Showing 1 - 25 of 34
Artist: The Harbinger Complex
A garage band from Fremont, CA, the Harbinger Complex are best remembered for their 1966 fuzz-punk classic "I Think I'm Down" (Brent 7056). The quintet centered on lead vocalist Jim Hockstaff and his songwriting partner B. Hoyle III. Hockstaff's Dionysian exploits -- the siring of several love children -- got him banned from Fremont's Washington... [+] Read More
Artist: Stomu Yamash'ta
For a brief moment, Yamash'ta was enormously popular as harbinger of increased popularity in world/international music. ~ Ron Wynn, All Music Guide [+] Read More
Artist: Reverend Bizarre
Inspired by the likes of Saint Vitus and Cathedral, Finnish doom metal band Reverend Bizzare was founded in 1994, in the southern industrial town of Lohja by vocalist and bassist Albert Witchfinder. Peter Vicar soon joined on guitar and the splendidly named Earl of Void had taken over on drums by the time of 1999's aptly named Slice of Doom... [+] Read More
Artist: Rock 'n' Roll Dubble Bubble Trading Card Co. of Philadelphia 1941
Yet another of the seemingly endless aliases employed by the Kasenetz-Katz production team to market their bubblegum hits of the late 1960s, the unwieldy named Rock and Roll Dubble Bubble Trading Card Company of Philadelphia 19141 was among the last of the duo's projects to enjoy chart success. Their 1969 anthem "Bubble Gum Music" was written... [+] Read More
Artist: The Rance Allen Group
This Detroit-based, traditionally trained black gospel group formed in the '60s and were the first traditional gospel group to incorporate rock, jazz, and soul into their music. They were harbingers for the contemporary Christian music movement popularized in the late '70s by Andrae Crouch, Amy Grant, and the Winans. Rance Allen scored a Top 30... [+] Read More
Artist: Screwface
This is one of at least three indie rock bands utilizing the name Screwface since the mid-'90s, none of which should be confused with the Miami rap artist of the same name. Some five guitarists were credited on the self-titled Screwface album on the Start label, first issued in 1996, the harbinger of a rave-up. A different Screwface began... [+] Read More
Artist: Paula Cole
Paula Cole was one of the many female singer/songwriters who rose to prominence in the mid-'90s in the wake of alternative's commercial breakthrough. Drawing heavily from the ethereal, pretty sound of Sarah McLachlan and Tori Amos, Cole created songs that relied equally on dreamy melodies and poetic, introspective lyrics.
Cole was born and... [+] Read More
Artist: ZZ Top
This sturdy American blues-rock trio from Texas consists of Billy Gibbons (guitar), Dusty Hill (bass), and Frank Beard (drums). They were formed in 1970 in and around Houston from rival bands the Moving Sidewalks (Gibbons) and American Blues (Hill and Beard). Their first two albums reflected the strong blues roots and Texas humor of the band.... [+] Read More
Artist: Rance Allen
Gospel singer Rance Allen founded the Rance Allen Group in Detroit in the 1960s and has fronted the band with his soulful, soaring vocals ever since. The traditionally trained black gospel group was the first traditional gospel group to incorporate rock, jazz, and soul into their music. They were harbingers for the contemporary Christian music... [+] Read More
Artist: Helen Hooke
Helen Hooke was first known in her 1970s incarnation as the inspired fiddler for the country/feminist/rock touring band, Deadly Nightshade. While Olivia and Redwood were just beginning, and although Hooke met and befriended many of the Women's Music pioneers, Deadly Nightshade released two albums (The Deadly Nightshade and F & W) on the RCA... [+] Read More
Artist: Hard Candy
Hard Candy formed in 1992 when James E. Jones and Jeff Wiggins got together in Brooks County, GA. They started composing and recording in September of 1992. In September of 1994, they added a new member to their line up, Brooke Martin.
