(Vocals, songwriter, b. 1926) A regular on the Town Hall Party, Alabama-born Freddie Hart arrived in Los Angeles following a troubled childhood, a couple of years in the Marines (enrolling when he was only 15), and travelling across the nation. His 1950s association with Capitol and Columbia resulted in some fine, though overlooked, country and ...
Freddie (sometimes spelled Freddy) King (1934–76) revitalized the Chicago blues scene in the 1960s. His aggressive playing and piercing solos helped to set up the blues-rock movement, and he was a major influence on 1960s British guitarists like Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor. King’s mother taught him to play guitar as a child in Gilmer, Texas ...
In the 1960s and early 1970s, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard was the primary alternative to Miles Davis’s domination of the field. Hubbard came up in the hard-bop era, blew free jazz with Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, and established a body of exemplary compositions, recordings and improvisations with the best of the 1960s Blue Note artists: Art Blakey ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1934–76) Few bluesmen have possessed the bristling intensity of Freddie King, whose stinging vibrato and energetic, soaring vocal style influenced Eric Clapton. King was born in Gilmer, Texas and learned guitar from his mother at age six. He moved to Chicago in 1950, earning a reputation among peers like Buddy Guy and Otis ...
(Vocals, harmonica, 1883–1948) Although a trained singer with experience in opera – and from 1917 a full-time recording artist in the popular field – the Texas-born Dalhart is best known for his vast catalogue of recordings in the hillbilly idiom, beginning with ‘The Wreck Of The Old ’97’ and ‘The Prisoner’s Song’ in 1924. In all, he ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1935–40s) After the dissolution of The Cumberland Ridge Runners around 1935, Karl Davis (vocal, mandolin, 1905–79) and Hartford Taylor (vocal, guitar, 1905–63) maintained their popularity on the WLS National Barn Dance and other Chicago radio shows until the late 1940s. Echoing an earlier WLS mandolin-guitar duet, Mac & Bob (Lester McFarland and ...
(Vocals, banjo, guitar, fiddle, 1937–2001) Hartford is best known as the writer of ‘Gentle On My Mind’, a pop and country hit for Glen Campbell and much-recorded standard, but he was a gifted and devoted bluegrass musician who helped launch the new acoustic music movement with his 1971 album Aero-Plain. He celebrated America’s rivers as both ...
(Vocals, banjo, songwriter, 1939–2001) New York City-born, St. Louis, Missouri-raised John Hartford first made his mark in Nashville when he wrote and recorded a whimsical ballad called ‘Gentle On My Mind’, which became a massive country and pop hit for Glen Campbell in 1967. In the early 1970s, Hartford gravitated towards bluegrass music and emerged ...
(Vocal group, 1961–2002) A debut single, 1963’s ‘If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody’, began a two-year British chart run for this Manchester outfit. Moreover, as their fortunes subsided at home, they caught on in North America, scoring a US No. 1 with 20-month-old ‘I’m Telling You Now’, and amassing advance orders of 142,000 ...
(Vocals, songwriter, 1908–89) An early West Coast mover and shaker, Stuart Hamblin was the first cowboy singer to be heard on Los Angeles radio, appearing on KFI as ‘Cowboy Joe’. After a brief spell with the Beverly Hill Billies, he began a 20-year run on his own Lucky Stars show (KFWB) in 1932. Two years later ...
The undisputed Queen of Soul since the title was first applied to her in the late 1960s, Aretha Franklin has been hailed as the greatest soul diva of all time. Possessing a voice of power and passion (and an underrated talent on the piano) she has turned her attention to everything from pop through jazz to classical; but with a ...
(Drums, 1919–90) Art Blakey (also later known as Buhaina or simply Bu after he converted to Islam) led the quintessential hard bop group the Jazz Messengers across four decades from the late 1940s, and was a fervent advocate of the music he loved. He formed his first band in his native Pittsburgh, but moved to New York and ...
The bluesman who took the blues into the mainstream, B.B. King (b. 1925) is also its ambassador to the world. His solid, seasoned style is heard internationally. King’s style draws on the Mississippi blues of Elmore James and Muddy Waters, the Chicago blues of Buddy Guy and Magic Sam, and the West-Coast blues of T-Bone Walker ...
When the great Mississippi musician Riley King left the cotton fields to seek his fortune in Memphis in 1946, he had $2.50 in his pocket and a battered guitar in his hand. Today, his name is synonymous with blues music itself, yet his ascendance to the zenith of the blues world never altered his friendly, downhome ...
Alternative guitarist Bob Mould (b. 1960) was born in Malone, New York. Mould was 16 when, inspired by The Ramones, he took up the guitar. While attending college in Minnesota in 1979, he founded Hüsker Dü, originally a hardcore punk/thrash band, with drummer Grant Hart and bassist Greg Norton. The band’s third album, Zen Arcade ...
AUTHORITATIVE
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...
CURATED
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.