1.
Bad Company
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Peter Grant, who managed the rock band Led Zeppelin, also managed Bad Company until 1982. Bad Company enjoyed great success throughout the 1970s and their first three albums, Bad Company, Straight Shooter, and Run With the Pack, reached the top five in the album charts in both the UK and US. Many of their singles, such as Bad Company, Cant Get Enough, Good Lovin Gone Bad, the caption read beware of bad company. The band signed to Swan Song Records/Atlantic Records in North America, atlantic/Warner Music would later acquire the non-North American rights to the bands catalogue. The bands 1974 debut album Bad Company was recorded at Headley Grange, the album reached number one on the Billboard 200 in the US, and number 3 in the UK Albums Chart, spending 25 weeks in the UK charts. The album has been certified five times platinum in the US, the singles Cant Get Enough and Movin On reached No.5 and No.19 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1975 their second album, Straight Shooter, reached No.3 in both the UK and the US, and also went platinum in the US. The album also spawned two hit singles, Good Lovin Gone Bad at No.36 and the slower Feel Like Makin Love at No.10. Their third album, Run With the Pack, was released in 1976 and reached No.4 in the UK and No.5 in the US. Bad Company scheduled a British tour with the band of former Free member Paul Kossoff, Back Street Crawler, to support the album and this double headline tour was scheduled to commence on 25 April 1976 but was halted due to Kossoffs death on 19 March 1976. 1977s Burnin Sky fared the poorest of their first four records, reaching No.15 in the US, 1979s Desolation Angels did better than its predecessor, peaking at No.3 in the US and No.10 in the UK. Desolation Angels also embellished the groups sound with synthesisers and strings and it had two charting singles, Rock n Roll Fantasy at No.13 and Gone Gone Gone at No.56. By the end of the 1970s, however, the band grew increasingly disenchanted with playing large stadiums, in addition, Peter Grant lost interest in the group and management in general after Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham died on 25 September 1980. In the words of Simon Kirke, Peter was definitely the glue which held us all together, a three-year hiatus from the studio ended with the release of Rough Diamonds in 1982. This would be the sixth and final LP in the original incarnation until four new songs were recorded in 1998. The album was the worst selling Bad Company album of those that had Paul Rodgers as the front man, the album peaked at No.15 in the UK and No.26 in the US. After the release of Rough Diamonds, Bad Company disbanded, Mick Ralphs said, Paul wanted a break and truthfully we all needed to stop. Bad Company had become bigger than us all and to continue would have destroyed someone or something, from a business standpoint, it was the wrong thing to do, but Pauls instinct was absolutely right
2.
Hard rock
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Hard rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music that began in the mid-1960s, with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. It is typified by a use of aggressive vocals, distorted electric guitars, bass guitar, drums. Hard rock developed into a form of popular music in the 1970s, with bands such as The Who, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Aerosmith, AC/DC. During the 1980s, some rock bands moved away from their hard rock roots and more towards pop rock. Hard rock began losing popularity with the success of R&B, hip-hop, urban pop, grunge. Out of this movement came garage rock bands like The White Stripes, The Strokes, Interpol and, later on, in the 2000s, only a few hard rock bands from the 1970s and 1980s managed to sustain highly successful recording careers. Hard rock is a form of loud, aggressive rock music, the electric guitar is often emphasised, used with distortion and other effects, both as a rhythm instrument using repetitive riffs with a varying degree of complexity, and as a solo lead instrument. Drumming characteristically focuses on driving rhythms, strong drum and a backbeat on snare. The bass guitar works in conjunction with the drums, occasionally playing riffs, vocals are often growling, raspy, or involve screaming or wailing, sometimes in a high range, or even falsetto voice. In the late 1960s, the heavy metal was used interchangeably with hard rock. Heavy metal took on darker characteristics after Black Sabbaths breakthrough at the beginning of the 1970s, in the 1980s it developed a number of subgenres, often termed extreme metal, some of which were influenced by hardcore punk, and which further differentiated the two styles. Despite this differentiation, hard rock and heavy metal have existed side by side, with bands frequently standing on the boundary of, other antecedents include Link Wrays instrumental Rumble in 1958, and the surf rock instrumentals of Dick Dale, such as Lets Go Trippin and Misirlou. In the 1960s, American and British blues and rock bands began to rock and roll by adding harder sounds, heavier guitar riffs, bombastic drumming. From the late 1960s, it common to divide mainstream rock music that emerged from psychedelia into soft. Soft rock was often derived from rock, using acoustic instruments and putting more emphasis on melody. In contrast, hard rock was most often derived from rock and was played louder. Blues rock acts that pioneered the sound included Cream, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, in songs like I Feel Free combined blues rock with pop and psychedelia, particularly in the riffs and guitar solos of Eric Clapton. Jimi Hendrix produced a form of blues-influenced psychedelic rock, which combined elements of jazz, blues and rock, from 1967 Jeff Beck brought lead guitar to new heights of technical virtuosity and moved blues rock in the direction of heavy rock with his band, The Jeff Beck Group
3.
