Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer. He gained worldwide fame as the bass guitarist and singer for the rock band the Beatles considered the most popular and influential group in the history of popular music, his songwriting partnership with John Lennon remains the most successful in history. After the group disbanded in 1970, he pursued a solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife and Denny Laine. McCartney is one of performers of all time. More than 2,200 artists have covered his Beatles song "Yesterday", making it one of the most covered songs in popular music history. Wings' 1977 release "Mull of Kintyre" is one of the all-time best-selling singles in the UK. A two-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an 18-time Grammy Award winner, McCartney has written, or co-written, 32 songs that have reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, as of 2009 he had 25.5 million RIAA-certified units in the United States. McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr all received appointment as Members of the Order of the British Empire in 1965 and, in 1997, McCartney was knighted for services to music.
McCartney is one of the wealthiest musicians in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$1.2 billion. McCartney has released an extensive catalogue of songs as a solo artist and has composed classical and electronic music, he has taken part in projects to promote international charities related to such subjects as animal rights, seal hunting, land mines, vegetarianism and music education. He is the father of five children. James Paul McCartney was born on 18 June 1942 in Walton Hospital, England, where his mother, Mary Patricia, had qualified to practise as a nurse, his father, James McCartney, was absent from his son's birth due to his work as a volunteer firefighter during World War II. McCartney has one younger brother named a stepsister, Ruth; the children were baptised in their mother's Catholic faith though their father was a former Protestant, who had turned agnostic. Religion was not emphasised in the household. McCartney attended Stockton Wood Road Primary School in Speke from 1947 until 1949, when he transferred to Joseph Williams Junior School in Belle Vale because of overcrowding at Stockton.
In 1953, with only three others out of ninety examinees, he passed the 11-Plus exam, meaning he could attend the Liverpool Institute, a grammar school rather than a secondary modern school. In 1954, he met schoolmate George Harrison on the bus from his suburban home in Speke; the two became friends. McCartney's mother, was a midwife and the family's primary wage earner, she rode a bicycle to her patients. On 31 October 1956, when McCartney was 14, his mother died of an embolism. McCartney's loss became a point of connection with John Lennon, whose mother, had died when he was 17. McCartney's father was a trumpet pianist, who had led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s, he kept an upright piano in the front room, encouraged his sons to be musical and advised McCartney to take piano lessons. However, McCartney preferred to learn by ear; when McCartney was 11, his father encouraged him to audition for the Liverpool Cathedral choir, but he was not accepted. McCartney joined the choir at St Barnabas' Church, Mossley Hill.
McCartney received a nickel-plated trumpet from his father for his fourteenth birthday, but when rock and roll became popular on Radio Luxembourg, McCartney traded it for a £15 Framus Zenith acoustic guitar, since he wanted to be able to sing while playing. He found it difficult to play guitar right-handed, but after noticing a poster advertising a Slim Whitman concert and realising that Whitman played left-handed, he reversed the order of the strings. McCartney wrote his first song, "I Lost My Little Girl", on the Zenith, composed another early tune that would become "When I'm Sixty-Four" on the piano. American rhythm and blues influenced him, Little Richard was his schoolboy idol. At the age of fifteen on 6 July 1957, McCartney met John Lennon and his band, the Quarrymen, at the St Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton; the Quarrymen played a mix of rock and roll and skiffle, a type of popular music with jazz and folk influences. Soon afterwards, the members of the band invited McCartney to join as a rhythm guitarist, he formed a close working relationship with Lennon.
Harrison joined in 1958 as lead guitarist, followed by Lennon's art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe on bass, in 1960. By May 1960 the band had tried several names, including Johnny and the Moondogs and the Silver Beetles, they adopted the name the Beatles in August 1960 and recruited drummer Pete Best shortly before a five-engagement residency in Hamburg. The Beatles were informally represented by Allan Williams. In 1961, Sutcliffe left McCartney reluctantly became their bass player. While in Hamburg, they recorded professionally for the first time and were credited as the Beat Brothers, who were the backing band for English singer Tony Sheridan on the single "My Bonnie"; this resulted in attention from Brian Epstein, w
Hammerhead (Jeff Beck song)
"Hammerhead" is the second track from Jeff Beck's 2010 album Emotion & Commotion. The instrumental track features Beck on guitar, Jason Rebello on keyboards, Tal Wilkenfeld on bass guitar and Alessia Mattalia on drums, it was produced by Steve Lipson. It won the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Beck credited composer Jan Hammer for the inspiration for the track. Whereas much of Emotion & Commotion contains orchestral accompaniment, "Hammerhead" is an uptempo rock track reminiscent of Beck's work with The Yardbirds and his 1974 album Blow by Blow, he employs wah-wah pedal and whammy bar effects on his guitar and Wilkenfeld’s bass is distorted. In February 2011 "Hammerhead" won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, he had five previous Grammy Awards in this same category; the other nominees were "Black Mud" by The Black Keys, "Do the Murray" by Los Lobos, "Kundalini Bonfire" by Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, "The Deathless Horsie" by Dweezil Zappa. It was one of three awards Beck received that night winning Best Pop Instrumental Performance for "Nessun Dorma" and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for his contribution to "Imagine" from Herbie Hancock's The Imagine Project.
