(Vocal/instrumental group, 1966–86) A cauldron of blues and psychedelia, 1968’s Children Of The Future was a US Top 30 entry for a California-based outfit in which the only constant would be Miller (guitar, vocals), though first singer Boz Scaggs enjoyed solo success. Becoming more radio-friendly, Miller made greater impact from the early 1970s with US chart-toppers ‘The ...
The guitarist in Genesis from 1970–77, Steve Hackett developed a technical skill and tone control that was a vital factor in shaping the band’s music. He also helped to steer the post-Peter Gabriel Genesis towards a new style before leaving to pursue a solo career. An undemonstrative performer, Hackett has been a major influence on guitarists looking beyond the ...
As the guitarist in Yes throughout their heyday in the 1970s, Steve Howe’s tasteful, eclectic playing helped to define a new style of rock music. Despite occasional absences during Yes’s convoluted history during the 1980s and 1990s, Howe remained a pivotal member of the group and has been a permanent member since 1996. He was also a founding ...
A consummate guitarist in an extraordinary variety of styles, including jazz, classical, country, rock and heavy metal, Steve Morse also has the compositional skills and the improvising genius to match. He has played with, among others, Dixie Dregs, Kansas and Deep Purple, while also maintaining his own band. Morse was born in ...
Schooled by Joe Satriani, trained by Frank Zappa and turned into a guitar hero by David Lee Roth, Steve Vai (b. 1960) has combined an energetic technique with a distinctive and often unusual sense of tone. Born and raised in North Hempstead, New York, Vai began taking guitar lessons from his schoolmate Satriani when he was 14. ...
Steve ‘The Colonel’ Cropper is an American guitarist, songwriter, producer and soul musician, best known for his work creating the trailblazing soul records produced by Memphis’s Stax label as a member of its studio band, which became Booker T. & The M.G.s, in the mid-1960s. Stephen Lee Cropper was born on a farm outside ...
Although his band of high-school buddies achieved international fame under the name Toto, Steve Lukather (b. 1957), session guitarist extraordinaire, has had to struggle under the same suspicion under which his bandmates have toiled: that the whole may add up to less than the sum of its parts. For Toto, despite achieving worldwide fame with singles like ‘Rosanna’ ...
Brooklyn’s Steve Stevens (b. 1959) grew up as a fan of progressive rock and honed his chops by studying guitar at Manhattan’s LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts. He worked the Long Island and Manhattan club scenes with bands and eventually was hired for session work, including tracks for ex-Kiss drummer Peter Criss. But Stevens’ star really began to shine ...
Groups of fresh-faced young men singing catchy tunes have been one of the mainstays of commercial pop since The Beatles. In the last two decades, manufactured boy bands such as New Kids On The Block and Take That have ruled the roost. Although their musical legacy bears no comparison to that of The Fab Four’s, the devotion they inspired ...
When The Grateful Dead started attracting a large fan following on the Bay Area concert scene during the late-1960s, courtesy of free-form jams that showcased the band’s fusion of folk, rock, country and blues, it signalled that rock’n’roll was latching onto a tradition of improvization that had long been prevalent in other forms of Western music. This ...
The classical period saw the rise of the ‘Harmonie’, a small wind band of up to a dozen instruments. Usually this consisted of a mixture of brass and reeds, such as horns, clarinets, oboes and bassoons: Beethoven’s octet op. 103 (1792) is written for two of each of these (the 1796 op. 71 sextet leaves out the oboes). ...
While in the US and several European countries there is a tradition of mixed wind bands, Britain developed bands made up of brass instruments with saxophone and percussion. The repertory of such ensembles tended to be arrangements of dance music, opera overtures and marches. (Twentieth-century British composers have pioneered original music for brass band.) The brass band developed ...
The music of Latin America combines influences from the traditional music of the African slaves transported between 1450 and the end of the nineteenth century, music from the Spanish and Portuguese colonial powers, and latterly, pop and jazz from North America. Samba is an umbrella term describing an energetic style of dancing and drumming performed at the annual ...
(Instrumental group, 1900–17) The Eagle Band, originally led by Buddy Bolden, was an extremely popular and influential New Orleans ensemble. Frankie Duson (or Dusen) (1880–1940), a powerful tailgate trombonist, joined the band in 1906 and went on to take over the band when Bolden suffered a mental collapse the following year. Subsequently, Duson employed various Bolden ...
(Instrumental group, 1917–25) The Original Dixieland Jass Band were five young white musicians from working-class uptown New Orleans – Nick LaRocca (cornet), Larry Shields (clarinet), Eddie Edwards (trombone), Tony Spargo (real name Sbarbaro, drums) and Henry Ragas (piano). All alumni of ‘Papa’ Jack Laine’s stable of bands, they went to Chicago and then to New York, where ...
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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
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.