died, and he barely knew the man who was, arguably, the greatest honky-tonker of them all. But his widowed mother groomed her baby boy to imitate his papa as closely as possible. He was on stage by eight, in the recording studio by 14 ...
January UK Tour Lasting only a month, the most defining factor of Led Zeppelin’s January 1970 UK tour would be the lack of support act. Only the biggest bands in the world could go on stage without a warm-up act preceding them, but Led Zeppelin had to drop something in order to stop the curfew problems their two-hour-plus shows ...
After the seismic shifts of the previous decade, the 1970s reflected faster-moving, less permanent crazes, beginning with glam rock and ending with the new wave. Glam rock saw the likes of Alice Cooper and Kiss taking make-up to extremes, while the comparatively anonymous Eagles and Bruce Springsteen respectively updated the blueprints established the previous decade by country ...
Rock, jazz, soul; each of these genres, while containing a multiplicity of various offshoots, is defined by some kind of unifying theme. But this miscellaneous section, as any record collector will know, is where everything else ends up. Most of the styles within this ‘genre’ have little in common save the fact that they do ...
(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 ...
(Drums, 1903–71) A member of the Chicago-based New Orleans Rhythm Kings, Pollack formed his own band in 1926 and by 1928 was employing such promising young players as Benny Goodman, Jimmy McPartland, Jack Teagarden and Glenn Miller. When Pollack’s orchestra disbanded in 1934, its membership became the core group for Bob Crosby’s orchestra. Pollack became the ...
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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
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