Jeff Beck – guitar Jason Rebello – keyboards Tal Wilkenfeld – bass Alessia Mattalia – drums Steve Lipson – producer Two live versions of the song have been commercially released. It Exclusive from the Grammy Museum. On this version drummer Narada Michael Walden and bassist Rhonda Smith join Rebello; the other live version was recorded live by Beck at the June 2010 Crossroads Guitar Festival and is available on the CD and DVD Crossroads Eric Clapton Guitar Festival 2010. He played the tune with The Who's touring band at the Killing Cancer benefit concert at the Hammersmith Apollo on 13 January 2011
Tribute act
A tribute act, tribute band or tribute group is a music group, singer, or musician who plays the music of a well-known music act. Tribute acts include individual performers who mimic the songs and style of an artist, such as Elvis impersonators covering the works of Elvis Presley or groups like The Iron Maidens, an all-female band that pays tribute to Iron Maiden. Many tribute bands, in addition to playing the music of an artist or group try to emulate the vocal styles and overall appearance of that group, to make as close an approximation as possible. Others introduce a twist on the original act. Dread Zeppelin plays Led Zeppelin songs in a reggae style with a lead singer dressed up as Elvis Presley, while Gabba perform the songs of ABBA in the style of the Ramones. Tribute bands name themselves based on the original band's name, or on one of their songs or albums; the first tribute acts to emerge may have been Beatles tribute bands, such as The Buggs, who attempted to look and sound like The Beatles while playing their songs.
However, one might argue. Neil Innes's band "The Rutles", a humorous take on the Beatles, achieved tremendous success with a film, All You Need Is Cash backed by George Harrison. Although created to honor the original bands, many tribute bands have grown to have their own fan base. Only One Direction have performed to hundreds of thousands of fans, have completed four UK theatre tours, debuted in their own show on London's West End in October 2015; those bands and artists that have inspired a cult following in their fans tend to have a significant tribute band presence as well, such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Sabbath, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Madonna, The Misfits, Alice in Chains, Grateful Dead, Van Halen, ABBA, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Cars, R. E. M. Rammstein, Neil Diamond, Steely Dan. More tribute acts have looked to capitalize on the success of the pop genre, with a heavy focus on newer acts such as One Direction, Take That, The Wanted, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears and Beyoncé.
In 1997, the British journalist Tony Barrell wrote a feature for The Sunday Times about the UK tribute-band scene, which mentioned bands including Pink Fraud, the Pretend Pretenders and Clouded House. In the piece, Barrell asserted. Starved of big names, owing to their reluctance to put Oz on their tour itineraries, Australians were quite unembarrassed about creating home-grown versions. Like an airborne seed, one of these bands just happened to drift to Britain." The band in question was the ABBA tribute Björn Again, who staged a successful publicity stunt in the early 1990s, arriving at Heathrow Airport in white one-piece outfits similar to the ones worn by ABBA on the cover of their 1976 album, Arrival. Other tribute acts such as The Beatnix, Zeppelin Live, The Australian Pink Floyd Show have experienced continued popularity for over a decade. In 1998, two men who were in a Blues Brothers tribute band changed their names by deed poll to Joliet Jake Blues and Elwood Jake Blues, they are the only men in the UK to have their sunglasses on in their passport and driving licence photos.
