(Guitar, vocals, 1904–72) Self-taught as a guitarist, music was only a sideline for McDowell for the first 60 years of his life. He worked in the Memphis area before settling in Como, Mississippi to work as a farmer in 1929; he didn’t own a guitar until 1940. Discovered and recorded by Alan Lomax in 1959, McDowell’s ...
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 ...
(Fri-drikh Fran’-zhek [Fra-da-rek’ Fran-swa’] Sho-pan) 1810–49 Polish composer Chopin was unique among composers of the highest achievement and influence in that he wrote all his works, with the merest handful of exceptions, for the solo piano. Leaving Warsaw, which at the time offered only restricted musical possibilities, and living most of his adult life in Paris, ...
(Vocals, guitar, 1892–1966) A songster and fingerpicking guitarist from Avalon, Mississippi, John Hurt excelled in the pre-blues black folk ballad tradition as well as in blues, gospel and dance instrumentals. He spent most of his life working on farms and entertaining at local parties and functions for both blacks and whites. His first opportunity to record ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1926–35) The Mississippi Sheiks were Lonnie Chatmon (guitar, violin) and Walter Vinson (guitar), sometimes joined by Chatmon’s brothers Sam (guitar, violin) and Armenter (a.k.a. Bo Carter, guitar), as well as Charlie McCoy (banjo, mandolin); the vocals were shared between the group members. Their repertoire blended blues themes with contemporary pop/novelty tunes, ...
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 ...
(Tenor saxophone, b. 1929) Admired by post-1960s Chicago improvisers as a founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson’s reputation spread after his first trip to Europe in 1977, but he was very sparsely recorded until the 1990s. Since then his huge tone and gutsy, freely associative statements have been ...
(Vocals, fiddle, 1880–1956) Reed, a singer and fiddler from Princeton, West Virginia, made his living playing at dances and church meetings and giving music lessons. Recording in the late 1920s, he observed contemporary life in songs like ‘How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live ?’– a catalogue of the ills that afflicted ...
(Music publisher, songwriter, 1898–1954) Born in Evansville, Indiana, Fred Rose was a key figure in Nashville’s rise from a provincial backwater to an international musical capital. Rose penned a number of country standards, including ‘Wait For The Light To Shine’ and ‘Blue Eyes Cryin’ In The Rain’. He began his career in Chicago as a jazz ...
(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 ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1937) Fender was born Baldemar Huerta in the southernmost tip of Texas, but adapted his Anglo stage name in the late 1950s as he shifted from the Tex-Mex music he grew up on to rockabilly. After a marijuana conviction, however, he was reduced to working as an auto mechanic when producer Huey Meaux ...
1862–1934 English composer Bradford-born but of German descent, Delius escaped the family wool business to devote himself entirely to music. He studied in Leipzig, where he met Edvard Grieg (1843–1907), and moved to Paris, where his friends included Ravel, but also such painters as Paul Gauguin and Edvard Munch. Affected by all these figures, and by ...
1877–1962 French pianist In his early years, Cortot combined the piano with conducting, directing the first performance in Paris of Götterdämmerung at the age of 24. As a pianist he specialized in Romantic music, especially Schumann and Chopin, and in music by contemporary French composers. He co-founded the Cortot-Thibaud-Casals piano trio in 1906. Introduction | Modern Era ...
1912–79 English countertenor Deller was responsible for the revival of the alto voice in the concert hall and opera house. With his ensemble, the Deller Consort, he made many recordings of early music, and he recorded English lute-songs with Desmond Dupré. Introduction | Modern Era | Classical Personalities | Kathleen Ferrier | Modern Era | Classical ...
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.