Atlantic Records
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Atlantic Recording Corporation is an American major record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegün and Herb Abramson. In 2004, Atlantic Records and its sister label Elektra Records merged into Atlantic Records Group, craig Kallman is currently the chairman of Atlantic Records. Ahmet Ertegün served as founding chairman until his death on December 14,2006, the brothers had become ardent fans of jazz and rhythm & blues music, amassing a collection of over 15,00078 RPM records. He convinced the family dentist, Dr Vahdi Sabit, to invest $10,000 and recruited Herb Abramson, Abramson had worked as a part-time A&R manager/producer for the jazz label National Records, signing Big Joe Turner and Billy Eckstine. He founded Jubilee Records in 1946, but had no interest in its most successful artists, so, in September 1947, he sold his share in Jubilee to his partner, Jerry Blaine, and invested $2500 in the new Atlantic label. When interviewed in 2009 she attributed her reputation to the companys chronic cash-flow shortage, most of the problems we had with artists were that they wanted advances, and that was very difficult for us. We were undercapitalized for a long time, the labels original office in the Ritz Hotel, Manhattan proved too expensive so they relocated to an $85 per month room in the Hotel Jefferson. In its early years Atlantic focused principally on modern jazz although it released some country and western and spoken word recordings. The union action forced Atlantic to use almost all its capital to cut and stockpile enough recordings to last through the ban, Ertegun and Abramson spent much of the late 1940s and early 1950s scouring nightclubs in search of talent. Ertegun composed many songs under the alias A, in early 1949 a New Orleans distributor phoned Ertegun trying to obtain Stick McGhees Drinking Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee, which was unavailable due to the closure of McGhees previous label. Ertegun knew Sticks younger brother Brownie McGhee, with whom Stick happened to be staying, so he contacted the McGhee brothers, Ertegun asked about artists royalties, which he paid, which surprised Columbia executives, who did not, which scuttled the deal. On the recommendation of broadcaster Willis Conover, Ertegun and Abramson went to see Ruth Brown at the Crystal Caverns club in Washington and she was badly injured in a car accident en route to New York but Atlantic supported her for nine months and then signed her. Her first release for the label So Long, cut at her second Atlantic session on May 25,1949 with the Eddie Condon band, was a major hit, reaching #6 on the R&B chart. Brown went on to more than eighty songs for the label, becoming the most prolific. So significant was Browns success to Atlantics fortunes that the label became known colloquially as The House That Ruth Built. The Clovers Dont You Know I Love You became the labels first R&B #1 in September 1951 and she hit #1 again in March–April 1952 with 5-10-15 Hours. After she left the label in 1961 Browns fortunes declined rapidly - within a few years was reduced to working as a cleaner and bus-driver to support her children. Brown eventually received a payment of $20,000 and founded a charity
4.
Record producer
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A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may also pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers also often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is also a competent arranger, composer. The producer will also liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects. These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu
5.
Rough Diamonds (album)
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Rough Diamonds is the sixth studio album by rock band Bad Company. The album was released in August 1982, rough Diamonds, like its predecessor, Desolation Angels, was recorded at Ridge Farm Studio in Surrey, England in March and April 1981 and engineered by Max Norman. It was the last album by Bad Companys original line-up, the sessions were rough going from the beginning. First, their manager, Peter Grant, withdrew from view after the death of Led Zeppelin drummer and that same year, the murder of John Lennon made the band change their way of thinking. Then, on occasion, a fistfight broke out between Paul Rodgers and Boz Burrell, only to be restrained by Mick Ralphs and Simon Kirke. The albums opening track, Electricland, written by Rodgers, was the albums biggest hit, Rodgers Painted Face also received substantial airplay on rock stations. The album became the original line-ups worst-selling album, reaching a disappointing No.26 on the Billboard album charts in 1982, the album was remastered and re-released in 1994