In 2000, filmmakers Jeff Economy and Darren Hacker produced the documentary film... An Incredible Simulation, which examined the tribute band phenomenon. Produced separately and independently in 2001 was the documentary Tribute by directors Kris Curry and Rich Fox, which covered the movement. In 2007, producers Allison Grace and Michelle Metivier produced a four-part documentary series called "Tribute Bands" for Global TV which features tributes to The Police, Queen and The Tragically Hip. In 2002, the first biography of a tribute band was published by SAF in London. Titled Being John Lennon, the book is a humorous account of life on the road in The Beatles' tribute "Sgt. Pepper's Only Dart Board Band", written by Martin Dimery. In 2003, Mandonna, an all-male tribute to Madonna, was formed in response to the rise of all-female tribute acts such as The Iron Maidens, Lez Zeppelin and AC/DShe. In 2005, original Lynyrd Skynyrd members Ed King, drummers Artimus Pyle and Bob Burns, "Honkettes" Leslie Hawkins and JoJo Billingsley all played with The Saturday Night Special Band, a Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute from New York.
This was the first tribute band to be composed of more original members than the current touring lineup of Lynyrd Skynyrd. In 2005, tribute band Beatallica received attention when they were threatened with a lawsuit by Sony Music Entertainment over their unique interpretation of Beatles songs done in a Metallica style. With the help of Metallica drummer/co-founder Lars Ulrich, Beatallica won their legal battle, still record and tour today. Original Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice has played with members of the Deep Purple tribute band Purpendicular in 2002, 2004 and 2007, the whole band in December 2008 and March 2012 on European tours. David Brighton, featured in a short 2004 promo film with Bowie himself, together promoting the new Bowie album "Reality"; the late soul singer Charles Bradley had considerable success in his own right after starting his career as a James Brown tribute act. Not all tribute acts use the impersonation style. An example is The Muffin Men, who play the music of Frank Zappa in their own style, do not look like, or attempt to look lik
Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana audio is a Mexican and American musician who first became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, which pioneered a fusion of rock and Latin American jazz. The band's sound featured his melodic, blues-based guitar lines set against Latin and African rhythms featuring percussion instruments such as timbales and congas not heard in rock music. Santana continued to work in these forms over the following decades, he experienced a resurgence of popularity and critical acclaim in the late 1990s. In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine listed Santana at number 20 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists, he has won 10 Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammy Awards. Santana was born in Autlán de Navarro, Mexico, he learned to play the violin at age five and the guitar at age eight under the tutelage of his father, a mariachi musician. His younger brother, Jorge Santana, would become a professional guitarist. Young Carlos was influenced by Ritchie Valens at a time when there were few Mexicans in American rock and pop music.
The family moved from Autlán de Navarro to Tijuana, the city on Mexico's border with California, San Francisco. Carlos stayed in Tijuana but joined his family in San Francisco. During his early years from the age of 10–12 he was sexually molested by an American man who brought him across the border. Living in the Mission District, graduating from James Lick Middle School, in 1965 from Mission High School. Carlos was accepted at California State University and Humboldt State University, but chose not to attend college. Santana was influenced by popular artists of the 1950s such as B. B. King, T-Bone Walker, Javier Batiz, John Lee Hooker. Soon after he began playing guitar, he joined local bands along the "Tijuana Strip" where he was able to begin adding his own unique touch to'50s Rock'n' Roll, he was introduced to a variety of new musical influences, including jazz and folk music, witnessed the growing hippie movement centered in San Francisco in the 1960s. After several years spent working as a dishwasher in a diner and busking for spare change, Santana decided to become a full-time musician.
In 1966 he gained all happening on the same day. Santana was a frequent spectator at Bill Graham's Fillmore West. During a Sunday matinee show, Paul Butterfield was slated to perform there but was unable to do so as a result of being intoxicated. Graham assembled an impromptu band of musicians he knew through his connections with Butterfield's band and with the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, but he had not yet chosen all the guitarists. Santana's manager, Stan Marcum suggested to Graham that Santana join the impromptu band and Graham agreed. During the jam session, Santana's guitar playing and solo gained the notice of both the audience and Graham. During the same year, Santana formed the Santana Blues Band, with fellow street musicians David Brown, Marcus Malone and Gregg Rolie, he was signed to Columbia where his band name, "Santana Blues Band" was shortened to, "Santana" that released a series of hit albums with an Afro-Cuban and Latin Rock feel thanks to Carlos' exquisite guitar playing, characterized by the self-sustaining melody that became his trademark.
