Showing 1 - 25 of 29
Artist: Caughtumn
Caughtumn was found in 2005. The band has recorded two demos: Irrelevant pieces (jan2006) and Other parts (Aug2006), from which 2 songs were shot live, and are TOTALLY available on Youtube. [+] Read More
Artist: Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley may be the single most important figure in American 20th century popular music. Not necessarily the best, and certainly not the most consistent. But no one could argue with the fact that he was the musician most responsible for popularizing rock & roll on an international level. Viewed in cold sales figures, his impact was... [+] Read More
Artist: Isthisnametaken
Evolving into one of western Sydneys best pop punk bands ISTHISNAMETAKEN began at a young age with three friends which shortly became two. Then soon after recruiting a new drummer Dean Olling (now with Fallshort) ISTHISNAMETAKEN released their first demo. A year after being in the band Dean left and Adrian and Duane grabbed Lee off the streets... [+] Read More
Artist: Robert E. Brown
Whether he will be credited as Robert Brown, Bob Brown or Rob Brown is pretty much irrelevant, as long as he agrees to sit at the mixing console. This top engineerre, remixer and producer is an important part of the highly processed sound of hit records from groups such as the Backstreet Boys and Mariah Carey, so it is probably no surprise... [+] Read More
Artist: Other Dimensions in Music
Other Dimensions in Music first recorded in 1990 for the Swedish Silkheart label. The group played a wholly improvised music in a Cecil Taylor-derived vein; appropriate, since the band's rhythm section included Taylor-vets bassist William Parker and drummer Rashid Bakr. The band is especially notable as a vehicle for the little-recorded... [+] Read More
Artist: Will Johnson
Will Johnson is the leader of Centro-Matic, one of the best bands to come out of Denton, TX, since the days when college rock bars in that town were so primitive that a broom inside a bucket was used for a microphone stand. South San Gabriel is the musical cousin of Centro-Matic, allowing an overlapping set of musicians to explore their country... [+] Read More
Artist: Marvin Gaye
One of the most gifted, visionary, and enduring talents ever launched into orbit by the Motown hit machine, Marvin Gaye blazed the trail for the continued evolution of popular black music. Moving from lean, powerful R&B to stylish, sophisticated soul to finally arrive at an intensely political and personal form of artistic self-expression, his... [+] Read More
Artist: Steve Brown
This heavy-hitting electric guitarist is best known for his recordings with the band Trixter. A later unit he led on his own, 40 Ft. Ringo, seems to have been lost in the shuffle of bands with names in which measurements play an important part. When it comes to the concept of "40 feet," there is probably no way to compete with movie idol... [+] Read More
Artist: Ted Shapiro
If "If I Had You" was a song about a hit record, then songwriter Ted Shapiro could proudly file away the "if" part of the title as an irrelevancy. Co-written with Jimmy Campbell and Reginald Connelly, the song has become a jazz and vocal music standard, with dozens of recorded versions by artists ranging from Frank Sinatra to Django Reinhardt to... [+] Read More
Artist: Karen Borca
The number of full-time bassoonists who've played free jazz at the highest level can be counted on the fingers of one hand -- maybe one finger. Outside of Karen Borca, it's difficult to name another (Makanda Ken McIntyre played bassoon occasionally, but it was not his best instrument). The dearth of jazz bassoonists is hardly surprising, given... [+] Read More
Artist: Billy Ray Cyrus
Billy Ray Cyrus will forever be known for the catchy, lightweight single "Achy, Breaky Heart," which became a line-dancing anthem upon its 1992 release. "Achy, Breaky Heart" made Cyrus famous, but it also proved to be his undoing. No matter how he tried, he couldn't escape the song, nor could he replicate the success. Cyrus' music was never... [+] Read More
Artist: Eddie Howard
Power Under Control, a 2003 release by R&B singer/songwriter Eddie Howard, hardly sounds like it's about the Bush administration, despite the presence of a ditty entitled "Let Freedom Ring" and several other suggestive titles. "Everything I've Wanted to Say," for example, could be about {%George W.