From February 1996 to June 1996 they produced some home recordings that led to the production of their debut... [+] Read More
Artist: Craig Leon
Craig Leon was born in Miami, FL, and opened up a studio there when he was barely out of high school to record local bands while he fiddled with his own compositions. But it wasn't until Sire records co-founder Richard Gottehrer brought the Climax Blues Band to Florida to do pre-production on their 1974 release Sense of Direction that Leon's... [+] Read More
Artist: Ransom Knowling
Ransom Knowling, whose name sounds like the mutation of a kidnapping plot, played bass on at least one of the most influential records in rock history. He was part of the original rhythm section on Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's classic entitled "That's All Right" -- and in this case influence is measured by the extent to which certain important... [+] Read More
Artist: The Wolfgang Press
Enigmatic, moody, and challenging, Britain's Wolfgang Press were one of the most mercurial talents of the post-punk era, restlessly moving from gothic noise to dark balladry to eccentric funk; paradoxically, the group was also the 4AD label's longest tenured artist -- even their stylish album packages were all the product of the same designer,... [+] Read More
Artist: Charles Fulcher
Charles Fulcher was an influential Atlanta bandleader, composer and instrumentalist whose talents in the latter category seem particularly breathtaking, not to mention taxing for anyone helping carry his instruments around. He performed and recorded during the '20s on clarinet, trombone, piano and violin, indicating proficiency in four distinct... [+] Read More
Artist: Fanny
Upon signing hard rock combo Fanny in 1970, Warner Bros. claimed their new acquisition was the first all-female rock & roll band -- a statement far from the truth, of course, but as one of the first self-contained distaff groups to land on a major label, they were an important harbinger of things to come. Fanny formed in California under the... [+] Read More
Artist: Catie Curtis
The Boston music scene has spawned so many great artists, it's hard to keep up, from flat-out rockers like Aerosmith and Morphine to thoughtful folkies such as Patty Griffin and Ellis Paul. That's where Catie Curtis comes in. With her instantly recognizable voice and insightful and often humorous lyrics, Curtis has steadily gained a sure footing... [+] Read More
Artist: Uncle Henry's Original Kentucky Mountaineers
Uncle Henry's Original Kentucky Mountaineers actually did come from Kentucky, unlike some old-timey music combos that simply pretended to be: Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineers, for example, was actually a Fresno band. While a legitimate locale thus lurks in the combo name chosen by founder Uncle Henry Warren, the mountain music emphasis thereby... [+] Read More
Artist: The Walkabouts
Despite their background (punk), geography (Seattle), and label affiliation (Sub Pop), the Walkabouts were anything but a grunge band; dark, haunting, and elegiac, their work instead sprung forth from the storytelling traditions of American roots music and the kinetic excitement of rock & roll. The Walkabouts were formed in 1984 by Chris Eckman... [+] Read More
Artist: John Best
The highly competitive nature of jazz trumpeters reaches a symbolic apex of some sort in the surname of this performer, a North Carolinian who began playing professionally at the age of 15. Sometimes credited as the chummy Johnny Best, the excellent trumpet man is associated with some classic recordings by vocalists such as Ella Fitzgerald and... [+] Read More
Artist: Marion Harris
A hitmaker who was recording before the end of World War I, Marion Harris sang a Broadway version of the blues several years before it had cracked the commercial consciousness, near the end of the 1910s. In that, she was a harbinger of the Jazz Age, although her hits dried up by the mid-'20s, and when she died in 1944 she had been long... [+] Read More
Artist: Dan Seals
After scoring several hits as part of the soft rock duo England Dan & John Ford Coley, Dan Seals reinvented himself as a country-pop singer and enjoyed a tremendous run of success during the latter half of the '80s. Born in McCamey, TX, in 1948, his brother was Jim Seals, later of another successful soft rock duo, Seals & Crofts. Both brothers... [+] Read More
Artist: Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Screamin' Jay Hawkins was the most outrageous performer extant during rock's dawn. Prone to emerging out of coffins onstage, a flaming skull named Henry his constant companion, Screamin' Jay was an insanely theatrical figure long before it was even remotely acceptable.
Hawkins' life story is almost as bizarre as his onstage shtick. Originally... [+] Read More
Artist: Ray Goins
This banjoist was a member of the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, a classic Appalachian string band whose music spanned the gap between old-time music and bluegrass, a distance that can seem minute or measurable in country miles, depending on one's point of view. He has said that his professional career and the common usage of the term bluegrass began... [+] Read More
Artist: A Cid Symphony
Unquestionably a harbinger of the times, A Cid Symphony -- a folk-and-ethnic music collective that incorporated instruments as wide-ranging as dulcimer, hand-held brass, and Hindustani ankle bells into their extended Middle Eastern-cum-country and folk music drones -- was instigated and helmed by Dustin Mark Miller. Miller, was a part of the... [+] Read More