With their original blend of Latin-infused rock, blues and African rhythms, the band gained an immediate following on the San Francisco club circuit. The band's early success, capped off by a memorable performance at Woodstock in 1969, led to him signing a recording contract with Columbia Records run by Clive Davis. Santana was signed by CBS Records and went into the studio to record their first album in January 1969, they decided changes needed to be made. This resulted in the dismissal of drummer Bob Livingston. Santana replaced him with Mike Shrieve, who had a strong background in both rock. Percussionist Marcus Malone was forced to quit the band due to involuntary manslaughter charges, the band re-enlisted Michael Carabello. Carabello brought with him percussionist Jose Chepito Areas, well known in his native Nicaragua, with his skills and professional experience, was a major contributor to the band. Bill Graham, a Latin Music aficionado, had been a fan of the band from its inception, arranged for them to appear at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival before their debut album was released.
They were one of the surprises of the festival. Graham gave the band some key advice to record the Willie Bobo song "Evil Ways", as he felt it would get them radio airplay, their first album, was released in August 1969 and became a huge hit, reaching #4 on the U. S. album charts. In 1969, the band's performance at the Woodstock festival introduced them to an international audience and garnered critical acclaim, although the band's sudden success put pressure on the group, highlighting the different musical directions in which Rolie and Santana were starting to go. Rolie, along with some of the other band members, wanted to emphasize a basic hard rock sound, a key component in establishing the band from the start. Santana, was interested in moving beyond his love of blues and rock and wanted more jazzy, ethereal elements in the music, which were influenced by his fascination with Gábor Szabó, Miles Davis, Ph
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American musician, composer and filmmaker. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity, satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, jazz, jazz fusion and musique concrète works, produced all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. Zappa directed feature-length films and music videos, designed album covers, he is considered one of the stylistically diverse rock musicians of his era. As a self-taught composer and performer, Zappa's diverse musical influences led him to create music, sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classical composers such as Edgard Varèse, Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern, Halim El-Dabh, along with 1950s rhythm and blues and doo-wop music, he began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands switching to electric guitar.
His 1966 debut album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. He continued this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the fundamental format was rock, jazz or classical. Zappa's output is unified by a conceptual continuity he termed "Project/Object", with numerous musical phrases and characters reappearing across his albums, his lyrics reflected his iconoclastic views of established social and political processes and movements humorously so, he has been described as the "godfather" of comedy rock. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship. Unlike many other rock musicians of his generation, he disapproved of drugs, but supported their decriminalization and regulation. During Zappa's lifetime, he was a productive and prolific artist with a controversial critical standing.
He had some commercial success in Europe, worked as an independent artist for most of his career. He remains a major influence on composers, his honors include his 1995 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the 1997 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2000, he was ranked number 36 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at number 71 on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", in 2011 at number 22 on its list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Zappa was born on December 1940 in Baltimore, Maryland, his mother, Rosemarie was of French ancestry. Frank, the eldest of four children, was raised in an Italian-American household where Italian was spoken by his grandparents; the family moved because his father, a chemist and mathematician, worked in the defense industry. After a time in Florida in the 1940s, the family returned to Maryland, where Zappa's father worked at the Edgewood Arsenal chemical warfare facility of the Aberdeen Proving Ground run by the U.
S. Army. Due to their home's proximity to the arsenal, which stored mustard gas, gas masks were kept in the home in case of an accident; this living arrangement had a profound effect on Zappa, references to germs, germ warfare and the defense industry occur throughout his work. Zappa was sick as a child, suffering from asthma and sinus problems. A doctor treated his sinusitis by inserting a pellet of radium into each of Zappa's nostrils. At the time, little was known about the potential dangers of small amounts of therapeutic radiation, although it has since been claimed that nasal radium treatment has causal connections to cancer, no studies have provided significant enough evidence to confirm this. Nasal imagery and references appear in his music and lyrics, as well as in the collage album covers created by his long-time collaborator Cal Schenkel. Zappa believed his childhood diseases might have been due to exposure to mustard gas, released by the nearby chemical warfare facility, his health worsened when he lived in Baltimore.