Bush}'s State of the Union address that year,... [+] Read More
Artist: Ed Carter
In the early '60s, there was a surf and rhythm and blues band known as The Shufflers on the southern California scene which featured a rhythm section as crisp as the cusp of a wave caught at sunrise. The versatile Bruce Johnston played keyboards as well as guitar in the band, a fellow named Ed Carter handled both bass and guitar and the young... [+] Read More
Artist: Bob Moore
The expression "he's played on a million country records" is barely an exaggeration if said in description of this bassist, arguably one of the most recorded instrumentalists in music history. He has all the positive attributes possible for a musician identified with studio sessions, including involvement with many historic recordings, a list of... [+] Read More
Artist: Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie
The arty British pop band Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie may be best known for the fact that Garbage's Shirley Manson was once a member, but there is more to the group's story, including chart successes and record company conflicts. Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie formed in 1981 out of the ashes of the Clan, which itself was created from the lineups of Lipstick... [+] Read More
Artist: Dewey Balfa
A seminal figure in the revival of traditional Cajun music, fiddler Dewey Balfa was among his native culture's most impassioned ambassadors, helping introduce the Cajun sound to countless new fans across the globe and inspiring an entire generation of performers to explore their roots. Born March 20, 1927 in Mamou, Louisiana, Balfa was one of... [+] Read More
Artist: Nick LaRocca
The founder and leader of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Nick LaRocca did much to help popularize jazz during the band's existence although he hurt his own cause decades later by claiming to have been one of jazz's main originators. LaRocca, who had a good tone but was not a major improviser, was self-taught. He co-led a kids band with... [+] Read More
Artist: Russell Wilaford
Russell Wilaford just missed being a major part of rock & roll history, yet his image, if not his guitar, still managed to be a part of it. His moment came in August of 1956, as Gene Vincent and his band, the Blue Caps, were cutting a swathe across the airwaves and the face of rock & roll. Everything was going well when lead guitarist Cliff... [+] Read More
Artist: The Ferris Wheel
The Ferris Wheel were one of England's great lost musical treasures of the middle-late 1960's -- immensely popular among club audiences, they were never able to translate their ability to win over crowds into chart success, but they made some great records while they were trying. The group came together out of the remnants of two earlier British... [+] Read More
Artist: David Murray
Initially an inheritor of an abstract/expressionist improvising style originated in the '60s by such saxophonists as Albert Ayler and Archie Shepp, David Murray eventually evolved into something of a mainstream tenorist, playing standards with conventional rhythm sections. However, Murray's readings of the old chestnuts are vastly different from... [+] Read More
Artist: Giles, Giles & Fripp
Giles, Giles & Fripp -- whose name always sounded more like an accounting firm than a rock group -- only existed for a little more than 15 months. They never got to play a single live performance under their own name, never charted a single anywhere in the world, and were so obscure in their own time and their own country that the one album that... [+] Read More
Artist: Don Cherry
The second track from Tomorrow Is the Question -- Ornette Coleman's 1959 wake-up call to the fusty hard bop movement -- is a medium tempo blues, "Tears Inside." After the statement of the tune's two-beat, countrified-bebop theme, trumpeter Don Cherry plays a solo that -- for all its frail beauty and general adherence to modern jazz's harmonic... [+] Read More
Artist: Simon Dupree
There's a rule of human nature that applies here: Just as when a letter arrives marked "important" or "urgent" all over it, chances are good that it's anything but, any group using the adjective "big" in its name is probably not going anywhere. Such was the case of Simon Dupree & the Big Sound, who neither had a "Simon Dupree" nor a very big... [+] Read More
Artist: Brian Epstein
As the title of his biography suggests, Brian Epstein is widely regarded as "The man who made the Beatles." And, though he obviously had a well-spring of talent to work with, it is not unreasonable to credit Epstein with much of the group's early success. Raised in Liverpool, Epstein was the son of a jewish furniture store owner. Considerably... [+] Read More
Artist: The Grass Roots
The Grass Roots had a series of major hits -- most notably "Let's Live for Today," "Midnight Confessions," "Temptation Eyes," and "Two Divided by Love" -- that help define the essence of the era's best AM radio. Although the group's members weren't even close to being recognizable, and their in-house songwriting was next to irrelevant, the Grass... [+] Read More
