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Artist: Houndog
Houndog is the duo of Mike Halby, who has played with Canned Heat and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and David Hidalgo, of Los Lobos. Their self-titled 1999 debut album, recorded in Halby's home studio, is not so much swamp-blues as murk-blues. The basic, at times lo-fi production and gutbucket songs give this a foggy mystery, akin to another of... [+] Read More
Artist: Dan Curtin
One of the few American armchair techno producers to directly compete with his British equivalents (As One, Black Dog, B12), Youngstown, Ohio's Dan Curtin played in a punk band in the early '80s, moved to hip-hop in a few years later, and hopped aboard the house/techno explosion by the end of the decade. He began his recording career with 1992's... [+] Read More
Artist: Joel Mathis & Countryside
1947-1999Once you heard JOEL MATHIS sing…you would just sit back and say to yourself, Wow, what a great voice. Joel Mathis could sing anything and just about did, from the time he was a member of the groups “The Fugitives” and “Ivy’s League” while attending High School to his band “Countryside”... [+] Read More
Artist: Nutty Squirrels
Alvin & the Chipmunks may have done it first, but when it came to cartoon-pop rodents, nobody did it better than the Nutty Squirrels. The brainchild of jazz vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Don Elliott and jingle composer Alexander "Sascha" Burland, the Nutty Squirrels employed the same sped-up vocal playback techniques as Ross Bagdasarian's... [+] Read More
Artist: Josie Cotton
Josie Cotton's 1982 new wave hit "Johnny, Are You Queer?" is unquestionably in dubious taste (although its killer chorus is one of the more memorable of its era), but there's more to this underrated singer/songwriter than her one shock-value novelty hit. Not only are Cotton's two early-'80s albums underrated pop gems, she since resumed her... [+] Read More
Artist: The Righteous Brothers
They weren't brothers, but Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield (both born in 1940) were most definitely righteous, defining (and perhaps even inspiring) the term "blue-eyed soul" in the mid-'60s. The white Southern California duo were an established journeyman doo wop/R&B act before an association with Phil Spector produced one of the most memorable... [+] Read More
Artist: Orville Dorp
Politically incorrect, foot-stomping cannabis evangelism -- that's Orville Dorp in a nutshell. A Vancouver, BC quintet (Smilin' Jack Smith, Tom Lavin, Glen Hendrickson, Al Jacobs, and Shelly Kantrow), these guys held a refreshingly irreverent attitude towards pop music, knowing full well that their freshman effort -- the EP single, Orville Dorp... [+] Read More
Artist: Carl Craig
Dancefloor experimentalist and top Detroit techno producer Carl Craig has few equals in terms of the artistry, influence, and diversity of his recordings. Few others have recorded so much quality music in such a variety of styles as has Craig, who jammed distorted beatbox samples into lo-fi electro riggings, crafted epic house tracks like his... [+] Read More
Artist: Thomas A. Edison
Thomas A. Edison was not a musical artist. Edison was also partly deaf, owing to an accident suffered in childhood when he attempted to hop aboard a train. But Edison deserves inclusion as part of the All Music Guide, as he invented the very medium we primarily use to transmit music -- sound recording.
In the summer of 1877, Edison was looking... [+] Read More
Artist: Goddard Lieberson
There is a tendency, in writing and reading about classical recordings, to forget that they're as much a part of business as art--and that, as a result of this duality, executives can play as important a role as artists in determining what we here and how we hear it. Goddard Lieberson of Columbia Records is one such example. Along with Walter... [+] Read More
Artist: Ray Heindorf
Composer, conductor, and orchestrator Ray Heindorf worked prolifically in Hollywood from the start of the sound era of the movies in the late '20s to the end of the studio system in the late '50s. As the head of the music department at Warner Bros. Pictures for more than a decade, he helped provide music for hundreds of motion pictures, whether... [+] Read More
Artist: The Ray-O-Vacs
The Ray-O-Vacs are best remembered for "I've Got Two Arms to Hold You," which sold well in both the R&B and pop music fields in the mid-'50s.
The Ray-O-Vacs -- led by Lester Harris -- appeared on the doo wop scene in early March of 1950. At the time, "Once Upon a Time" was a big number one hit for the Ames Brothers, who recorded for Coral... [+] Read More
Artist: Sir Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham was one of the most important orchestra conductors of the 20th century, exerting a huge impact on the entire field of classical music -- and the way people listen to it, and the way people have been exposed to it -- through his performances, recordings, and the two major orchestras that he founded. Beecham was born in 1879,... [+] Read More
Artist: Fred Astaire
Dancer, actor, and singer Fred Astaire worked steadily in various entertainment media during nine decades of the 20th century. The most celebrated dancer in the history of film, with appearances in 31 movie musicals between 1933 and 1968 (and a special Academy Award in recognition of his accomplishments in them), Astaire also danced on-stage and... [+] Read More
Artist: Sinhô
Sinhô was a key figure in Brazilian popular music, particularly in the Carioca samba. One of the historic musicians -- also including Pixinguinha, his brother China, Donga, and others -- united around Tia Ciata's house, a focal point of cultural resistance and affirmation, Sinhô initiated the process of rupture with the folkloric creation of... [+] Read More