In 1952, his family relocated for reasons of health to Monterey, where his father taught metallurgy at the Naval Postgraduate School. They soon moved to Claremont, to El Cajon, before settling in San Diego. Zappa joined his first band at Mission Bay High School in San Diego as the drummer. At about the same time, his parents bought a phonograph, which allowed him to develop his interest in music, to begin building his record collection. R&B singles were early purchases, he was interested in sounds for their own sake the sounds of drums and other percussion instruments. By age 12, he began learning the basics of orchestral percussion. Zappa's deep interest in modern classical music began when he read a LOOK magazine article about the Sam Goody record store chain that lauded its ability to sell an LP as obscure as The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse, Volume One; the article described Varèse's percussion composition Ionisation, produced by EMS Record
Sting (musician)
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner CBE, known as Sting, is an English musician, singer and actor. He was the principal songwriter, lead singer, bassist for the new wave rock band the Police from 1977 to 1984, launched a solo career in 1985, he has included elements of rock, reggae, new-age and worldbeat in his music. As a solo musician and a member of the Police, he has received 17 Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year for ”Every Breath You Take”, three Brit Awards, including Best British Male in 1994 and Outstanding Contribution in 2002, a Golden Globe, an Emmy and four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. In 2002, he received the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Songwriters and Authors and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003. In 2000, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for recording. In 2003, Sting received a CBE from Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for services to music.
He was made a Kennedy Center Honoree at the White House in 2014, was awarded the Polar Music Prize in 2017. With the Police, Sting became one of the world's best-selling music artists. Solo and with the Police combined, he has sold over 100 million records. In 2006, Paste ranked him 62nd of the 100 best living songwriters, he was 63rd of VH1's 100 greatest artists of rock, 80th of Q magazine's 100 greatest musical stars of the 20th century. He has collaborated with other musicians on songs such as "Money for Nothing" with Dire Straits, "Rise & Fall" with Craig David, "All for Love", with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart, "You Will Be My Ain True Love" with Alison Krauss, introduced the North African music genre raï to Western audiences through his international hit "Desert Rose" with Cheb Mami. In 2018, he released the album 44/876, a collaboration with Jamaican musician Shaggy, which won the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album in 2019. Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner was born on 2 October 1951, in Wallsend, England, the eldest of four children of Audrey, a hairdresser, Ernest Matthew Sumner, a milkman and engineer.
He grew up near Wallsend's shipyards. At eight or ten years old, he was inspired by the Queen Mother waving at him from a Rolls-Royce to divert from the shipyard prospect towards a more glamorous life, he helped his father deliver milk and by ten was "obsessed" with an old Spanish guitar left by an emigrating friend of his father. He attended St Cuthbert's Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne, he visited nightclubs such as Club A'Gogo to see Manfred Mann, who influenced his music. After being a bus conductor, building labourer and tax officer, he attended Northern Counties College of Education from 1971 to 1974 and qualified as a teacher, he taught at St Paul's First School in Cramlington for two years. Sting performed jazz in the evening and during breaks from college and teaching, he played with the Phoenix Jazzmen, Newcastle Big Band, Last Exit. He gained his nickname after his habit of wearing a black and yellow sweater with hooped stripes with the Phoenix Jazzmen. Bandleader Gordon Solomon thought he looked like a bee, which prompted the name "Sting".
In the 1985 documentary Bring on the Night a journalist called him Gordon, to which he replied, "My children call me Sting, my mother calls me Sting, this Gordon character?" In 2011, he told Time. You could shout'Gordon' in the street and I would just move out of your way." In January 1977, Sting moved from Newcastle to London and joined Stewart Copeland and Henry Padovani to form the Police. From 1978 to 1983, they had five UK chart-topping albums, won six Grammy Awards, won two Brit Awards, their initial sound was punk-inspired. Their final album, was nominated for five Grammy Awards including Album of the Year in 1983, it included their most successful song, "Every Breath, written by Sting. According to Sting, who appeared in the documentary Last Play at Shea, he decided to leave the Police while onstage during a concert of 18 August 1983 at Shea Stadium in New York City because he felt that playing that venue was " Everest". While never formally breaking up, after Synchronicity, the group agreed to concentrate on solo projects.
As the years went by, the band members Sting, dismissed the possibility of reforming. In 2007, the band did reform and undertook a world tour. Four of the band's five studio albums appeared on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, two of the band's songs, "Every Breath You Take" and "Roxanne", each written by Sting, appeared on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In addition, "Every Breath You Take" and "Roxanne" were among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2003, the band were inducted into the Roll Hall of Fame, they were included in Rolling Stone's and VH1's lists of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1978, Sting collaborated with members of Hawkwind and Gong as the Radio Actors on the one-off single "Nuclear Waste". In September 1981, Sting made his first live solo appearance, on all four nights of the fourth Amnesty International benefit The Secret Policeman's Other Ball in London's Drury Lane theatre at the invitation of producer Martin Lewis.
He performed solo versions of "Roxanne" and "Message in a Bottle". He led an all-star band (dubbed "the
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